President Obama
Economic group assesses Romney
An anti-spending group has issued an economic assessment of Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney.
The conservative Club for Growth today released its fifth white paper on the GOP candidates.
It is available at the group's website.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Romney nods to social issues, then returns to economy
WASHINGTON – Mitt Romney tonight began a speech to a ballroom full of Christian conservatives by reaffirming his positions against abortion and gay marriage.
“We’re united tonight in a lot of things,” the former Massachusetts governor said at the start of a 13-minute address in a downtown hotel here. “We’re united in the love we have for this great country. We’re united in our belief in the sanctity of human life. We’re united in our belief in the importance and significance of a marriage between one man and one woman.”
Romney, who wrote a portion of the speech on a legal pad during a flight from Boston to Washington late this afternoon, then turned to the economic themes that are expected to drive his recently launched presidential campaign.
FULL ENTRYChrysler head accuses Romney of 'smoking illegal material'
The head of Fiat-Chrysler said today that Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney must have been "smoking illegal material" when he argued in 2008 that the US auto industry could be resurrected without federal financial assistance.
During an interview with CNN, Sergio Marchionne, chief executive of Fiat and Chrysler, said government support was pivotal.
The comment contrasted with a 2008 op-ed column in which Romney urged the federal government not to provide an industry bailout but instead force automakers into a "managed bankruptcy."
Romney will still talk economics at faith forum
MANCHESTER, N.H. — Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney was headed from New Hampshire to Washington this afternoon so he could speak tonight at the Faith and Freedom Conference.
Just don't expect much talk about social conservative issues, which were the bane of his first campaign for the presidency in 2008.
Instead, advance excerpts show a reprise of the economic focus that permeated Romney's campaign kickoff speech yesterday.
It's part of his campaign's message-management the second time around:
“President Obama said that unemployment wouldn’t go beyond 8 percent. Today it is over 9 percent. We are going backwards, and that is the wrong direction for America. President Obama has failed.“Unemployment is not just a statistic. Unemployment means kids can’t go to college; that marriages break up under the financial strain; that young people can’t find work and start their lives; and men and women in their 50s, in the prime of their lives, fear they will never find a job again. President Obama has failed these good and decent Americans.
“Sixteen million Americans are out of work or have stopped looking for work. Make no mistake. This is a moral tragedy - a moral tragedy of epic proportion."President Obama should have had one central mission when he took office - put Americans back to work! Fight for every job! Because every job is a paycheck and paychecks fuel Americans dreams. Without a paycheck, you can’t take care of your family. Without a paycheck you can’t buy school books for your kids, keep a car on the road or help an aging parent make ends meet.
“The debt we are amassing as a nation and passing on to our children is immoral. It was once said that we should pass a torch to the next generation. Instead, we are passing on an unpaid bill. Throwing more money at our problems is not the answer.”
Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @mviser.
Palin meets N.H.'s Ayotte, headed for Iowa and S.C.
MANCHESTER, N.H. — Prospective Republican presidential contender Sarah Palin will continue her "One Nation" tour beyond Washington, D.C., and the New England states.
She said this morning that she plans to take her tour to Iowa and South Carolina, two early voting states.
She made the announcement after having breakfast in Portsmouth with US Senator Kelly Ayotte.
While Palin insisted her visit to the Granite State wasn't a poke in the eye to Mitt Romney as her potential rival held two days of events in New Hampshire, news of her visit trumped coverage of Romney’s formal announcement speech yesterday.
"Palin hits the Seacoast," blared a four-column headline in today's New Hampshire Union Leader.
A story about Romney's speech was relegated to Page A3.
Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @mviser.
Romney on Obama: 'This is now his economy'
Stephan Savoia/AP
Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney holds a town hall meeting this morning at the Manchester campus of the University of New Hampshire.
MANCHESTER, N.H. – In the first town hall of his freshly-announced presidential campaign, Mitt Romney this morning continued to offer a sharp critique of President Obama’s handling of the economy.
“Look he’s a nice guy, he’s well spoken - he could talk a dog off a meat wagon - and yet he hasn’t delivered,” the former Massachusetts governor said in a conference room at the University of New Hampshire’s campus here. “We’ve had three years now - at the beginning it was all George Bush - we’re not hearing a lot about George Bush now, by the way, as we’re seeing unemployment at nine percent plus. It went up again today.”
“He can’t keep blaming George Bush,” he added. “This is now his economy.”
It was the first time this year that Romney has faced a group of voters in the unscripted forums that New Hampshire prides itself on. About 100 people showed up to the event, bringing written questions to ask the candidate about issues he has not brought up himself: education, climate change, and abortion.
FULL ENTRYLive blog of Romney presidential announcement
Glen Johnson/Globe Staff
Mitt and Ann Romney served up her chicken-and-bean chili today before the former Massachusetts governor publicly declared his second campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.
STRATHAM, N.H. — Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney today publicly launched his second bid for the presidency with an outdoor speech at a farm in the lead primary state of New Hampshire.
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1:16 p.m. - "I refuse to believe that America is just another place on the map with a flag," Mitt Romney told the crowd.
"We know we can bring country back," he said, before reprising a line from the movie, "The American President." "I'm Mitt Romney. I believe in America. And I'm running for president of the United States.
The declaration triggered a chorus of "Go, Mitt, Go."
With that, the speech was over.
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1:12 p.m. - "Turning around a crisis takes bold action," Mitt Romney declares.
He says he will cap government spending at 20 percent of the budget and "finally, finally" balance the budget.
Then, channeling a famous Democrat, President John F. Kennedy, he says his generation will pass a torch to the next generation — "not a bill."
He pledges his primary focus from Day One as president will be job-creation.
"You know, if you want to create jobs, it helps to have actually had a job — and I have," he said.
Of course, Romney has joked that he has been unemployed since leaving the governor's office in January 2007.
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1:09 p.m. - Unlike President Obama's European-style solutions, Romney is saying he will bring a CEO's acumen to the White House.
He recalls that he balanced the Massachusetts budget without taxes — but fails to mention he also jacked up fees for a variety of services.
And, despite criticism from conservatives and some of his presidential contenders, Romney says his Massachusetts health care plan was "a state solution to a state problem."
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1:04 p.m. - The speech is not much of a departure from what Mitt Romney has been saying for the past couple years.
Romney says he believes in a country of freedom and opportunity, propelled by entrepreneurship.
He complained that a newly inaugurated President Obama traveled the world, "apologizing" for America.
And he said the president is treating Israel "the same way so many European countries have, with suspicion."
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1:01 p.m. - The audience applauds as Mitt Romney delivers the signature line of his announcement speech: "Barack Obama has failed America."
Three years later, he said, jobs are hard to come by, grocery and gas prices are up.
"It breaks my heart to see what is happening to our country," he said.
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12:59 p.m. - Mitt Romney is lauding the country's history as a democracy, and a republic, not a monarchy.
"Who is it that rules this great nation?" he said. "You do."
The voters, in 17 months time, will choose who gives the State of the Union speech.
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12:56 p.m. - Ann Romney is testfying to her husband as a partner, father, and problem-solver.
"That's why I have all the confidence in the world that this man standing next to me will be the next nominee for the Republican Party — and will be the next president of the United States."
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12:54 p.m. - Ann and Mitt Romney are taking the stage. She will introduce him.
"Thank-you; very generous," Mitt Romney said to Doug Scamman.
As he has said elsewhere this second campaign, Mitt Romney told the crowd, "Old friends."
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12:53 p.m. - Doug Scamman, a former speaker of the New Hampshire House, is now introducing the Romneys.
The Scammans supported John McCain the last time around, and now they are with the proverbial party "next-in-line."
But Doug Scamman is citing Romney's business and civic background as the basis for his support.
"We need somebody in the White House who can work with everybody," Scamman said.
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12:50 p.m. - The program is beginning with Stella Scamman saying hello and a 12-year-old leading the Pledge of Allegiance.
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12:31 p.m. - Events are running behind schedule, as Mitt and Ann Romney greet their supporters — amid a scrum of TV cameras...
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12:22 p.m. - Former New Hampshire governor and Bush 41 White House Chief of Staff John Sununu is among those on hand.
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12:11 p.m. - It IS a different kind of campaign the second time around.
Mitt Romney emerged the Doug and Stella Scamman's farmhouse clad in an open collar and lacking a suitcoat, and then he and his wife, Ann, made their way not to the stage for his announcement speech, but to a table of crockpots to serve her recipe of chicken-and-bean chili.
"Who wants some chili?" the candidate said as he served up heaping scoops.
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12:04 p.m. - Ace campaign photographer Brooks Kraft reports the chili being served in conjunction with the announcement speech is fantastic.
Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom says volunteers had 36 crockpots in the campaign headquarters yesterday to cook chili according to Ann Romney's family recipe.
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11:55 a.m. - They've brought the crowd in front of the stage to provide a populist scene for the announcement speech.
Old Romney hands Eric Fehrnstrom, Peter Flaherty, and Russ Schriefer are working through the crowd of supporters and reporters.
Also here is at least one of Mitt Romney's sons, Josh, a father of five who deals in real estate in Utah.
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11:40 a.m. - For Republicans who like to criticize President Obama and his use of TelePrompTers, Romney will be speaking from one.
His campaign has also set-up a tripod just below his podium so it can get close-up shots for use in future videos and campaign commercials.
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11:18 a.m. - It has been hard to blog from the site, with the wind whipping and the excessive glare from the sun as it jumps in and out of the clouds.
Nonetheless, the report begins: A crowd is assembling at the Scammans' farm, including New Hampshire politicos such as Tom Rath and former Massachusetts supporters including House Minority Leader Bradley H. Jones Jr. He brought his father-in-law.
Groups of Romney aides, dressed in blue T-shirts with the campaign slogan "Believe in America" are racing around, completing last-minute preparations.
Mitt Romney was doing a handful a pull-aside interviews beforehand, including with the Fox New Channel's Sean Hannity and ABC News correspondent John Berman, whose network broadcasts over WMUR-TV, the dominant television station in New Hampshire.
Romey is slated to begin speaking about noon.
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10:24 a.m. - The bucolic setting at Doug and Stella Scamman's Bittersweet Farm was leavened with blustery conditions in the aftermath of a tornado-laden weather system that blew through Romney's home state overnight.
Campaign workers had erected tents and sunscreens for a chili cookoff following the speech, but they dismantled them to avoid them going airborne.
In a nod to the setting, hay bales ringed the stage, media riser, and even the speaker stands.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
In announcing presidential bid, Romney to focus on economy, Obama
Mitt Romney this morning is planning to announce his presidential bid by delivering a forceful speech that continues to criticize President Obama’s handling of the economy.
The former Massachusetts governor and Bain Capital executive will also seek to portray himself as the candidate with the know-how to get the country’s economy back on track.
“When Barack Obama came to office, we wished him well and hoped for the best,” Romney plans to say, according to excerpts of the speech. “Now, in the third year of his four-year term, we have more than promises and slogans to go by. Barack Obama has failed America.”
Democrats, meanwhile, are poised to continue focusing most of their own attacks on Romney, with plans for conference calls and the release of a new video tagging him as a wishy-washy politician. The video, called "Romney: Same Candidate, Different Positions," is being released this morning by the Democratic National Committee.
FULL ENTRYLive-blogging Romney's presidential announcement
Be sure to return to "Political Intelligence" before noon tomorrow for coverage as Mitt Romney's publicly declares his second campaign for the presidency.
My Globe colleague Matt Viser and I will be on hand at Doug and Stella Scamman's Bittersweet Farm in Stratham, N.H., for the speech and ensuing chili cookoff.
Ann Romney will be offering her signature campaign; does that stack the odds in her favor?
We plan to live-blog the pre-speech activities and announcement itself, wrap up Romney's remarks, and gather video to complement the coverage.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Mass. Democrats to focus on Brown at convention
Massachusetts Democrats plan to focus on Republican Scott Brown and the record he has compiled in the US Senate during their annual convention in Lowell on Saturday.
According to an agenda released this afternoon, the party will also focus on building upon its 2010 achievements, including repelling a national GOP tide by reelecting an all-Democratic congressional delegation, as well as President Obama's 2012 reelection campaign.
The convention gavels to order at 10 a.m. at the Tsongas Center at UMass Lowell.
It will include remarks by Governor Deval Patrick and the state's other constitutional officers, as well as the four Democrats who have already declared their candidacy against Brown.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Romney's N.H. activity drawing a response
Mitt Romney is publicly announcing his second presidential campaign tomorrow in Stratham, N.H., and he'll get down to work fast.
His campaign committee has announced that he will hold a town hall meeting in Manchester, N.H., on Friday.
It will take place at the University of New Hampshire Manchester Campus at 8:30 a.m.
Palin headed for Boston, maybe today
Andrew Burton/Getty Images
Sarah Palin and Donald Trump walk toward a limousine last night after leaving the Trump Tower in New York City.
Sarah Palin’s mystery tour/summer vacation/media scavenger hunt is headed toward Boston, perhaps as soon as this afternoon.
The former Alaska governor, who has been visiting historic sites across the Northeast (and eating pizza with Donald Trump), as part of her One Nation bus tour, spent the morning in New York City, visiting Ellis Island.
Now, reporters for ABC News, CNN, and Real Clear Politics, who have been chasing after her bus, are reporting that she’s headed to Boston en route to New Hampshire, which holds the nation’s first presidential primary.
Romney tries to follow Olympian's example with second campaign
Larry Downing/Reuters
After losing his first bid for the presidency, Mitt Romney is following an Olympian's example with another try.
For anyone who listened to Mitt Romney during his first campaign for president, it’s no surprise that Olympic speedskater Dan Jansen attended the biggest fund-raiser to date for Romney’s second campaign.
Jansen became an international sports celebrity with his example of picking himself up after defeat and pushing on to victory.
It’s an example the former Massachusetts governor hopes to emulate starting tomorrow, when he publicly kicks off his 2012 White House bid.
Brown reveling in local Democratic issues
Aram Boghosian for The Boston Globe
Senator Scott Brown listens as General Peter Chiarelli speaks to the crowd before the May 22 "Run to Home Base" event for wounded veterans and families at Fenway Park.
Republican Scott Brown may be a US senator now, but that hasn't stopped him from rekindling his roots as a state senator as he tries to stoke support for his 2012 reelection campaign.
Twice in recent weeks, Brown has issued statements condemning local Democrats amid the ongoing federal corruption trial of former House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi.
Yesterday, he did so after Governor Deval Patrick appeared on the witness stand, though Brown was careful not to single out the most powerful Democrat in the state by name.
State, national Democrats at odds over Brown challenger
Massachusetts Democrats and their counterparts in Washington are at odds over how best precisely to field a challenger to Republican Senator Scott Brown next year.
Governor Deval Patrick, who controls the Massachusetts Democratic Party, favors an organic process, with the candidate rising from a contested primary field.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which is charged with ensuring President Obama has the party majority he needs to pass his legislative agenda, is pointed toward landing a big-name candidate who can clear the field and take on Brown with maximum resources and minimum infighting.
Some of them haven't forgotten that Massachusetts Democrats took the blame when Brown surprised the 2010 state nominee, Martha Coakley, and cost the national Democrats their filibuster-proof majority in the US Senate.
Washington colleague Mark Arsenault and I looked at the dispute for a story in today's Globe.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Pawlenty denounces stimulus, despite benefit to Minn.
Jim Cole/AP
Republican Tim Pawlenty addresses employees of Cirtronics today during his first visit to New Hampshire as an official presidential candidate.
MILFORD, N.H. — Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty today denounced the federal stimulus program, even though under his leadership his state benefited from billions of dollars of the federal aid.
During his first trip New Hampshire as an official candidate for president, the Republican also said for the first time that he could support Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan’s plan to turn Medicare into a voucher program.
Pawlenty said he would publish his own plan with some differences, but, he said, “If that was the only bill that came to my desk and I wasn’t able to pass my own plan, I would sign it.”
Kerry: China must step up as economic superpower
Democrat John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today said China must do more to halt the proliferation of nuclear weapons and promote human rights given its growing economic power.
Speaking at the start of a confirmation hearing for Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, nominated to be the US ambassador to China, the Massachusetts senator said Locke will face a great challenge if approved by the Senate.
Gingrich talks health care - without mentioning Medicare
MANCHESTER, N.H. — Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich continues to back away from criticism he made earlier this month of Representative Paul Ryan's plan to overhaul Medicare, but at the same time he is stopping short of fully endorsing the plan.
Speaking at Derry Medical Center yesterday, Gingrich delivered an entire speech about health care without mentioning the overhaul, and then declined to take press questions about it.
Later in the day, at the Manchester home of former US Senate candidate Ovide Lamontagne, Gingrich said his words criticizing Ryan's plan were "clumsy."
Biden: US can be 'too incremental' after moon-shot goal
Stephan Savoia/AP
Vice President Joe Biden today marked the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy's moon-shot speech by complaining that that the US has sometimes become 'too incremental' in its pursuits and needs similar big dreams.
Vice President Joe Biden today marked the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy's speech about reaching the moon by complaining the United States has occasionally become "too incremental" instead of pursuing similarly big dreams.
The Democrat, speaking at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, recalled being an 18-year student at a Catholic boys school when the newly inaugurated president addressed Congress and laid down a monumental challenge.
"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth," Kennedy declared on May 25, 1961.
That goal was achieved in July 1969, nearly six years after Kennedy was assassinated, when the crew of Apollo 11 visited the moon and successfully returned home.
Gingrich health care speech mum on Ryan plan
DERRY, N.H. — Representative Paul Ryan’s plan to overhaul Medicare is causing controversy in Congress — and likely contributed to yesterday’s defeat of a Republican House candidate in New York’s special election.
But speaking at Derry Medical Center in New Hampshire today, presidential candidate Newt Gingrich delivered an entire speech about health care without mentioning the overhaul, and then declined to take press questions about it.
Gingrich had previously criticized Ryan’s plan to turn Medicare into a voucher program, but the former House speaker backtracked after taking flak from his fellow Republicans.
Pataki kicks off anti-debt ad campaign
HENNIKER, N.H. — Former New York Governor George Pataki today kicked off a New Hampshire advertising campaign aimed at pressuring President Obama and Republican presidential candidates to address the mounting national debt.
“President Obama has the worst fiscal record of any president in the history of our country,” Pataki said, speaking to around 65 people at New England College. “This year, we’ll have the largest deficit than in any year in the history of our country. …It’s not sustainable.”
In a companion interview with the Globe, Pataki said he was reconsidering his decision not to seek the 2012 GOP presidential nomination out of concern over government spending.
Pataki reconsiders decision against presidential run
Win McNamee/Reuters
In this Sept. 14, 2001, photo, then-President Bush meets with two men who may now try to run for the job he once held, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and former New York Governor George Pataki.
HENNIKER, N.H. — Former New York Governor George Pataki, who recently started an organization focused on reducing the federal debt, has not ruled out a 2012 presidential run.
The Republican said last month that he would not run, but he said today the recent decision of Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels to skip a campaign may prompt him to reconsider.
“I’m not a candidate at this point, but down the road, you never say never,” Pataki said during an interview after a speech at New England College. “I’m not running now. …We’ll see what happens over the course of the next month.”
Another New Yorker, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, is also weighing a campaign.
Romney blasts Obama on lack of Medicare plan, but offers sparse details of his own
IRMO, S.C. – Mitt Romney this afternoon assailed President Obama for not articulating a clear position on how he would reform Medicare – but then the former Massachusetts governor declined to articulate such a position himself.
The health care program for the elderly has become an increasingly hot-button issue in national politics and is bound to dominate debate in the 2012 presidential race. House Republicans recently passed a plan – spearheaded by Representative Paul Ryan, of Wisconsin – that includes drastic cuts to Medicare.
“Where’s our president’s plan? What would he do?” Romney told reporters today after meeting with small business owners at a plumbing company here. “Is he just going to sit on the side and accuse Paul Ryan of being un-America? I simply can’t understand how the president and his people can attack Republicans who are putting forward constructive ideas, when he hasn’t got an idea of his own.”
Still, Romney would not elaborate on what he himself would do, saying he’s still an undeclared presidential candidate and would give detailed proposals later. “I will be happy to describe my specific plan, but clearly at this stage that’s still a little premature,” he said.
FULL ENTRYMass. native tapped to lead Democratic convention in Charlotte
WASHINGTON – A Massachusetts native and former Senator Edward M. Kennedy aide was tapped today to take the top post in coordinating the Democratic Party’s national convention.
Stephen J. Kerrigan, who also helped coordinate the Democratic convention when it was in Boston in 2004, has been named as chief executive officer overseeing the 2012 convention in Charlotte, N.C.
“It’s basically everything, start to finish,” he said in an interview.
Kerrigan, 39, grew up in Lancaster, Mass., and graduated from St. John’s High School in Shrewsbury (fun fact: Kerrigan was three years behind future Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Tim Murray).
At 25, he was elected to the Lancaster Board of Selectmen, and later became Kennedy’s national political director. He was also chief of staff to Thomas F. Reilly, who was Massachusetts Attorney General.
Kerrigan is getting ready to move to Charlotte, where he’ll oversee all operations involving the convention – from security to transportation to housing.
“We’re very excited to bring the 2012 Democratic National Convention to Charlotte where we will re-nominate President Barack Obama,” Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, said today in a statement. “The team we’ve put together to lead the Convention embodies the diversity and talent of the Democratic Party, and they’ll work closely with our partners in Charlotte to put on an event that showcases the progress President Obama and Democrats have made on behalf of the American people and our vision for the future.”
The Republicans are holding their convention in Tampa, Fla., and it’s no mistake that the Democrats chose Charlotte for their convention. North Carolina, which Obama carried narrowly in 2008, is expected to be a major battleground in the 2012 election.
Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @mviser.
Romney targeted in first attack ad
WASHINGTON – Mitt Romney is the focus of the first attack ad of the 2012 presidential race, with an independent group run by former aides to President Obama tagging Romney as both a flip-flopper and a politician who would not protect Medicare.
“Mitt Romney says he's 'on the same page' as Paul Ryan, who wrote the plan to essentially end Medicare,” a narrator says, as dark, black and white images of the former Massachusetts governor flash across the screen. “But with Mitt Romney, you have to wonder...which page is he on today?"
The ad, which also tweaks Newt Gingrich, is going to be running in South Carolina just as Romney makes his first visit of the year to the state tomorrow.
The ad is being run by Priorities USA Action, a political action committee that is headed by President Obama’s former deputy press secretary, Bill Burton. The group can accept unlimited donations and is meant to counter Republican groups that were formed during the 2010 midterm elections. Those groups were criticized at the time by top Democrats, who have filed legislation to curb the influence of outside money in politics.
" President Obama and his team are desperate to change the subject to anything other than jobs and the millions of Americans out of work,” Andrea Saul, a spokeswoman for Romney’s presidential exploratory committee, said in a statement. “With 9.6% unemployment in South Carolina, voters are looking for a jobs plan not a smear campaign."
Romney tomorrow is planning to visit South Carolina and meet with business owners. It is his first trip to the Palmetto State this year.
Romney has in fact said that he and Ryan were “on the same page,” although he has not wholly embraced the Wisconsin Republican’s budget plan, which includes drastic cuts to Medicare. Romney said last week that he would at some point present his own plan on reforming the health care program for the elderly sand said it would “not be identical but shares objectives” with Ryan’s plan.
Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @mviser.
Obama tells Mass crowd, 'We've got more work to do'
Charles Dharapak/AP
President Obama and Governor Deval Patrick greet the crowd at a fundraiser this evening at the Cyclorama in the South End.
President Obama told a revved up crowd in Boston this evening that he needs to be reelected next year because "we've got more work to do."
At the first of two fund-raisers in Massachusetts, he said, "Change is hard. Change takes time ... We've got more work to do!"
He said that to-do list includes immigration reform.
Photos
- Obama tells Mass crowd, 'We've got more work to do'
- With Obama's visit, Brookline woman gets her wish - in spirit
- Obama gives commencement speech at Coast Guard Academy
- Herald complains about access to Obama
- Air Force One aborts landing attempt in Conn.
- Donovan Slack tweets while traveling with Obama
- Graphic Areas with most
support for Democrats - Graphic States with most
support for Democratics - Democratic contributors
from Massachusetts - Bay State’s Cutter plays
key role on Obama team - A look at Obama’s team
- Princeton’s West
takes shot at Obama
Herald complains about access to Obama
A complaint by the Boston Herald about the limited access its staff would have to President Obama during his visit to Boston today prompted an Obama aide to fault the paper for its coverage of an Obama visit to Boston in March.
On that day, the Herald devoted its front page to an opinion article by former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, a likely candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, in which he criticized the administration's job-creation record.
"I think that raises a fair question about whether the paper is unbiased in its coverage of the president's visits,'' White House spokesman Matt Lehrich told the Herald in an email.
Huntsman makes first presidential visit to N.H.
WASHINGTON — New Hampshire voters will get their first glimpse of another potential GOP presidential contender in coming days when former ambassador Jon M. Huntsman Jr. sweeps through the crucial primary state.
It starts with a Thursday afternoon meet-and-greet in Hanover, then continues Friday with back-to-back house parties in Keene and Hancock, before he speaks at a Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Concord late in the day.
On Saturday, he delivers the commencement address at Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester, then participates in photo ops at a gun shop and a country store before speaking before the Windham County GOP.
Obama absolves Coasties of 'minor' offenses
Charles Dharapak/AP
President Obama poses today with newly commissioned officer Amy Tow of Sugar Land, Texas, (left) and her father at the US Coast Guard Academy graduation in New London, Conn.
A commencement speech and missed Air Force One landing behind him, President Obama was departing New London, Conn., this afternoon en route to two fundraisers in Boston and Brookline.
The president had a more than hourlong drive to Bradley International Airport before flying on to Logan International Airport.
The campaign events were preceded by the day's "official" appearance, the president's address to graduates of the US Coast Guard Academy. He noted they collectively had the highest GPA of any class in the academy's history.
Elizabeth Minot Graves gets her wish - in spirit
When President Obama pulls up tonight at a stately Brookline home for a campaign fundraiser, he will have two hosts in the flesh — Jack and Eileen Connors — and a third in spirit.
Elizabeth Minot Graves was the daughter of George Minot, a Massachusetts General Hospital physician and Harvard Medical School professor who shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1934 for his work in developing a treatment for pernicious anemia.
In the eyes of Liza Weld Graves, the daughter of Elizabeth Minot Graves, her late mother has been expecting the president.
"My mom died shortly after Obama took office," Liza Graves wrote today in an email from her current house in Sonoma, Calif.
"She had dementia, but was thrilled when Obama was elected, so much so that through her dementia haze, she demanded that my brother call the president-elect to invite him to tea with her father... She was quite upset when we told her this was not to be.
"In an odd way, her wish is being granted tonight," she wrote.
FULL ENTRYAir Force One aborts landing attempt in Connecticut
A trip that will bring President Obama to Boston got off to a rocky start this morning.
Air Force One executed a missed approach as it neared its first destination, Bradley International Airport outside Hartford.
White House Spokesman Nick Shapiro said: "AF1 did a go-round at Bradley International Airport this morning because of weather. They circled around and landed safely a few minutes later, at 10:05 a.m.
Biden to headline N.H. Democratic dinner
New Hampshire Democrats have announced that Vice President Joe Biden will headline a party fund-raising dinner next week.
He will deliver the keynote address at the annual McIntyre-Shaheen 100 Club Dinner on Wednesday in Nashua.
The appearance underscores the battleground nature of the state, which broke Democratic in 2008 but went Republican in leading races last fall.
"We are excited to welcome Vice President Biden to this year's event," Ray Buckley, chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, said in a statement this morning. "Working with President Obama, Joe Biden has played a key role in turning our economy around and getting America on the right track."
The announcement was made as the president was en route for his own trip to New England. He was delivering the commencement address at the US Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn., before flying to Massachusetts for reelection fund-raisers in Boston and Brookline.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Obama heading to Massachusetts for fund-raisers
Charles Dharapak/AP
President Obama waves goodbye at Andrews Air Force Base as he departed this morning for New London, Ct., and Boston.
President Obama is coming to Massachusetts later today for a pair of fund-raisers in Boston and Brookline.
He arrived at Andrews Air Force Base at 8:52 a.m. and Air Force One took off at 9:01 a.m., destined for New London, Conn., and a commencement address at the US Coast Guard Academy.
The Globe's White House correspondent, Donovan Slack, is in the traveling pool, riding aboard the presidential jet and getting a front-row seat for his speech at the Cyclorama in the South End and, this evening, at the Brookline home of Boston advertising executive Jack Connors Jr.
West: Obama 'a black mascot' and 'black puppet'
John Bazemore/AP
Cornel West, shown speaking last year in Martin Luther King Jr.'s former church, labeled President Obama 'a black mascot' and 'black puppet' during an interview.
Cornel West, a Princeton University professor and leading black intellectual, is harshly criticizing President Obama, a candidate he once supported but now calls “a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats.”
West, a former Harvard University professor, said during an interview with the website Truthdig posted yesterday that the president has not been true to his race.
“I think my dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men,” West said. “It’s understandable. As a young brother who grows up in a white context, brilliant African father, he’s always had to fear being a white man with black skin. All he has known culturally is white…When he meets an independent black brother, it is frightening.”
The White House did not have an immediate comment. West did not respond to messages left at his office.
Bill Russell, Ray Allen to speak at Obama event
Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
President Obama awarded Boston Celtics Hall of Fame player Bill Russell the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House on Feb. 15.
The First Hoopster will get a salute tomorrow from two prominent members of the Boston Celtics family, Hall of Fame member Bill Russell and current All-Star Ray Allen, according to a top Democrat briefed on the plans.
Both will address the audience tomorrow afternoon when President Obama visits Massachusetts for a fund-raiser at the Cyclorama in Boston, said the Democrat, who requested anonymity to speak in advance of the formal announcement.
The president will then attend a smaller event at the Brookline home of advertising executive Jack Connors Jr.
Kerry: 'Too much at stake' to abandon US-Pakistani alliance
Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters today in Pakistan that "there is too much at stake" for the United States and Pakistan to abandon their alliance.
He said he and Pakistani officials have agreed on a series of steps that each side would take to improve relations, but declined to detail what those steps were.
"There are real differences between our two countries, but the bonds that tie us together in the fight against the threat of extremists is stronger than those differences," he said during a news conference in Islamabad.
Trump: I prefer making money over making policy
In announcing today that he would not seek the Republican presidential nomination, Donald Trump made clear that for all his sound and fury, he prefers to make money above solving political problems.
"I have spent the past several months unofficially campaigning and recognize that running for public office cannot be done half-heartedly," he said in a statement. "Ultimately, however, business is my greatest passion and I am not ready to leave the private sector."
Weeks earlier, Trump hinted at his priorities in a less-polished fashion, as he visited New Hampshire with all the atmospherics of a traveling carnival.
Kerry mission highlights Senate straddle
Mian Khursheed/Reuters
Senator John Kerry meets today with Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani at the prime minister's residence in Islamabad.
There's never been a shortage of people willing to lampoon Senator John Kerry, or who have delighted in him being roasted.
Kerry has inflicted some of the damage himself, from trying to register a yacht in Rhode Island in an apparent Massachusetts tax dodge, to heading out windsurfing when presidential campaign advisers said it would underscore the elitist image they were trying to overcome.
Other damage has come from piling-on, all too easy with a person who can spend nearly as much time deciding what brand of beer to drink as it takes to down the first pint.
But those thoughts, emotions, or memories can seem petty when considering the duties he undertook today: representing the United States — and delivering its complaints — in the aftermath of the May 2 raid that found and killed Osama bin Laden while he hid amid a Pakistani military garrison.
Brown: DiMasi case shows danger of one-party rule
Jane Flavell Collins
In this artist's rendering, former House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi, left, listens as a prosecutor addresses the jury in his federal corruption trial.
Senator Scott Brown said yesterday the federal corruption trial of former House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi highlights the dangers of one-party dominance in Massachusetts and a "go-along-to-get-along" political culture.
Injecting politics into a normally celebratory moment, Brown said in remarks delivered at the Lasell College commencement ceremony: "I don't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican, just as one political party can't be right 100 percent of the time, it shouldn't have 100 percent of the power. Unchallenged power grows arrogant over time. It is what has given us one case of graft after another."
The lone Republican in the Massachusetts congressional delegation, Brown is seeking reelection next year in what has historically been a Democratic state. Democrats have begun lining up to challenge him, and Brown opponents have already started pounding him with advertising campaigns.
Warren: I will campaign outside Fenway - in cold
Newton Mayor Setti Warren has outlined how far he is willing to go to become the next US senator from Massachusetts: He will shake hands — in the cold — outside Fenway Park, if need be.
“I love the Red Sox — they're doing pretty well," he told former Globe reporter Rick Klein when he appeared on "Top Line," the ABC News online program he now hosts each weekday. "I was at a game a few weeks ago. I’m gonna be out there, and across the state. We've been to cities and towns — that's the kind of campaign I'm going to run, and that's the kind of campaign that will win.”
The comment harks back to January 2010, when fellow Democrat Martha Coakley mocked her then-Republican rival, then-state Senator Scott Brown, for pressing the flesh outside the ballpark when it hosted the NHL's "Winter Classic" on a frigid New Year's Day.
Brown went on to win the campaign and replace the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy.
Coakley went back to being attorney general.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Brett picked to head presidential panel
Jim Brett, president of the New England Council and a former state legislator, has been named chairman of the President’s Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities.
Brett previously served two two-year terms as a member of the committee under President George W. Bush. He was urged to apply for the chairmanship, he said, by the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy.
“I am very honored and humbled to be chair of this commission," Brett said during an interview.
The Dorchester resident a special perspective to the committee: His late brother, Jack, the eldest of his family's six children, was born with an intellectual disability.
He recalled how doctors advised his mother to institutionalize Jack, but, instead, she replied, "No way. He's coming home with me. And I'm going to have more children."
Brett added: "She taught us to make sure that he’s part of everyone’s daily life. And he taught me about the issues of disability, and the challenges just to function every day. When I got elected, I promised to learn about the situation and be an advocate."
Kennedy aides pressed for Situation Room after 1961 Bay of Pigs
WASHINGTON -- After Navy SEALS shot Osama bin Laden early this month, the Situation Room photo of President Obama and his national security team gravely monitoring the operation across the globe quickly became a defining image of that long night.
The White House’s high-tech bunker, where the president held a ceremony today, was quickly built in what had been an old basement bowling alley fifty years ago because of another overseas operation that ended with far less success: the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961.
“The seeds of what we saw in that photo were planted in the Kennedy administration,” said Tom Putnam, director of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.
Tying together the half-century of history, President Obama renamed a secure conference room today after President Kennedy. The assassinated president's daughter Caroline Kennedy attended, along with grandson, John "Jack" Schlossberg.
"It’s the nerve center for the U.S. government, the place where we come together to make policy and respond to crises from wars abroad to floods at home," President Obama said.
Romney responds to Journal criticism
"Mitt Romney, Belmont, Mass." penned a Letter to the Editor that appeared in today's Wall Street Journal, responding to a scathing editorial on the newpaper's conservative editorial page the day before.
In it, Romney sought to address some criticisms of the universal health care law he signed while governor of Massachusetts, a measure the Journal had argued raised questions about his fitness to be president.
The 2006 Massachusetts law became the template for the federal universal health care law signed last year by President Obama, which the Journal and others deride as "ObamaCare."
"While I have had my disagreements with the Journal's editorial board, where we find common ground is on the need to repeal ObamaCare and replace it with reforms that empower states to craft their own solutions," Romney wrote. "A one-size-fits-all plan that raises taxes and ignores the very real differences between states is the wrong course for our nation."
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
House votes to expand offshore drilling
WASHINGTON -- The US House of Representatives passed legislation today to expand offshore gas and oil exploration to New England coastal waters and other areas where drilling is now banned.
The measure, which passed 243-179, is unlikely to advance beyond the House and would garner a veto from President Obama regardless. But the legislation highlights how energy and fuel prices have become one of the biggest political battlegrounds in the sharply divided Congress.
The bill makes no bones about its intent. Entitled the “Reversing President Obama's Offshore Moratorium Act,” the legislation countered a seven-year moratorium President Obama imposed last year on new offshore drilling. The bill would require the federal government to offer offshore leases in areas believed to have substantial oil and natural gas reserves.
“This legislation ensures that the Obama Administration can no longer withhold valuable energy resources necessary to increase American energy production here at home,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a Virginia Republican, said in a statement. Cantor was among nine House members who didn’t vote on the bill.
FULL ENTRYRomney: No apology for state health plan
J.D. Pooley/Getty Images
Expected Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney tries to address conservative concerns about his Massachusetts universal health care law with a speech and PowerPoint presentation today in his native Michigan.
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Mitt Romney this afternoon tried to rebut conservative criticisms of his Massachusetts health care law as he called for abolishing President Obama’s national plan and replacing it with a new, more state-based reform of the US health care system.
In his first — and perhaps most significant — policy speech of his budding presidential campaign, he gave the strongest defense to date of his signature Massachusetts health care plan.
“A lot of pundits around the nation are saying that I should just stand up and say this whole thing was a mistake, that it was a boneheaded idea and I should just admit it, it was a mistake, and walk away from it,” Romney said. “And I presume that a lot of folks would conclude that if I did that, that would be good for me politically. But there’s only one problem with that: it wouldn’t be honest. I, in fact, did what I believed was right for the people of my state.”
FLASHBACK: Romney, WSJ talk health care, circa 2006
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The topic: health care. The concern: It could undermine Mitt Romney's run for president. A key critic: The Wall Street Journal. The response: A speech and a PowerPoint presentation.
That was the tack the former Massachusetts governor took today as he tried to address a key vulnerability in his expected presidential campaign. But it's also the exact tack Romney took in 2006, while he still was governor, as he geared up for his first White House campaign.
In each instance, he tried to mollify conservative critics who argued universal health care cut against their free-market and libertarian beliefs.
The following article was published in The Boston Globe on April 26, 2006:
Live stream of Romney health care speech
Check "Political Intelligence" at 2 p.m. for a live stream of the health care speech being delivered today by expected Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Wall Street Journal blisters Romney over health care
Mitt Romney's favored communication medium in the run-up to his second presidential campaign has been the op-ed column, with sometimes unexpected results, since expounding in such a sober medium allows him to avoid distracting questions from other elements of the media.
Today, though, he is the focus of a blistering editorial in The Wall Street Journal, which carries the unflattering headline, "Obama's Running Mate."
The editorial, which included a trademark Journal stipple portrait of the former Massachusetts governor, runs across two columns and consumes two-thirds of the space usually allotted to editorials written from a conservative perspective.
Romney support for individual mandate complicates health care politics
John Tlumacki/Globe Staff
Democrat Edward M. Kennedy debates with Republican Mitt Romney during their 1994 US Senate race. During that campaign, Romney said he would back a federal health care plan that included a mandate requiring individuals to buy insurance coverage. Such past support is now complicating his planned second presidential campaign.
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — As Mitt Romney prepares for a major address on health care here this afternoon, the likely presidential contender is still expected to continue defending what has become a third rail in Republican politics: a requirement from government that people purchase health insurance.
The so-called individual mandate was a core component of the signature health care plan Romney signed into law while governor of Massachusetts, and he has stuck by that decision — even as he has decried it as part of the federal plan signed into law last year by President Obama.
During a question-and-answer period last month in Las Vegas, for instance, Romney used an example of someone without insurance getting in a car wreck and going to the hospital.
“We don’t let them die in the streets,” Romney said. “They go to the hospital and are treated. And guess who pays for that? You. Government. You all are paying for that.”
Brown: 'No comment' on seeing real bin Laden photos
A spokesman for Senator Scott Brown refused to say if he will travel to the CIA to see photos of a dead Osama bin Laden, after the agency offered today to show them to members of a congressional committee upon which the Republican serves.
The only other member of the Massachusetts congressional delegation who would qualify under the same offer, Democrat Niki Tsongas, will decline.
“The congresswoman is convinced that Osama bin Laden was killed and will not be requesting to see the photos,” said spokesman John Noble.
Brown spokesman Colin Reed said, “No comment on this.”
Democrat Tolman weighing challenge to Brown
Democrat Warren Tolman is considering a campaign to unseat Republican Senator Scott Brown next year.
Tolman refused to say if those people are dissatisfied with the current field, which doesn't include any of the better-known politicians in Massachusetts. Those who have already declared include Newton Mayor Setti Warren, City Year co-founder Alan Khazei, former lieutenant governor candidate Bob Massie, and Salem immigration attorney Marisa DeFranco.
Kerry: Bin Laden death 'game-changing' chance in Afghanistan
Senator John Kerry today labeled Osama bin Laden's death "a potentially game-changing opportunity" for a political solution in war-torn Afghanistan.
Kicking off the third of six hearings on Afghanistan and Pakistan this month by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Washington, Kerry said that could "bring greater stability to the region and bring our troops home." The Massachusetts Democrat serves as chairman of the committee.
"Let me be very clear: A precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan would be a mistake and I, for one, would take that option off the table," Kerry said in his prepared remarks. "Instead, we should be working toward the smallest footprint necessary, a presence that puts Afghans in charge — and presses them to step up to that task — at the same time that it secures our interests and accomplishes our mission of destroying Al Qaeda and preventing Afghanistan from ever again becoming a terrorist sanctuary.
"But make no mistake, it is unsustainable to continue spending $10 billion a month on a massive military operation with no end in sight — and the good news is, we don’t have to. I am convinced that we can achieve our core goals at a more sustainable cost, in both lives and dollars," he added.
President Obama has pledged to begin removing some of the 130,000 US troops by July 31.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Breaking down the Brown race - by the numbers
Matthew J. Lee / Globe Staff
Senator Scott Brown, speaking in February at the induction ceremony for US District Court Judge Denise Jefferson Casper, is the focus of Democratic calculations as he heads toward his reelection campaign in 2012.
(Editor's Note: This post contains math and, even more ominously, math performed by a journalist — with guidance from politicians.)
Newton Mayor Setti Warren was set this morning to personally declare what he stated yesterday in a slick movie: He is a candidate for US Senate next year.
With City Year co-founder Alan Khazei, Somerville activist Bob Massie, and Salem immigration attorney Marisa DeFranco already declared candidates, that all but guarantees a contested Democratic primary in September 2012, even with some dropouts.
Newton Mayor Warren announces US Senate candidacy
Pat Greenhouse / Globe Staff
Mayor Setti Warren, right, marches last year in Newton's Memorial Day parade alongside its grand marshal, Senator Scott Brown, second from left. Warren announced today that he will seek the Democratic nomination to challenge Brown for re-election next year.
Newton Mayor Setti Warren announced today that he will seek the Democratic nomination to challenge Senator Scott Brown for re-election next year.
In a heavily produced video, complete with stirring music, the former Kerry and Clinton aide said: "Many of you don't know me; I'm probably about as well known as Scott Brown was at this point two years ago."
Nonetheless, Warren said the race should reduce to a debate about party values.
Mass GOP files complaint over LWV Brown ad
Massachusetts Republican Party leaders today filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission against the League of Women Voters, alleging the nonprofit organization failed to properly file paperwork after it launched a television ad campaign criticizing Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown.
"We are calling on the League to immediately reveal their secret donors as the law requires, and to live by the same standards of openness and transparency they have encouraged others to adopt," Massachusetts Republican Party Chairwoman Jennifer Nassour said in a written statement.
The ads criticized Brown as well as Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, for votes related to the Clean Air Act. Responding to the complaint, Elisabeth MacNamara, the organization's president, defended the ad, saying the ad targeted one particular issue, not the upcoming elections.
"Our ad will stand up to scrutiny because it is about Senator Scott Brown's vote to weaken the Clean Air Act and endanger public health," McNamara said in a statement issued Sunday. "It is not about an election that is 18 months away or a politician who may or may not be on the ballot in that election. The allegation to the FEC is simply a charade, designed to deflect attention away from Senator Brown's vote to block the Clean Air Act."
Brown sees how a senator's words carry special potency
Tom Rettig / Worcester Telegram & Gazette
An aide to Scott Brown and a State Police trooper await the Republican senator and Governor Deval Patrick, respectively, before they attended Saturday's funeral in Auburn for Air Force Major David L. Brodeur. The 34-year-old was one of eight American service members shot and killed by an Afghan military officer in Afghanistan on April 27.
On Saturday morning, Scott Brown joined his Senate colleague, John Kerry, as well as Governor Deval Patrick and Lieutenant Governor Timothy Murray in Auburn for the funeral of an Air Force officer killed by a rampaging gunman in Afghanistan.
In so doing, the officeholders conferred the weight and stature of their respective offices on the event, signaling to the public in deed if not in word that this was a moment worthy of pause amid the motion of daily life.
It’s because of the esteem the public holds for such high office that people also stopped and listened last week when Brown went on television and weighed in on the debate about whether to release photos showing Osama bin Laden after he had been shot to death by US troops in Pakistan.
Transcript of Senator Brown’s response to Obama's weekly address
“Hello, I’m Scott Brown, and I have the honor of representing Massachusetts in the United States Senate.
“Last Sunday night, we heard President Obama deliver the message that Americans have been waiting for since September 11, 2001. It’s a very rare thing when so many people across the world observe the loss of life with something other than regret. But this man, the late Osama bin Laden, had chosen his fate long before in a life filled with cruelty. If he expected mercy when our forces found him that was asking much more than he was ever known to give.
“This was a man who rejoiced in the suffering and death of others, who set in motion all the horror and grief of 9/11 and considered it just a start. He was a teacher of evil, and now, for him, the lesson is over. It ends not in the fulfillment of some fanatical vision, but in the depths of the
Arabian Sea.
Brown to deliver Republican response to Obama's weekly address
WASHINGTON — US Senator Scott Brown will deliver the Republican response to President Obama’s weekly address this week, focusing on the killing of Osama bin Laden, American’s continued fight against terrorism and the ongoing war in Afghanistan. Brown’s remarks will be released tomorrow morning, according to the senator’s office.
Brown, a Massachusetts Republican, is a 31-year member of the Massachusetts Army National Guard and currently holds the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps. He had to backtrack earlier this week from comments he made in a TV interview, in which he claimed to have seen a photo of bin Laden’s corpse, which turned out to be a fake.
Mass. Democrats want Brown to explain photo comments
The Massachusetts Democratic Party issued a statement today saying Senator Scott Brown "owes" Massachusetts residents an explanation after the Republican asserted — and then retracted — that he had seen postmortem photos of Osama bin Laden.
“As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Brown owes the people of Massachusetts more details as to what led him to believe that he was shown an authentic photo, and then what led him to feel comfortable enough to speak out publicly about the photo," party Chairman John Walsh said in a statement.
"He needs — right away, today — to provide answers to the following questions: who showed him the fake photo; who told him it was genuine when it wasn’t; and what are the procedures he uses to make sure he has reliable information before he gives voters that information?" Walsh added.
The chairman said the senator needs to “understand that his words matter, and his assertions are taken at face value because of his position."
Brown spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom replied: "With the Sal DiMasi corruption trial going on, I'm surprised that John Walsh has the time to criticize Republicans."
Brown admits he was fooled by fake pictures of bin Laden body
US Senator Scott Brown said in several televised interviews today that he had seen perhaps the most controversial and closely guarded photos in the world: those showing Osama bin Laden’s dead body.
Brown, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, suggested he had viewed them as part of an official briefing, and he argued that they were too graphic to be released to the public and could enflame terrorists.
Oops.
Brown later acknowledged that he had fallen victim to a hoax, apparently the same doctored images that were making the rounds on the Internet.
‘‘The photo that I saw and that a lot of other people saw is not authentic,’’ the senator said in a one-sentence statement issued hours after the interviews aired.
FULL ENTRYBrown: Don't show bin Laden corpse to 'sell newspapers'
UPDATED
WASHINGTON — Having seen unreleased photos of Osama bin Laden’s corpse, US Senator Scott Brown does not believe pictures of the dead terrorist leader should be made public, the Massachusetts Republican said in an interview on NECN.
“Let me assure you that he is dead, that bin Laden is dead — I have seen the photos,” Brown said hours before President Obama declared he would not release the images.
During an interview with "60 Minutes," the president told the CBS News program that "we don't trot out trophies."
Asked directly if the pictures, which have been described as bloody and gruesome, should be made available for everyone, Brown told NECN: “If it’s to sell newspapers or just have a news cycle story, no, I don’t think they should be released. We’re still dealing with the sensitivities of the Muslim and Arab world. And we still have men and women serving throughout the world.”
Warren books same hall where he announced for mayor
UPDATED
Newton Mayor Setti Warren, a prospective candidate for US Senate, has booked the same American Legion Post where he announced his mayoral run for an unspecified event next Tuesday.
Aaron Goldman, who handles constituent services for the mayor, said Warren had reserved Post 440 in Newton for a “service breakfast,” but declined to elaborate.
"No comment," Warren told the Newton Tab, which first reported the booking, when the paper asked Warren if he planned to announce he is running against Republican Senator Scott Brown.
Deborah Shah, the mayor’s political director, said, “The mayor is hosting a service breakfast with people in his life who have done things for the community and he wants to honor them. I can’t say anything further at this time.”
Warren is a Navy veteran and a former aide to Senator John F. Kerry. City Year co-founder Alan Khazei and Somerville activist Bob Massie have already announced campaigns.
Michael Levenson can be reached at mlevenson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @mlevenson.
Patrick to keynote Florida Democratic dinner
Governor Deval Patrick, just back from addressing Wisconsin Democrats, will reprise the role next month in Florida.
The Florida Democratic Party made the announcement today. Patrick will speak June 11 in Hollywood, just south of Fort Lauderdale.
“As Governor, Deval Patrick has focused on common sense solutions to bring jobs to his state. His leadership in implementing Massachusetts’ landmark health care reform law now serves as the national model for bringing affordable health insurance to all Americans,” Chairman Rod Smith said in a statement.
“We are thrilled that Governor Patrick is joining us at our 2011 Jefferson-Jackson Dinner, helping us as get ready for the 2012 elections and work to hold (Governor) Rick Scott and his extreme Republican Party accountable," said Smith.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Former Kennedy chief to lead UAW's DC office
Mary Beth Cahill, once Senator Edward M. Kennedy's chief of staff, has been named director of the United Auto Workers' Washington office, as well as director of its UAW Community Action Program.
In both jobs, she will oversee the UAW’s political program nationally. She will also serve as a senior adviser to UAW President Bob King.
Cahill formerly served as assistant to the president and director of the Office of Public Liaison in the Clinton White House, as well as Kennedy's chief of staff and director of Senator John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign.
She also spent five years at EMILY’s List, a PAC that supports female candidates and supports abortion rights.
“We are thrilled to have Mary Beth join the UAW leadership team especially in light of the difficult challenges ahead for our union,” King said in a statement. "As we navigate the tough political environment in this era of attacks on American working families and the middle class, and head into national contract talks for the domestic automakers, I’m confident that she will help us elect officeholders who are allies in the battle to save the American middle class."
Cahill is a Massachusetts native and the daughter of a UAW autoworker. She graduated from Emmanuel College with a degree in English and political science, and held a fellowship at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in 2005.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Romney: 'The bad guy took one in the eye'
WASHINGTON -- Likely presidential candidate Mitt Romney this morning said President Obama deserved to be credited with an “enormous success” for overseeing the mission that killed Osama bin Laden.
“We’ll all remember where we were when Osama bin Laden was finally killed,” Romney told reporters this morning, according to an NECN video. “I congratulate the president, the intelligence community, our military. It’s an extraordinary accomplishment.”
“The bad guy took one in the eye,” he added.
Romney, who is considering vying for the role of occupying the Oval Office, was also eager for some more behind-the-scenes details.
“I look forward to hearing more,” Romney said. “How did we find out where he was located? What sources of intelligence were developed over the years? How many blind allies did they have to pursue until they finally found this guy?”
Lugar: Bin Laden death raises questions about Afghan fight
WASHINGTON — Richard Lugar, Indiana Republican who is the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said today the strike on Osama bin Laden in Pakistan raises questions about whether the continuing war in Afghanistan is worth the cost.
“With al Qaeda largely displaced from the country, but franchised in other locations, Afghanistan does not carry a strategic value that justifies 100,000 American troops and a $100 billion per year cost, especially given current fiscal restraints,” Lugar said in his opening statement at a hearing on Afghanistan.
Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who serves as chairman of the committee, called the death of bin Laden a "seminal moment." Questions about the future US role in Afghanistan are even more relevant now, he said.
"The death of Osama bin Laden is obviously an event with enormous consequence," he said. "It doesn't end the threat, however, but still it is a major victory in the long campaign against terrorism waged by our intelligence agencies and our military."
FULL ENTRYConnors adds campaign fundraising to philanthropy
Essdras M. Suarez / Globe Staff
Jack Connors and his wife, Eileen, are hosting President Obama at their Brookline home on May 18. The event is the latest example of the advertising executive's expansion from traditional philanthropy work to political fundraising.
When Vice President Joe Biden wanted to meet the right people in March to set up the fundraising apparatus for his and President Obama's reelection committee, it was Jack Connors who greeted him at his 60th floor office in the John Hancock Tower and then took him down two flights for a reception he put together.
And when Obama comes to Boston in a couple weeks to ask for cash itself, it will be Connors again who welcomes him, this time at his Brookline home.
The president will leave with about $2 million from a dinner that is already sold out.
The back-to-back events highlight Connors's connection to the White House, as well as his expansion from the philanthropy and foundation work that has followed his successful career founding the advertising powerhouse Hill Holliday.
Romney won't participate in SC debate
WASHINGTON -- Likely presidential candidate Mitt Romney is not participating this week in the first GOP presidential debate, saying it was too early to begin facing off against opponents.
The debate, being held Thursday in South Carolina and sponsored by Fox News, will feature only a handful of candidates, including former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty and former Senator Rick Santorum, of Pennsylvania.
Romney, who is planning to be in South Carolina for a visit later this month, did participate in a forum on Friday in New Hampshire. The candidates were each given eight minutes for prepared remarks, but never appeared on stage with one another.
But he has been coy about whether he would participate in the first debate. On Friday, he told reporters, "Stay tuned," when asked whether he would be there. Today, he definitively said no.
"Gov. Romney will not be participating in this week's South Carolina debate because it's still early, the field is too unsettled and he's not yet an announced candidate," Matt Rhoades, one of his top advisers, said in a statement. "Fox News and the South Carolina Republican Party have both been notified of this decision. Gov. Romney is planning to visit South Carolina on May 21st and he looks forward to debating there closer to their primary."
Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @mviser.
Kerry holding hearing on Pakistan, Afghanistan
WASHINGTON — Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is seeking to refocus the nation's focus on Pakistan and Afghanistan in the run-up to a scheduled withdrawal of some US forces from Afghanistan, set to begin in July.
On Tuesday morning, Richard N. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Princeton University Professor Anne-Marie Slaughter, Ronald E. Neumann, president of the American Academy of Diplomacy will appear before the committee.
It has already conducted 14 oversight hearings on the war, including the first congressional hearings on reconciliation and the mission in Marja.
The latest hearing was planned before Sunday's surprise announcement about the killing Osama bin Laden.
“The killing of Osama bin Laden closes an important chapter in our war against extremists who kill innocent people around the world." Kerry said in a statement. "A single death does not end the threat from al Qaeda and its affiliated groups and highlights the need to thoroughly evaluate our strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan. We need to make certain we are asking tough questions about the direction and effectiveness of our policy/"
Farah Stockman can be reached fstockman@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @fstockman.
Brown requests summer training in Afghanistan
Senator Scott Brown just issued a statement saying he requested his annual summer Massachusetts National Guard service period in Afghanistan.
“As a lieutenant colonel in the Massachusetts Army National Guard, I have service obligations that I fulfill each year."Following in the tradition of other lawmakers who have completed their military service requirements overseas, this year I have requested to conduct my annual training in Afghanistan.
"Doing so will help me to better understand our ongoing mission in that country, and provide me first-hand experience for my duties on the Senate Armed Services, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs committees," he said.
Brown has been in the Guard since 1979, but he has never been deployed to a war zone. His service this summer will come around the July set by President Obama for beginning to start removing some of the 132,000 US troops stationed in Afghanistan.
Typically such training periods last two weeks. It would not be considered a formal activation of his JAG unit.
The statement was issued about 90 minutes after Brown spoke with the Globe about heading to the war zone.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Pakistani ambassador links Bin Laden to Bulger
The Atlantic magazine has a fascinating interview with the Pakistani ambassador to the United States, in which he attempts to deflect criticism of his country's efforts to root out Osama bin Laden from its midst by comparing it to the ongoing search for Boston fugitive James "Whitey" Bulger.
"If Whitey Bulger can live undetected by American police for so long, why can't Osama bin Laden live undetected by Pakistani authorities?" asked Ambassador Husain Haqqani.
Read the full story here.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
GOP presidential hopefuls react to Osama bin Laden's death
WASHINGTON -- Just after President Obama made the most important announcement of his presidency, the field of candidates hoping to unseat him began reacting to the news that Osama bin Laden had been killed.
"Welcome to hell, bin Laden," former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee said, in one of the bluntest statements.
The shocking news is likely to temporarily divert away from any talk of the economy and high gas prices -- topics that Republican candidates have focused on in recent months. It could also bolster Obama's low approval ratings, and could expose a Republican presidential field that so far lacks a candidate with substantial foreign policy experience.
FULL ENTRYBrown heading for Afghanistan
UPDATED
Senator Scott Brown issued a statement this morning saying he has requested to conduct his annual National Guard training in Afghanistan.
“As a lieutenant colonel in the Massachusetts Army National Guard, I have service obligations that I fulfill each year."Following in the tradition of other lawmakers who have completed their military service requirements overseas, this year I have requested to conduct my annual training in Afghanistan.
"Doing so will help me to better understand our ongoing mission in that country, and provide me first-hand experience for my duties on the Senate Armed Services, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs committees," he said.
Brown has been in the Guard since 1979, but he has never been deployed to a war zone. His service this summer will come around the July set by President Obama for beginning to start removing some of the 132,000 US troops stationed in Afghanistan.
Typically such training periods last two weeks. It would not be considered a formal activation of his JAG unit.
About 90 minutes before issuing his statement, Brown said in a telephone interview with the Globe, "I’m going to be going over at some point to do some missions.”
White House briefing on Bin Laden death
After President Obama told the nation last night about the death of Osama bin Laden, senior members of his administration held a conference call to brief reporters on the details of the mission.
Following is a transcript of that call, as provided by the White House, with all but one of the speakers identified as "senior administration officials."
It was led by Tommy Vietor, the chief spokesman for the National Security Council:
Obama, Kerry, Brown statements on Bin Laden
Following are the full texts of statements issued last night by President Obama and Massachusetts Senators John Kerry and Scott Brown after the death of Osama bin Laden:
Presidents Bush, Obama take special pride in bin Laden death
Jason Reed / Reuters
President Obama strides to the lectern to deliver news already coming into view on the TelePrompTer: Osama bin Laden has been killed.
President Bush started the search for Osama bin Laden on Sept. 11, 2001, and President Obama ended it yesterday, and each man took special pride in the accomplishment.
Bush, in a statement posted on the Facebook page of his wife, former first lady Laura Bush, said: "The fight against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done."
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- Dan Wasserman: Bin Laden's reward
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Obama, meanwhile, wore an American flag pin on his lapel as he strode to a lectern in the East Room of the White House to make the official announcement.
"Justice has been done," the president said in remarks that began at 11:35 p.m.
Obama also went to lengths to detail the circumstances that led to bin Laden's death, as well as his leadership of it, starting with him saying he made it his top terrorism priority since shortly after taking office in 2009.
"Then, last August, after years of painstaking work by our intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden. It was far from certain, and it took many months to run this thread to ground. I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside of Pakistan. And finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice," said the president.
Then, in his crescendo, he added: "Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan."
Obama's backers will surely argue that the achievement validates his effort to shift the focus from the war on terror from insurgents and Saddam Hussein's loyalists in Iraq to the Taliban in Afghanistan, part of a campaign pledge he made to target bin Laden, the culprit of the 9/11 attacks.
As a senator, Obama declared he would authorize US forces to go into Pakistan to get bin Laden if that was where he sought refuge. In the end, that is what happened, with uncertain diplomatic repercussions for the country.
The president himself did not have to gloat, the facts potent enough to speak for themselves.
Patrick attacks GOP on labor
Glen Johnson / Globe Staff
Governor Deval Patrick addresses the 400 attendees at last night's Democratic Party of Wisconsin Founders Day Dinner.
MILWAUKEE — Governor Deval Patrick addressed Wisconsin Democrats last night.
Here is the full story:
MILWAUKEE — Governor Deval Patrick waded into the national debate over labor rights last night, telling fellow Democrats in the union battleground state of Wisconsin that Republicans “have abandoned any sense of responsibility for our common future in order to win power at all costs.’’
Mass. AFL-CIO backs Patrick as he appears in Wisconsin
MILWAUKEE — At least one Massachusetts labor leader wants Wisconsin Democrats to know Governor Deval Patrick is a union friend despite their own political spat back in the Bay State this week.
Just before the governor addressed a Democratic dinner in Milwaukee, Massachusetts AFL-CIO President Robert Haynes issued a statement defending Patrick against possible criticism after the Massachusetts House voted this week on a budget that sought to change health insurance programs for municipal workers.
Patrick has filed his own cost-saving proposal, and both he and Senate President Therese Murray have withheld commenting on the details of the House budget.
Patrick at raucous Democratic dinner in Milwaukee
Glen Johnson / Globe Staff
Copies of Governor Deval Patrick's memoir, "A Reason to Believe," are on sale tonight outside a ballroom where he is speaking to members of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.
MILWAUKEE — Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick is in Wisconsin tonight, addressing state Democrats energized in the aftermath of their collective bargaining dispute with Republican Governor Scott Walker.
Patrick is the keynote speaker at the Democratic Party of Wisconsin's Founders Day Dinner, which organizers proudly say sold out at 400 attendees in the aftermath of the Walker fight.
The governor flew into town this morning from Los Angeles, where he appeared on HBO as part of the book tour for his new memoir, "A Reason to Believe." He also was pulling double duty in Wisconsin, holding a book signing after the dinner. In addition, copies were available for purchase at a table outside the ballroom entrance.
Romney clarifies as he proposes to 'hang' Obama with misery index
UPDATED
MANCHESTER, N.H. — Expected Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney tread on socially dangerous ground last night as he talked about the need to "hang" a misery index around the neck of Barack Obama, the nation's first black president.
Romney almost immediately caught himself, with the English major declaring "metaphorically" speaking, but the mix of nervous laughter with applause indicated at least some in the audience realized its potency.
Romney said: "You remember during the Ronald Reagan/Jimmy Carter debates? That Ronald Reagan came up with this great thing about the 'misery index,' and that he hung that around Jimmy Carter's neck, and that had a lot to do with Jimmy Carter losing. Well, we're going to have to hang the 'Obama Misery Index' around his neck. And, I'll tell you, the fact that you've got people in this country, really squeezed, with gasoline getting so expensive, with commodities getting so expensive, families are having a hard time making ends meet. So, we're going to have to talk about that, and housing foreclosures and bankruptcies and higher taxation. We're going to hang him — uh, so to speak, metaphorically — with, uh, with, uh — you have to be careful these days, I've learned that, with an Obama Misery Index."
A video of the remarks posted on YouTube cuts off at, "you have to be careful," without the final 10 words.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Americans For Prosperity Dinner live blog
Glen Johnson / Globe Staff
An attendee at tonight's Americans for Prosperity presidential candidate forum in New Hampshire saved his seat with a program.
MANCHESTER, N.H. — Five prospective Republican presidential contenders are attending a forum tonight sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, a pro-GOP group with ties to billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch.
Romney blames high prices on insufficient supply
Glen Johnson / Globe Staff
Mitt Romney spends $38.52 filling up an aide's Ford Escape while speaking with station owner Tony Chedid about high gasoline prices.
MANCHESTER, N.H. — Mitt Romney pulled out his own credit card and spent $38.52 today to fill up the Ford Escape owned by aide Will Ritter, before he blamed high gasoline prices on the country's inability to generate a sufficient supply of energy.
The prospective Republican presidential contender said the Obama administration's reliance on creating green technologies and renewable energy supplies is commendable, but it has also caused price increases because of the expectation that supply of existing fuels will not increase.
He called for more oil drilling and natural gas pipelines, as well as coal production.
Mass. native to oversee Obama's fund-raising effort
Matthew Barzun, a former Lincoln resident who is now US ambassador to Sweden, will give up his diplomatic post to work for President Obama's re-election by overseeing what some have projected could be the country's first $1 billion White House campaign, The Boston Globe has learned.
Barzun, a 40-year-old Harvard College graduate, will serve as national finance chairman for Obama for America, the president's Chicago-based campaign committee. He is replacing Penny Pritzker, the Chicago billionaire who helped raise nearly $750 million for Obama's 2008 campaign.
During the 2012 race, the Obama committee, working in unison with the Democratic National Committee, expects a fierce advertising battle after the Supreme Court struck down a ban on corporate funding of campaign commercials.
"Not only was Matthew Barzun one of the Obama campaign's top fundraisers in 2008, but he also brings strong working relationships with President Obama's supporters from across the country to this race," said a national Democrat who confirmed the appointment today.
Live-blogging N.H. Republican dinner
Check "Political Intelligence" after 6 p.m. tonight for a live blog from the Americans for Prosperity forum in Manchester, N.H.
Five prospective Republican presidential candidates — Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Michelle Bachmann, Rick Santorum, and Herman Cain — will address Republican activists in the first candidate cattle call in almost two months.
The event kicks off at 7 p.m., when Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina speaks at an hourlong dinner honoring former New Hampshire Senate candidate Ovide Lamontagne as “Conservative of the Year."
Lamontagne has become something of a GOP kingmaker in the first presidential primary state, helping to explain the turnout.
At 8 p.m., the broader speaking program begins, with each prospective candidate addressing the audience for eight minutes and then responding to questions from Tim Phillips, president of the AFP Foundation.
There will not be a direct debate, as the candidates are slated to speak in this order: Pawlenty, Santorum, Romney, Cain, and Bachmann.
The gathering is billed as a "Summit on Spending and Job Creation."
The appearance comes as a new poll sponsored by New Hampshire's leading television station, WMUR-TV, finds that President Obama's approval rating has fallen to 44 percent.
The survey also found that 52 percent of respondents disapproved of his job performance.
In one potential head-to-head matchup, Obama lost to Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, by a margin of 50 percent to 43 percent.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
N.H. Democrats charge Romney with campaign finance breach
WASHINGTON — The New Hampshire Democratic Party announced this morning that it is filing a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging that Republican Mitt Romney violated campaign finance laws by using large contributions given to a series of state PACs to fund his presidential ambitions.
The complaint asks the commission to investigate and cites a Boston Globe story published earlier this month that outlined Romney's state committee fund-raising system.
By using committees set up in individual states with no contribution limits, Romney was able to get around individual federal contribution limits of $5,000 per year. Through state committees in Alabama, Iowa, Michigan, South Carolina, and New Hampshire, the former Massachusetts governor raised large contributions totaling $1.62 million from 43 individuals in 2009 and 2010. That's an average contribution amount of $37,700.
Kerry and Brown praise nominees Petraeus and Panetta
WASHINGTON -- President Obama’s nomination of Leon Panetta as his next secretary of defense and General David Petraeus as CIA director are getting high marks today from both Massachusetts senators.
John Kerry, a Democrat, and Scott P. Brown, a Republican, praised the two men on the day that the president announced the nominations in a reshuffling of his national security team.
“While the country will miss the service of Secretary (Robert) Gates, Leon Panetta and General Petraeus are first-rate public servants whose reputations and records transcend party, and I expect broad approval and swift confirmations,” Kerry, the head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement.
Petraeus and Panetta have both served "admirably," Brown said of the two men. As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, he will participate in Panetta's hearing and vote on his nomination it goes to the full senate for confirmation.
"I look forward to learning more about their views and goals for the future during their confirmation hearings," Brown said in a statement.
FULL ENTRYObama holding Boston fundraiser May 18
President Obama is coming back to Boston next month for a fundraiser on behalf of his newly created reelection committee.
The Democrat is scheduled to appear at a 3 p.m. event at the Cyclorama in the South End on May 18.
A Democratic official who confirmed the trip would not provide further details, but if Obama follows the practice he has used in recent weeks in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City, he will attend several events for both mass audiences and more intimate groups while in the city.
The goal is to raise money for the 2012 campaign.
Obama was in Boston last month for an education event at TechBoston Academy in Dorchester, as well as a fundraiser on behalf of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee at the Museum of Fine Arts.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Patrick: 'Birther' questions 'new low' for politics
John Tlumacki/Globe Staff
President Obama came to Boston on Oct. 16 to campaign for his personal friend and political ally Governor Deval Patrick.
Governor Deval Patrick, a close personal and political friend of President Obama, today said questions about the authenticity of his birth certificate — and thus his legitimacy as the country's leader — represent "a new low in American politics."
“I hope and I believe that the American people are bigger and better than this," the Democrat said during his monthly appearance on WTKK-FM, his most free-wheeling regular public engagement.
Asked whether he felt race was motivating questions not only about Obama's birthplace but also his academic record, Patrick — like Obama the first African-American to hold his job — said: “I have no idea, but whatever is motivating it, it feels like a new low in American politics, particularly when you consider the extraordinary challenges facing this country and this president, that we would spend our time on stuff like that and attempts to marginalize our president.”
Twenty years from Boarding House Park
Jim Wilson/Globe Staff
Paul Tsongas acknowledges the crowd as he announces his candidacy for the 1992 Democratic presidential nomination during an April 30, 1991, speech in Lowell's Boarding House Park.
Listening to Donald Trump yesterday, speaking caustically and bombastically against the backdrop of a gleaming helicopter emblazoned with the name "Trump," I was struck by the contrast between him and the late Senator Paul Tsongas.
The Massachusetts Democrat announced his candidacy for the presidency 20 years ago Saturday, on April 30, 1991, and the approaching anniversary had prompted me to reminisce in recent weeks about the first White House campaign I covered.
The difference between Tsongas and Trump could not be more pronounced.
Colbert weighs in on Romney 'peacetime' comment
Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert has weighed in on Mitt Romney's suggestion earlier this week that President Obama had engaged in a huge "peacetime" spending binge.
Romney's staff later clarified that in his op-ed piece Monday for The New Hampshire Union Leader, the prospective Republican presidential contender meant to blast the incumbent for the largest expenditures since World War II.
Colbert addressed the situation last night on his satirical pundit program.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Oil company profits fuel energy debate
WASHINGTON - British Petroleum’s billion-dollar increase in profits during the first three months of this year has added further fuel to partisan debate in Congress over energy policy and tax breaks for oil companies.
A year ago, BP’s Macondo well exploded and toppled into the Gulf of Mexico, triggering one of the worst oil spills in the nation’s history. The company’s announcement today that it had earned $1.1 billion more in profits in the first quarter of this year than the same period in 2010 earned sharp criticism from US Representative Edward J. Markey of Malden. ConocoPhillips also announced about $1 billion more in profits over that period last year.
“When BP makes billions in profits, even after the year they just had, you know it’s time to cap the gusher of tax breaks that have been subsidizing the biggest oil companies for decades,” said Markey, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee.
Trump proud of self over Obama certificate release
Bill Greene/Globe Staff
Donald Trump spoke to the media in New Hampshire today.
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. - With his trademark New York bravado, Donald Trump today said "I'm very proud of myself" for supposedly prompting President Obama to release a copy of his birth certificate.
"I am really honored, frankly, to have played such a big role," the New York real estate mogul and television celebrity told reporters just after the White House announced its release.
The decision came amid lingering suggestions from so-called "birthers" that the president is not a legitimate leader because he allegedly was born in his father's native Kenya and not Hawaii, as the certificate endorses.
Trump NH schedule centered around Portsmouth
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — Donald Trump's New Hampshire schedule is secret no longer.
The prospective Republican presidential contender is scheduled to arrive at 9 a.m. at the Pease International Tradeport.
After a press conference in a Port City Air hangar (which won't begin until the rotors on Trump's helicopter stop - hair concern?), Trump will head to the Roundabout Diner at the Portsmouth Traffic Circle.
Then, at 10:30 a.m., he's slated to visit the Wilcox Industries Corp. in Newington, where he will go on a tour and meet with employees and guests.
At 12:30 p.m., Trump is the headliner at a fundraiser for the New Hampshire Republican Party, which is providing logistical support for his visit.
Then, at 3:15 p.m., Trump is stopping by Newick's Lobster House for what is sure to be a picturesque photo op.
He is due to fly out at 4:50 p.m.
Before this morning, Trump associates had refused to release his schedule, citing concerns about mischief-makers and "security" worries.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Trump stumping in NH in secret - kind of
Richard Drew/AP
Donald Trump speaks Monday during an interview with The Associated Press. Today he is making his first visit to New Hampshire as a prospective presidential candidate.
Real estate mogul and television celebrity Donald Trump is making his first visit to New Hampshire today as a prospective presidential candidate.
Just don't ask where.
After a press conference at the Pease International Tradeport in Portsmouth, the New York Republican is going to try to ditch the media pack as he makes a half-dozen secret stops aimed at introducing him to key players in the lead presidential primary state.
Trippi signs on to help Massie Senate campaign
Veteran Democratic political strategist Joe Trippi has signed on with Somerville activist Bob Massie in his campaign against US Senator Scott Brown.
Massie has already declared his candidacy for next year's Democratic nomination. City Year co-founder Alan Khazei also announced today that he was running.
In a statement, Trippi noted he began his career on the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy's 1980 presidential campaign. The strategist also was instrumental in Howard Dean's surprise showing in the 2004 Democratic presidential primary campaign.
“Bob Massie has a remarkable story in which he has demonstrated insight, courage, and tenacity," Trippi said in a statement. "He will defend the American Dream, excite the Democratic base, draw in independents, and take the seat back from Scott Brown, who simply does not represent the values of Massachusetts."
Massie campaign manager Matt Wilson said: “Joe Trippi’s history motivating and engaging the grassroots is second to none. His experience in local, national, and international politics complements Bob’s vision of a better life for all.”
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
DiMasi trial to highlight Beacon Hill wheeling, dealing
David L. Ryan/Globe Staff
The trial of former House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi, which starts today, has cast a pall over the rest of Beacon Hill. The current speaker, Robert DeLeo, left, is on the witness list, as is Governor Deval Patrick and Senate President Therese Murray. Lieutenant Governor Timothy Murray, center background, is not.
Deval Patrick railed against the "Beacon Hill culture" when he ran for governor in 2006. Now he's part of a trial with the potential to expose its most unsavory elements.
Patrick is the highest-profile potential witness in the trial of former House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi, which begins today in federal court as prospective jurors fill out questionnaires. DiMasi, a Boston Democrat, is accused of receiving $65,000 in kickbacks for helping funnel $17.5 million in state contracts to the Burlington software company Cognos.
Richard Vitale, DiMasi's friend and former accountant, and their friend Richard McDonough, are charged with extortion and mail and wire fraud, among other charges, for allegedly misappropriating DiMasi's power as speaker.
Romney learns even op-eds not safe
Live by the op-ed, die by the op-ed.
Expected Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney learned that today, when he made an apparent gaffe in what has become the favored form of communication in his carefully choreographed pre-campaign run-up: the newspaper op-ed column.
The former Massachusetts governor found that when you virtually limit your media exposure to written columns, as opposed to unrestricted media questions, you can control your message — but you also leave no one else to blame when there's trouble.
Barbour bails on 2012 presidential race
Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour announced today he would not be a candidate for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.
In a statement, he highlighted the grueling personal commitment that had made his wife, Marsha, wary of such a campaign.
"A candidate for president today is embracing a ten-year commitment to an all-consuming effort, to the virtual exclusion of all else," Barbour said. "His (or her) supporters expect and deserve no less than absolute fire in the belly from their candidate. I cannot offer that with certainty, and total certainty is required."
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Prospective GOP candidates highlight better halves
Brian Blanco for The Boston Globe
Mitt and Ann Romney arrive at an H&R Block office in Orlando, Fla., on April 15 for a tax-day discussion.
UPDATED
None of the best-known potential Republican presidential contenders has yet to formally declare his candidacy, but when they do, it's clear it'll be a two-fer.
Mitt Romney says his wife, Ann, has been the one egging him on to mount a second White House campaign.
Tim Pawlenty doesn't issue a press release without mentioning his wife Mary's assent with the news.
Obama: Public distracted from broader, thematic debate
President Obama didn't exactly blame the American people for missing the point last night as his poll numbers have plunged, but he did state they have been so focused on their daily lives they haven't focused deeply enough on the broader, more thematic underpinnings of the great recent congressional debates.
Addressing a star-studded fundraiser audience at the Tavern restaurant in Los Angeles that included actors Tom Hanks and George Clooney, Obama said he expected the majority of voters to end up siding with him when they focus their attention on the candidates, the policies they propose, and their personal values during next year's campaign.
Massachusetts listeners can't but hear the echoes of the "values" focus that Governor Deval Patrick offered during his successful reelection campaign last fall, and which he has continued amid his recent book tour.
Romney criticizes Obama on Libya policy
WASHINGTON — Likely presidential contender Mitt Romney today criticized President Obama for not being clearer on the mission in Libya, saying that the United States was entering into a "mission creep" in the war-torn country.
“It is apparent that our military is engaged in much more than enforcing a no-fly zone,” Romney wrote in a blog post on National Review Online. “What we are watching in real time is another example of mission creep and mission muddle.”
“Military action cannot be under-deliberated and ad hoc,” Romney added. “The president owes it to the American people and Congress to immediately explain his new Libya mission and its strategic rationale.”
Romney gets tweaked over health care in The Onion
Expected Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney is trying to pick and choose which media outlets he appears in before he makes any formal announcement, but there was no avoiding The Onion today.
The satirical newspaper posted a mock article in which the former Massachusetts governor ostensibly regretted signing the state's universal health care law in 2006.
"Every day I am haunted by the fact that I gave impoverished Massachusetts citizens a chance to receive health care," The Onion "quotes" Romney as saying in the satirical piece. "I'm only human, and I've made mistakes. None bigger, of course, than helping cancer patients receive chemotherapy treatments and making sure that those suffering from pediatric AIDS could obtain medications, but that's my cross to bear."
Again, it's satire. I think.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Patrick says he is not interested in running for US Senate seat
Governor Deval Patrick, pressed about his aspirations for higher
office during an appearance on national television today, said he would
not run against US Senator Scott Brown, even if President Obama urged
him to do so.
"That conversation is not going to happen, and I've been very clear I
do not want to serve in the United States Senate," Patrick said during
a five-minute interview with Matt Lauer on the "Today" show.
Patrick was appearing on the show to promote his memoir, and Lauer,
who introduced the governor as a "rising star," asked several times
whether the book was a precursor to a run for national office. Patrick
insisted it was not.
Romney urges Obama to meet with S&P officials
Expected Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney wants President Obama to personally meet with officials from Standard & Poor's after the financial agency maintained the country's AAA bond rating on Monday but downgraded its long-term outlook from "stable" to "negative."
“If you will, they downgraded the Obama presidency," Romney said today during an interview on the San Diego-based “Mark Larson Show."
"In my own view, this is not something to be laughed off as the president’s people seem to be doing. The president really ought to personally sit down and meet with S&P. I did that when I was governor (of Massachusetts); I met with the ratings agencies and talked about our future and tried to instill confidence in our future because, look, how they rate our debt and how they rate our future as a nation will affect the interest costs that we end up paying and will affect homeowners and borrowers all over the country," said Romney.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Salazar making Cape Wind announcement in Boston
Interior Secretary Kenneth Salazar is coming to Boston tomorrow to make an undisclosed announcement related to the Cape Wind offshore wind energy project.
He will appear at 10:30 a.m. at Pier 1 of the Charlestown Navy Yard along with Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Richard K. Sullivan Jr. and and Cape Wind Associates Vice President Dennis Duffy.
Cape Wind is proposed for federal waters nearly five miles off Cape Cod. Over 100 generators spread across 25 square miles of Nantucket Sound would produce up to 468 megawatts of power.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Patrick: Obama deficit speech framed values debate
President Obama's deficit-reduction speech wasn't just about numbers but what kind of country America will become, Governor Deval Patrick said this morning during an appearance on ABC's "This Week" news program.
While Republicans have criticized the partisan nature of last week's address, in which Obama proposed cutting $4 trillion over 12 years, Patrick said the critics glossed over its overarching theme.
“It’s a fiscally responsible but also mutually responsible kind of community, and I support that," the governor told host Christiane Amanpour.
Romney criticizes Obama on deficit plan
Brian Blanco for The Boston Globe
Expected Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney and his wife, Ann, listen today to the tax concerns of local business owner Jason Albu, back to camera, as H&R Block office manager Kathy Severtson, right, looks while the Romneys tour an H&R Block office in Orlando, Fla.
ORLANDO – Former Governor Mitt Romney this morning criticized President Obama’s deficit reduction plan as “deceptive and intellectually dishonest,” but largely strayed from outlining what his own proposals would look like.
He also did not fully embrace the House Republican plan to curb spending in the cherished entitlement programs Medicaid and Medicare, saying at one point that “it’s essential for us to protect Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security as safety nets for the American people.”
Republican presidential candidates have struggled to discuss both the desire to cut spending, and whether those cuts should include the politically popular entitlement programs that make up the largest chunk of spending. Romney said he supported Representative Paul Ryan for bringing the ideas forward.
“I applaud the fact that we are now talking about this issue,” Romney said, in his first public appearance since announcing on Monday that he was forming a presidential exploratory committee. “Chairman Ryan’s plan is not identical, I don’t imagine, to what I’ll be putting forward in a campaign that will potentially go forward. But it’s the right step. We’re on the same page, to put this agenda out there and talk about spending restraint.”
Kerry, Brown vote against Planned Parenthood funding ban
Both Massachusetts senators voted against a budget amendment today that would have banned federal funds from going to Planned Parenthood, a measure that was part of a bargain struck last week to avoid a government shutdown.
Scott Brown, a Republican, and John Kerry, a Democrat, were among those voting against the Planned Parenthood resolution, which was defeated 58-42. Both senators went on to vote for the six-month budget measure funding the government through September.
"As I've said before, I believe this particular cut goes too far," Brown said in a brief statement.
Brown’s vote earned praise from Dianne Luby, president of the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, who said the amendment would have cut off federal funds for a range of women’s health services, from breast cancer screening to HIV testing.
“Clearly, Senator Brown was listening to his constituents when he cast his vote to protect women’s health,” Luby said in a statement. “He understands that Planned Parenthood is an essential community provider and that cutting off access to critical preventive health services is not smart public health or fiscal policy.”
The vote was included in a pact that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio and President Obama reached late last week just before a midnight deadline to fund the government.
During the tense budget talks, House Republicans had sought to ban the use of federal funds for Planned Parenthood because the organization provides abortions, although federal law already prohibits the use of federal funds to pay for most abortions. The issue became a major obstacle to a budget deal long after spending reductions and disagreement over other social issues had been decided.
The Planned Parenthood amendment allowed the measure to receive a debate and a vote in the Senate, where the Democrats have a majority, and its defeat was expected.
Theo Emery can be reached at temery@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @temery.
Gun shop visit underscores Barbour's pitch
Glen Johnson/Globe Staff
Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, guided by New Hampshire Republican operative Michael Dennehy, walks through Riley's Gun Shop in Hooksett on the second day of his visit to the lead primary state as a prospective presidential candidate.
HOOKSETT, N.H. – With a 22-person media contingent outside, and only a handful of prospective voters inside, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour wasn't trying to conceal the message he was sending to New Hampshire voters as he wound down his first visit of the year as a prospective presidential contender.
I'm one of you, he said with deeds as much as words nonetheless spoken with a Southern drawl.
Mississippi governor roots for Red Sox
Glen Johnson/Globe Staff
Prospective Republican presidential contender Haley Barbour talked guns, the Boston Red Sox, and political issues during a visit this morning to the Chez Vachon restaurant in Manchester, N.H.
MANCHESTER, N.H. – Who knew?
Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour claimed a New England connection this morning as he confessed to being a Boston Red Sox fan on the strength of his longtime friendship with a former team catcher.
Stopping by a frequent political haunt, the Chez Vachon on the west side of Manchester, Barbour told a table that included Mayor Ted Gatsas that he played on a two-time state high school championship team with future Red Sox player Jerry Moses.
Barbour: Southern charm vs. N.H. questions
Glen Johnson/Globe Staff
Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour works with room last night as he stopped by the Bow home of Jayne and Shawn Millerick during his first visit to New Hampshire this year as a prospective presidential candidate.
BOW, N.H. – Southern charm collided with Yankee skepticism last night as Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour made his first visit of the year to New Hampshire as a prospective presidential candidate.
With his trademark drawl and affable demeanor, Barbour worked a crowd of about 30 people at the home of former New Hampshire Republican Party chairwoman Jayne Millerick, introducing himself by saying simply, "Hi, I'm Haley."
(See my earlier post here.)
Then he was peppered with questions about everything from his views on spending cuts and entitlement reform to US intervention in Libya, as voters in the lead presidential primary state upheld their tradition as vetters-in-chief of would-be commanders-in-chief.
Barbour tells N.H. he would be 'plainspoken' candidate
Glen Johnson/Globe Staff
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour addressed a house party tonight as he made his first visit to New Hampshire of the year as a prospective presidential candidate.
BOW, N.H. – Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour tonight told an audience in the lead presidential primary state of New Hampshire he would offer "casual, comfortable, plainspoken commonsense" if he decided to seek the Republican nomination.
He argued that the American people "are tired of happy talk," and need straight information about cutting government spending while also resisting the temptation to raise taxes.
He pledged a decision about his candidacy by the end of the month, as he kicked off a two-day trip that was his first to the state this year.
Romney says Obama deficit plan 'too little'
WASHINGTON — Expected Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney immediately pounced on President Obama’s deficit-cutting proposal, saying it didn’t go far enough and relied too heavily on tax increases.
“President Obama’s proposals are too little, too late,” Romney said in a statement released minutes after Obama today finished his speech outlining his plan. “Instead of supporting spending cuts that lead to real deficit reduction and true reform of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, the President dug deep into his liberal playbook for ‘solutions’ highlighted by higher taxes.”
Obama proposed a menu of options to reduce the deficit, including cuts in defense spending, an overhaul of the tax system, and an end to Bush-era tax cuts for wealthier Americans. The plan would lower the deficit by about $4 trillion over a dozen years.
Obama’s proposal comes in response to a House Republican plan that would cut $5.8 trillion in spending over the next decade. That plan would allow the Bush tax cuts — now set to expire in 2012 — to be extended indefinitely, and Republicans have opposed any proposal to end the tax break.
"With over 20 million people who are unemployed or who have stopped looking for work, the last thing we should be doing is raising taxes on job-creators, entrepreneurs, and small business owners across America,” Romney said in his statement.
Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @mviser.
'Exploratory' presidential candidates, or not?
So when is a would-be president officially a candidate?
It's a hard question to answer, since some of the rules and regulations are gray, and enforcement of them all can depend on whether a prospective candidate faces a complaint alleging their breach.
Right now, the most prominent official candidate for president of the United States is the person who already has the job, Democrat Barack Obama.
Patrick banters with Stewart on 'Daily Show'
Governor Deval Patrick endured some friendly ribbing about the state’s health care law and his political future from Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show” last night. But Patrick mostly stuck to script and let Stewart make the jokes.
Poking fun at the governor’s declaration that he is guided by conviction and idealism, Stewart said, “This politics of conviction, this idealism, have you ever thought of giving those up to run for national office?”
“I’m not running for anything else,” Patrick said, laughing. “But I haven’t given up those ideals and those values for any job.”
“I look forward to the system corrupting you,” Stewart quipped.
“Not gonna happen,” Patrick shot back in his 8-minute spot on the show, which he flew to New York to tape.
Patrick’s appearance was part of a flurry of national media appearances he is making over the next two weeks to sell his memoir, “A Reason To Believe.”
Romney on Obama: 'The citizenship test has been passed'
Mitt Romney tonight pushed back against those in his party who are questioning President Obama's citizenship, suggesting his fellow Republicans should put their energy into more substantive issues.
"The citizenship test has been passed," Romney said tonight on CNBC's Kudlow Report. "I believe the president was born in the United States. There are real reasons to get this guy out of office...but his citizenship isn't the reason why."
Several prominent Republicans — including Donald Trump and Sarah Palin — have once again tried to stoke controversy by questioning Obama's citizenship even though his birth in Hawaii has been confirmed by officials in the state.
Former N.M. Gov. Johnson making announcement
Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson said today he will make a "major announcement" on April 21 in New Hampshire.
Since the Republican previously said he would eschew the interim step of forming a presidential exploratory committee, and instead plunge directly into a campaign itself if he were to run, that announcement most likely is of his decision to become a candidate for the 2012 GOP nomination.
The announcement will be made at 9 a.m. at the Capitol in Concord, and his followup schedule only perpetuates the thought that he will declare his candidacy.
He will meet with the media for two hours afterward, lunch with state legislators, and then hold what is billed as a "public kick-off event" in Manchester.
A similar schedule holds for the next two days.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Mass. Dems. offer something more than cake
Amid all the fluff and confection of presenting Mitt Romney with cakes celebrating today's fifth anniversary of the Massachusetts universal health care law, state Democrats also produced a video with some meat on its bones.
"Thank You Mitt" contains clips of Romney, then the Bay State's governor, touting the law during appearances on the Fox News Channel and, gasp, MSNBC back in 2006.
The most potentially problematic comment is Romney claiming he "authored" the measure, since many of his fellow conservatives view the law as a precursor to the federal universal health care law enacted last year by President Obama.
2011 funding bill released with $38 billion in cuts
Congress begins a new scramble today to pass a budget bill cutting billions of dollars in spending this year, resetting the clock on the next deadline to keep the federal government running.
Early this morning, aides completed work on an appropriations bill that cuts nearly $40 billion in spending. The committee staff have been working around the clock on the bill since House Republicans, Senate Democrats, and the White House shook hands on a deal that averted a government shutdown last Friday at midnight.
The bargain makes about $27 billion in new cuts on top of roughly $12 billion that have been previously agreed to. While the Obama administration and others have described the broad outlines of the agreement, details only emerged with the release of the bill this morning.
Romney serves up campaign message cold
Julie Jacobson/AP
Expected Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney appears with Kathy, Dave, and Allie Tyler after touring their Las Vegas neighborhood on April 1. The value of the Tylers' home has decreased by more than $200,000 since 2008.
Former Massachusetts Governor William F. Weld, the Republican who launched a 16-year period of GOP rule on Beacon Hill, favored an expression apparently shared by Mitt Romney, the former governor who concluded their party's era of State House control.
"Revenge is a dish best served cold," Weld would say, quoting a phrase used in everything from the French novel "Mathilde" to "The Godfather" and "Star Trek II."
In announcing his presidential exploratory committee in a deliberately understated way, Romney declared his intentions — on his terms and in his own tone — with a variety of messages for an array of audiences.
Romney announces exploratory committee
WASHINGTON – Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney this afternoon announced he was forming a presidential exploratory committee, allowing him to start raising money for a presidential bid he has been preparing for almost since the moment he lost the 2008 Republican nomination.
Romney made the announcement in a video posted on a new website. It was taped with little fanfare at the University of New Hampshire following a meeting between the Romney and students who said they were worried about getting a job after graduation.
“I have become convinced that America has been put on a dangerous course by Washington politicians, and it has become even worse during the last two years. But I am also convinced that with able leadership, America's best days are still ahead,” Romney says in the video. “That is why today I am announcing my exploratory committee for the presidency of the United States.”
Romney is planning to open his campaign headquarters next month in Boston – in the same building his last campaign was based, on Commercial Street in the North End. Romney aides declined to say whether he would participate in the first GOP presidential debate, scheduled for May 5 in South Carolina.
FULL ENTRYFifth anniversary health care fodder for Romney
David L. Ryan, Globe Staff
Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney shares a laugh with House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi and other Democrats as the Republican signs the state's universal health care law at Faneuil Hall on April 12, 2006.
Northeast Democrats will be at their most creative today and tomorrow, as they aim to tweak Republican Mitt Romney in conjunction with the fifth anniversary of the Massachusetts universal health care law.
New Hampshire Democrats are sending out an email at 9 a.m. today, urging their supporters to flood Romney's official Twitter handle, @MittRomney, with thanks and congratulations for a piece of legislation that is anathema to many of his fellow conservatives across the country.
The 2006 Massachusetts law, signed while Romney was governor of the state, became the model for the 2010 federal universal health care law signed by President Obama, the Democrat he hopes to face in next year's presidential race.
Patrick's 'Today' appearance is postponed
Governor Deval Patrick's planned appearance Monday on NBC-TV's "Today" show is being postponed until later this week.
The date still has yet to be set, but spokesman Steve Crawford said the Democrat fell prey to the crush of recent news, including the near-government shutdown that finally was resolved just before midnight Friday.
Instead, the governor will spend Monday in Boston.
This week is the launch of the book tour for the governor's memoir, "A Reason to Believe."
Patrick is still slated to head to New York on Tuesday for a series of stops, including Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
DVR/VCR/Live TV alert: Patrick on 'Today' Monday
Governor Deval Patrick embarks on his booktour Monday, with a pretty good first stop: A time slot in the 7 a.m. hour on NBC-TV's "Today" show.
It's shown locally on WHDH-TV (Channel 7).
It's still unclear who will interview him, but the governor is expected to talk about his memoir, "A Reason to Believe."
As a friend and political ally of President Obama, he could also expect questions about any government shutdown, the fifth anniversary of the Massachusetts health care law (on Tuesday), and his dust-up with Senator Scott Brown at today's groundbreaking for the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate.
The governor is coming back to Massachusetts after the show, but heading back to New York on Tuesday for a series of stops, including Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
White House garden tour in jeopardy
Several readers have written in the aftermath of my recent post about the wonderful annual spring White House Garden Tour being offered this weekend.
Maybe.
They have asked whether the tours would be affected by a federal government shutdown, and the answer is yes.
A White House official told me that all tours of the president's home would be cancelled during a shutdown, including garden tours.
President Obama and his family were supposed to vacate the premises this weekend and visit Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia, but that trip has been scotched as the administration tries to avert a shutdown at midnight.
If one were avoided, the silver lining for anyone on a garden tour is that they would apparently gain a chance to see the president.
The White House also offers garden tours each fall, typically in October — assuming any shutdown doesn't last that long.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Mass. Dems to tweak Romney over health law
Massachusetts Democrats plan to mark Tuesday's fifth anniversary of the state's universal health care law with balloons, speeches, and a sheetcake.
For former Governor Mitt Romney.
The tweak is aimed at embarrassing the expected Republican presidential contenders as he continues to criticize the Obama administration's federal universal health care law that is based on his Massachusetts law.
Pelosi speaking today at Tufts
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is delivering the inaugural Alan D. Solomont Lecture at Tufts University today.
The California Democrat, who served as the first female speaker of the House, planned to reflect on her career and the importance of public service during a 2 p.m. address in the school's Cohen Auditorium.
This lecture is part of the 10th anniversary celebration of the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Romney gives $45,000 to GOP committees
Expected Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney is giving $45,000 to GOP election committees in the aftermath of President Obama announcing his re-election campaign.
Romney's Free and Strong America PAC is giving $15,000 apiece to the Republican National Committee, National Republican Senatorial Committee, and the National Republican Congressional Committee.
The latter two are charged with electing Republicans to the US Senate and US House, respectively. The RNC, meanwhile, is ultimately charged with helping elect a Republican president.
The former Massachusetts governor said in a statement this afternoon: “President Obama and his big spending allies in Congress have confused priorities for our nation. Instead of focusing on putting unemployed Americans back to work, they have raised taxes, expanded the size and scope of government, and prolonged the recession. I believe that by electing Republicans, we will make America strong and prosperous again.”
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Social media let candidates bypass traditional media
Bryan Snyder/Reuters
Howard Dean drew big crowds during the 2004 presidential race, but his campaign was fueled with vast sums of money raised over the Internet. Eight years later, declared and likely 2012 candidates are taking advantage of another digital development - social media - to boost their campaigns.
Tim Pawlenty announced he was forming a presidential exploratory committee via Facebook.
President Obama announced he was seeking reelection to the highest office in the country via a YouTube video.
Mitt Romney sent out his retort via Twitter.
Collectively, those developments have highlighted the prominent role social media will play in the 2012 presidential campaign.
Romney hits Obama over Gitmo reversal
Expected Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney today gave a Bronx cheer for the Obama administration's decision to hold trials for the top 9/11 suspect and four alleged co-conspirators at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, instead of as planned in New York City.
“An inexperienced and naďve president has finally reversed himself on Guantanamo and terrorist trials; let’s hope he sees the light on his other flawed policies," the former Massachusetts governor said in a statement.
Attorney General Eric Holder announced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the others will appear before a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay rather than before a civilian court on Manhattan.
Another Massachusetts Republican, Senator Scott Brown, lauded the reversal, too.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Brown lauds Gitmo trial for 9/11 suspect
Senator Scott Brown today issued a statement in reaction to the Obama administration's decision to forgo a civilian trial in New York City for alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other suspects.
Instead, they will appear before a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Brown, a military lawyer in the Massachusetts National Guard, had opposed the New York plan and advocated for a Guantanamo proceeding.
Romney uses Twitter to tweak Obama announcement
Expected Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney used his Twitter account this morning to respond to the announcement of President Obama's re-election campaign.
"@barackobama I look forward to hearing details on your jobs plan, as are 14m unemployed Americans," @MittRomney said in his cheeky post.
Romney's retort followed Obama's decision to use YouTube to release a video announcing his re-election campaign.
Romney then popped out his Twitter response, before another likely GOP presidential candidate, former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, released his own response via YouTube.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Pawlenty uses own video to respond to Obama
Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty certainly isn't dithering.
No sooner had President Obama's re-election committee released its kickoff video this morning than did Pawlenty's committee release its retort.
In his own YouTube spot, Pawlenty pokes at Obama's new signature phrase by asking, "How can America 'Win the Future' when we're losing the present?"
After showing a series of dark scenes and downtrodden voices, Pawlenty himself says to camera, "In order for American to take a new direction, it's going to take a new president."
Pawlenty, a first-time national candidate, has already announced, via Facebook, the formation of a presidential exploratory committee.
Using another social medium for Obama's announcement and Pawlenty's reaction shows the rise of YouTube as an inexpensive and direct means of communicating with voters.
There's no 30-second commercial to finance, and no reporters serving as a middleman on the message.
The candidates also benefit from follow-up coverage — and links to their spots — that send the message virally.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
As Republicans wait, Obama kicks off re-election campaign
As Republicans form presidential exploratory committees, or promise to do so, or hint that one is coming, the incumbent isn't dithering.
President Obama kicked off his re-election campaign this morning with a video featuring average citizens making the case for giving him a second term.
The president's team will follow-up by filing papers official paperwork with the Federal Election Committee and then a fundraising drive. The re-election campaign, as with his 2008 campaign, will be based in his hometown of Chicago.
Obama does not speak in the kickoff film, which opens with a scene featuring "Ed" from North Carolina.
It's no coincidence that someone with a Southern accent, and from a state so coveted by the Democrats they are holding their 2012 convention in Charlotte, is given such a prominent role.
His message also is an appeal to Obama true believers as well as some of his early supporters who may have lost their enthusiasm as the aftereffects of the Great Recession have lingered and, more recently, the president launched military action in Libya.
"I don't agree with Obama on everything, but I respect him and I trust him,'' says Ed.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Romney comes for foreign policy, leaves defending Mass. health care
LAS VEGAS – It was billed as a foreign policy address, but it didn’t take long before the most prominent issue that could haunt Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign came up.
The first question from the audience after his 24-minute address before the Republican Jewish Coalition here was not about Israel or unrest in the Middle East. It was about Romney’s health care plan in Massachusetts.
Romney largely defended the rationale of the Massachusetts plan, saying that it helped spur greater health care coverage so uninsured residents wouldn’t simply go to emergency rooms for care.
But he sought to distinguish the plan from President Obama’s national plan by casting it as an issue of states’ rights.
FULL ENTRYRomney tours Nevada neighborhood, criticizes Obama on economy
NORTH LAS VEGAS, Nev. – Likely presidential candidate Mitt Romney this afternoon toured a depressed neighborhood besieged by foreclosed homes as he continued trying to criticize President Obama’s handling of the economy.
Romney so far has staked his budding presidential bid on economic concerns, but new upticks in the unemployment rates could complicate his case.
“I’m afraid some people are becoming conditioned to unemployment rates above 8 percent,” Romney said today. “Unemployment should be around 4 percent or less. And the idea that we celebrate 8.8 percent, I’m glad for the progress, but my goodness, we’ve got a lot of people out of work.”
Romney accuses Obama of 'acquiescence' to job loss
UPDATED
Expected Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney today accused President Obama of inattention to job creation.
The Democratic National Committee responded by criticizing Romney's job creation record while governor of Massachusetts, as well as job losses in the aftermath of corporate acquisitions while he ran Bain Capital
In an op-ed piece appearing in USA Today, Romney called for tax polices that reward savings, investment, entrepreneurial risk-taking, and exports; free, open, and fair access to foreign markets; elimination of what he termed "the federal bureaucratic and regulatory stranglehold on business"; and budget restraints and entitlement reform.
FULL ENTRYObama poll standing rises among 'Millennials'
A Harvard University poll released this morning found President Obama's approval rating rising among the so-called "Millennials" or "Generation Y" that spans from 18 to 29 years old.
The president had an approval rating of 55 percent, up 6 percentage points from a similar survey last fall. Both were conducted by Harvard’s Institute of Politics, which is part of the John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Among students at four-year college campuses, Obama's approval rating rose even more, from 51 percent last fall to 69 percent now.
White House garden tour set for April 9-10
Pete Souza/The White House
President Obama surprises a tour group outside the Oval Office on Sunday, Jan. 30. Visitors will have a chance to see the grounds outside during the weekend of April 9-10.
Anybody thinking about a trip to Washington should consider the weekend of April 9-10, when the White House will open its grounds for its annual spring garden tour.
During our family's more than five years living in the DC area, this was a highlight.
Guests get screened at the East Gate, go through part of the East Wing, and then head outside to see the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden, the South Lawn, and the Rose Garden. The Obama administration also offers a new stop: the Kitchen Garden.
Biden to speak at UNH about school sex assault
Vice President Joseph Biden is visiting the University of New Hampshire on Monday to call attention to the high rates of sexual assault and violence committed against young women in schools and on college campuses across the country, the White House announced today.
Joined by US Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Biden will will introduce new guidance to help schools, colleges, and universities understand their civil rights obligations to better prevent and respond to sexual assault, a statement said.
Biden was the author of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 and worked as a US senator to change the way domestic violence is handled.
Nonetheless, the statement said, young women aged 16-24 experience the highest rates of rape and sexual assault, while one-in-five will be a victim of sexual assault during college.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Obama fuels talk of Kaine Senate candidacy
Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP
Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine shakes President Obama's hand last night after introducing him at a party fundraiser at the Studio Museum in Harlem.
President Obama has once again borrowed from Governor Deval Patrick, this time when it comes to nudging along prospective US Senate candidates.
Patrick created a stir in February when he bluntly told a National Journal reporter that City Year cofounder Alan Khazei, Somerville activist Bob Massie, and Newton Mayor Setti Warren were "in, for sure" for next year's US Senate race against Republican Scott Brown.
That left Khazei and Warren scrambling to clarify that they had not made any final decision. Massie had already declared his candidacy.
Pawlenty headlining Boston Tea Party rally
David L. Ryan/Globe Staff
Worcester residents Ken Ricardi, Scott Schaeffer-Duffy, and Julia Skjerli hold an anti-war demonstration amid last year's Greater Boston Tea Party rally on Boston Common. Tea Party members say former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty will be the keynote speaker this year.
Likely Republican presidential contender Tim Pawlenty is headlining an upcoming Tea Party anti-tax rally on Boston Common.
The third annual event, sponsored by the Greater Boston Tea Party, will occur from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on April 15 — the tax-filing deadline.
The speech will bring Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota, to the home state of a potential rival for the 2012 GOP nomination, Mitt Romney.
It also puts him in a Tea Party spotlight enjoyed last year by former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, who was the event's 2010 keynote speaker.
"Governor Pawlenty's leadership in Minnesota has put his state on a course towards economic success," said a statement issued by Christin Varley, the group's president. "His is a message voters need to hear."
Also slated to appear is former state Representative Karyn Polito, a Shrewsbury Republican who waged an unsuccessful campaign for state treasurer last fall.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Romney re-hires key player for political committee
Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney has re-hired a policy expert from his 2008 campaign for his expected second White House run.
Though the former Massachusetts governor has not formally announced another campaign, a string of recent hirings and comments has dropped all pretense that he is undecided about running again.
His Free and Strong America PAC announced today that Lanhee Chen will join the PAC as policy director.
In 2008, Chen served as Romney's chief domestic policy adviser during his first campaign for president. He was also a health policy adviser to the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign.
Chen went on to serve the Bush administration as a senior policy and political aide at the US Department of Health and Human Services.
Most recently, Chen was the deputy campaign manager and policy director for Steve Poizner, the California insurance commissioner who made a failed bid for governor.
Chen earned a doctorate and masters in political science, a law degree cum laude, and an undergraduate degree in Government, magna cum laude, all from Harvard University.
Romney himself has business and law degrees from the school.
In recent weeks, the former governor has hired a new communications adviser and filled other top jobs at the PAC, which previously had been financing his national travels and providing a vehicle for him to make donations to like-minded political candidates.
Most recently, Romney sent $25,000 to the New Jersey Republican Party to help finance its activities.
Romney also penned a blog item last week talking about how he would change the Obama administration's health insurance program. It began, "If I were president..."
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Governor again makes news on a Friday
Elise Amendola/AP
Governor Deval Patrick speaks to reporters on March 18 after returning from his trade mission to Israel and the United Kingdom. He will be on the road again next month, following a book tour schedule announced Friday.
If there's one thing reporters covering the Patrick administration have come to expect, it's the Friday-afternoon news dump.
As the State House echoes with emptiness, as the public turns its attention from a week of work to a weekend of play, the administration has made a practice of stepping into the vacuum and filling it with unsavory news that can lose some of its pungency before Monday rolls around.
In a one-month span last fall, the topics ran the gamut, from tax collections that came in below expectations to the resignations of two Cabinet members, as well as the release of a well-past-deadline report analyzing the generous compensation at public-private agencies in the state.
Romney is paddling fast below waterline
Items that piled up amid a week focused on long-term planning for the boston.com Politics page...
MITT ROMNEY:
For anyone who doubts if the former Massachusetts governor is going to take a second shot at the White House, Romney himself pretty much eliminated all question this week with a National Review blog post that began, "If I were president..."
It didn't say, "If I follow Ann's advice and decide to run for president...," an ode to Romney's past suggestion his wife was trying to coax him into a campaign.
Then, as Romney moved from Washington to New York for a meeting with big-money supporters, The Wall Street Journal popped up with what appeared to be a campaign-sanctioned story about Romney's effort to raise $50 million to overwhelm his potential opponents.
Follow-up reports on yesterday's meeting at the Harvard Club in Manhattan revealed that Romney may announce a presidential exploratory committee in early April, building momentum for a 15-city fundraising sweep that ends with a major event in Las Vegas on May 16.
Romney observers may recall he jumpstarted his 2008 campaign with a January 2007 telethon at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center that raised $6.5 million — then a considerable sum for such a relatively unknown national candidate.
A formal campaign kickoff would come later, just as in 2007, when Romney followed up the big fundraiser with an announcement speech at the Henry Ford Museum outside Detroit.
Word also leaked this week that Team Romney had signed two operatives for any New Hampshire campaign. Jim Merrill, who served as state director in 2008, will be senior adviser in 2012. And Jason McBride, who ran Romney's winning Michigan campaign last time around, will take over as New Hampshire campaign manager.
As another Romney senior adviser, Tom Rath, recently told the Globe's Matt Viser: “It’s like a duck; there’s a lot more activity going on under the water than on top of the water."
REDISTRICTING:
The release of Massachusetts town-by-town US Census data this week lays the factual foundation for both legislative and congressional redistricting efforts.
That said, there is always a political overlay anytime those maps are redrawn (see: Gerry, Elbridge).
If history is any guide, the math will now be contorted to address political considerations.
Overall, the biggest mathematical fact is that the state is losing one congressional seat because of its overall population decline. It will drop from 10 to nine districts.
The other fact is that the borders of Massachusetts remain unchanged, meaning those nine districts will soon have to be stretched to cover what is currently 10 districts' worth of population.
Each will soon expand to include over 700,000 people.
From the political perspective, those redrawing the congressional lines will look for signs of candidate weakness or some figment of rationale as they force two of the current House members to square off for just one seat.
The district that had the slowest growth, and is represented by the oldest member, is the far-western District 1, where Representative John Olver serves. His district could be merged with neighboring District 2, which had more than double the growth and is represented by Richard E. Neal, the former mayor of Springfield.
But Olver sits on the House Appropriations Committee, while Neal is near the top on the House Ways and Means Committee. Forcing them to run off would inevitably hurt the state's political clout in one form or another.
The other two districts with the smallest growth — Districts 6 and 10 — are represented by John Tierney and William Keating, respectively.
One one level, it's a true pick-'em.
Tierney's wife just completed a jail sentence after pleading guilty to aiding and abetting the filing of false tax returns for managing a banking account that collected more than $7 million in illegal gambling profits. The question lingers about how the congressman did not know about that. Keating, meanwhile, is a freshman lawmaker, with the least seniority in the delegation.
Yet Tierney represents a distinct geographical area, the North Shore, as does Keating, Cape Cod and the South Shore.
One school of thought has Tierney forced into a showdown with Representative Niki Tsongas, whose District 5 spans the neighboring Merrimack Valley and has repeatedly shown Republican tendencies. Tsongas, though, is the lone female in the delegation.
A competing school of thought has Keating forced into a runoff against Representative Barney Frank, a popular and veteran member whose District 4 stretches from Newton to Fall River. That would take some map-maneuvering, but Frank once noted that including Fall River in his current district recalls the Russians' quest for a warm-water port on the Black Sea.
It's currently hard to attach any political rationale to ousting any of the other congressmen, who have a blend of seniority, population centers, and political stature to retain a seat.
CHARLES BAKER:
Last fall's Republican gubernatorial contender has made it clear this month he's moved on from his campaign, announcing his new job with a venture capital firm and his seat on the board of a local credit union.
Yet each could also signal he hasn't left politics behind.
Both positions will put him in proximity to small- and mid-sized businesses and job creation, a far cry from the corporate health insurance post that Governor Deval Patrick used to portray him as lacking the common touch during the 2010 campaign.
Give Baker a couple years to rebound from the more than $2 million in salary he gave up while running for governor and he'd be positioned to consider another run for the Corner Office or the US Senate.
Another sign Baker hasn't left Patrick — or politics — behind?
He just sent his supporters an email seeking contributions for The Massachusetts Soldiers Legacy Fund and a tribute to Tom Kelley.
Kelley served as secretary of Veterans Affairs under both Republican and Democratic governors before Patrick, having just won re-election in November, told the Medal of Honor winner his services were no longer needed. Kelley was replaced by Coleman Nee, a Gulf War veteran the governor argued may be better attuned to the needs of more recent veterans.
"Many of us were disappointed that Tom left state service without any kind of gathering to celebrate his 40 years of service, so we decided to hold a party in his honor on his birthday, Friday, May 13th," Baker wrote in his none-too-subtle tweak to his former rival.
Net proceeds, he explained, would go to the Legacy Fund, which raises money to pay for college scholarships for the children of Massachusetts servicemen and women who have lost their lives fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq."
"Tom is a great American and a good man," Baker told his past – and possibly future – supporters.
JEFF MULLAN:
The governor coldly dismissed Bernard Cohen as state transportation secretary, then backtracked on 2006 campaign criticism of the "Big Dig culture" by hiring Jim Aloisi as his replacement.
He finally seemed to hit the mark by hiring Mullan to oversee the state's road, rail, port, and aviation systems.
Mullan is part of the team that has been charged with implementing a massive transportation consolidation law, which eliminated the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority as a free-standing entity and aimed to eliminate duplication by folding a lot of transportation back-office functions into the singular MassDOT.
From aging bridges to pothole-filled roads, from commuter-rail trains that don't come on time or T subway trains that dash through a flaming railbed like a circus tiger jumping through a burning hoop, the exposure to criticism for any transportation chief is immense.
For the most part, Mullan has handled it with aplomb. His admitted — and biggest — mistake? This month's botched explanation about how he and his department responded after a 110-pound light fixture fell off the ceiling of a Big Dig tunnel ceiling.
First, Mullan said he had kept Patrick in the dark because he wanted to inspect the other 23,000 fixtures in the Big Dig tunnel before telling the governor about the scope of the problem and his proposed remedy.
The governor was upset with that decision, and some in the public asked what responsibility Mullan would have had if another light fell and landed on some unsuspecting driver.
Mullan apologized.
Then, the Globe reported yesterday that Mullan's staff actually hadn't told him about the light falling until shortly before he told the governor. He said he wasn't lying the first time around, just speaking in the collective "we" as he outlined when his agency first learned of the problem, the steps it took to quantify the problem, and when he finally told the governor about it.
He pledged a full review of internal and external communications, with answers as early as today, but the whole episode sparked questions about whether Mullan should remain as transportation secretary.
Mullan may have blown the falling-light episode, but there's a lot to like about him as a public servant.
He's from here, having grown up in Worcester. He went to school here, at UMass-Amherst and Suffolk University Law School. He has worked here, having been a partner at the Boston law firm Foley Hoag LLP.
Perhaps most importantly, he has served the state, first in the Department of Public Works, then, after leaving his law firm, in a variety of transportation roles. On top of that, he still serves his hometown of Milton in one of local government's most thankless roles, as a member of the Board of Appeals.
When the dust settled, the story about how he learned about the falling light also was instructive: Mullan, driving through the Big Dig, wondered why engineers were up on a lift, inspecting light fixtures.
His follow-up question led to an unsettling answer and admittedly lousy communication, but that runs counter to a professionalism, plainspokeness, and selflessness that's long been on display to those who closely follow state government in general and transportation matters in particular.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Romney shooting for win – in fundraising
Likely Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney is trying to put the pieces in place so he can achieve a resounding victory in the so-called first primary: fundraising.
The former Massachusetts governor has been traveling the country — he was at the Harvard Club in New York today — to sign up key donors for his emerging campaign. Donors are pledging to raise at least $25,000 — and up to $100,000 or more — in order to help him make an emphatic statement to rivals and voters alike well before the first primaries and caucuses.
“I don’t know how to underline more that I believe what will shine through is his undeniable heartfelt enthusiastic belief about the greatness of this country,” said Lewis Eisenberg, a prominent hedge fund manager who was the finance chairman for John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign and is now committed to Romney.
Romney’s supporters expect him to announce an exploratory committee sometime next month, which would kick off the aggressive fundraising campaign. A Romney aide said his finance team is using a figure of at least $50 million to describe the minimum amount they believe it will take to win the GOP nomination.
Most candidates, including Romney, have been dancing around the idea of running for president, but within weeks several candidates are likely to take more formal steps. Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty filed paperwork earlier this week to establish an exploratory committee, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia said he soon intends to do the same.
Others have been more coy about their plans, and have suggested they would wait until the summer to make their decisions. But if Romney forms an exploratory committee next month — allowing him to start raising money for his campaign — it could force other candidates to jump into the race in order to compete with his fundraising.
The warning bell will go off on April 1, the start of the second quarter.
Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com.
Romney, Brown, and advisers walking tightrope
Jim Davis/Globe Staff
Mitt Romney shakes Scott Brown's hand after he won the Massachusetts US Senate special election on Jan. 19, 2010.
As Senator Scott Brown skewered leading Massachusetts Democrats with a joke-filled routine during a St. Patrick's Day political roast over the weekend, one of his top advisers delighted in a moment he helped script.
"Scott Brown at St. Patty's Day breakfast says he doesn't think John Kerry is an elitist ... and 'neither do his butlers,'" communications consultant Eric Fehrnstrom said via Twitter.
"Ha! Scott Brown says Southie parade only one where (House) speaker rides in a car for which previous speaker made the license plate," Fehrnstrom said in another of his series of tweets.
Yet as the crowd roared when Brown displayed a bipartisan flair, telling another joke that tweaked fellow Republican Mitt Romney for owning not one but three houses, Fehrnstrom's Twitter feed went silent.
No re-tweet of that dig at Fehrnstrom's original, and ongoing, boss. No basking in the glory enjoyed by his subsequent, and continued, boss.
The decision illustrates the challenge confronting Romney and Brown — and some of the key men and women who have helped both reach their high stations in national politics.
Fehrnstrom and business partners Peter Flaherty and Beth Myers not only served Romney as governor of Massachusetts; they were top staffers for his unsuccessful campaign for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.
They then branched out on their own, formed the Massachusetts-based Shawmut Group, and directed Brown's upset win in the 2010 Massachusetts US Senate special election.
Now, the trio is assisting Romney as he plots a second presidential campaign and Brown as he seeks re-election to his first full Senate term.
The men's political fates could be decided the same day, Nov. 6, 2012, but the candidates and their advisers will face a challenge until then working in such close proximity to each other.
Romney was extraordinarily popular in Massachusetts when, in 2002, he returned from his successful leadership of the Olympic Winter Games and was elected governor. His star dimmed, though, as he began laying the groundwork for his presidential campaign with a move to the right, jokes before conservative audiences about his liberal homestate, and heavy out-of-state travel.
Such was his station that he was a virtual no-show for his running mate, Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey, as she ran to succeed him in the 2006 gubernatorial race.
Healey was happy to have it that way.
Romney also dropped out of sight during Brown's 2010 campaign, only to take the stage on election night — after voters had already cast their ballots.
Brown was happy to have it that way, too.
Today, both men are complimentary but not necessarily complementary toward each other.
Brown declared early and often that Romney has his endorsement in the race for the GOP's 2012 presidential nomination. Romney has reciprocated, highlighting Brown's success as proof a strong Republican message can penetrate even the bluest of Democratic states.
Yet there is potential for future tensions.
First of all, there is time and focus for their mutual advisers. Romney will face a hydra-headed challenge for the nomination, confronted simultaneously by rivals such as Tim Pawlenty and Haley Barbour and Newt Gingrich. Or Sarah Palin.
That will occur this fall and next spring, well before Brown's re-election campaign begins (he almost assuredly won't face a Republican challenger for the GOP's Senate nomination). So far, so good.
But if Romney wins the nomination, and Democrats succeed in their effort to recruit a challenger to Brown, both of their campaigns will reach their peaks the following fall.
Who gets the Shawmut Group's best effort? Best commercial ideas? Debate prep? Political roast jokes?
Secondly, as Romney veers rightward nationally to win the nomination, while Brown moves to the center to win re-election in Massachusetts, conflicting views are inevitable. Each is his own man, but it's only natural for two people with similar political pedigrees to face questions about the other's policy views.
After all, if Romney and Brown were to win their campaigns, Brown would have to vote on Romney administration programs.
Currently, both men express similar views about Libya: They say US air strikes were justified because Moammar Khadafy was slaughtering his own countrymen.
Recently, though, they differed on the New START Treaty: Romney vehemently opposed the pact President Obama signed with Russia, while Brown voted for its ratification.
Both will also have to stage an artful dance as they call for repealing Obama's universal health care program, which was modeled after a 2006 Massachusetts bill that then-state Senator Brown voted for and then-Governor Romney signed into law.
Advisers argue that despite their shared party, geographical roots, and team of advisers, Romney and Brown are individual candidates with their own views. On some points they agree; on others, they don't.
You can also argue that Brown will benefit if Romney is at the top of the Massachusetts ballot come the fall of 2012, or, perhaps more likely, that Romney will benefit from being on the same ballot as a senator consistently polling as the most popular politician in Massachusetts.
And should Romney run, Fehrnstrom, Myers, and Flaherty are not expected to be paid staff members again but consultants. Fehrnstrom, for example, doesn't plan to be on Romney's plane again as traveling press secretary; rather, he intends to work from the home office and focus on message development and television commercials.
In Massachusetts, a relatively shallow Republican talent pool also doesn't give Brown many other options with Shawmut's breadth of local experience or national contacts.
Finally, Fehrnstrom and the other advisers note that they are hardly the only political consultants with more than one client. Their roster includes other politicians and businesses they prefer not to name.
"Our consulting business is not unlike other firms that have more than one client," said Fehrnstrom, readying himself for another Democratic tweak. "In this economy, we’re just thankful to have any clients at all."
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Romney: 'If president, I would waive 'Obamacare''
Former Governor Mitt Romney is marking the first anniversary of President Obama's universal health care law by vowing to dismantle it state-by-state.
"If I were president, on Day One I would issue an executive order paving the way for Obamacare waivers to all 50 states," the would-be Republican presidential candidate said Tuesday night in a blog post for the "National Review."
Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, who announced Monday he was forming a presidential exploratory committee, released his own statement this morning saying he would support the law's repeal. While governor last year, he joined a lawsuit seeking to do just that.
"The law infringes on individuals' and states' rights by forcing individuals to purchase a good or service," he said. "If courts do not do so first, as president, I would support the immediate repeal of 'Obamacare' and replace it with market-based health care reforms."
Romney's statement used his most aggressive language yet regarding a potential presidential campaign. He insists publicly he has yet to decide whether to seek the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, yet nearly all of his actions for the past two years have been geared that way.
A formal kickoff is expected later this spring.
Romney presided over Massachusetts when, in 2006, it enacted the nation's first universal health care law. Now over 98 percent of state residents have private, government, or government-subsidized private coverage.
Last year, Obama signed a federal law modeled on the same principles, including a mandate that all residents obtain whatever coverage they can afford, as well as penalties for not doing so.
Romney said in his blog post that his executive order would direct the secretary of Health and Human Services and all relevant federal officials "to return the maximum possible authority to the states to innovate and design health-care solutions that work best for them."
The former governor argues states should be free to enact what Democrats have countered is "Romneycare."
He said in his statement: "As I have stated time and again, a one-size-fits-all national plan that raises taxes is simply not the answer. Under our federalist system, the states are 'laboratories of democracy.'"
Romney said his ultimate goal is to repeal the Obama program "and replace it with free-market reforms that promote competition and lower health-care costs."
Acknowledging such a repeal would take time, "an executive order is the first step in returning power to the states," he said.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Biden tries to rally past, potential supporters
Globe colleague Noah Bierman represented the Boston-area media today as he served as pool reporter for Vice President Joseph Biden's appearance at what Governor Deval Patrick termed a "friend-raiser" in the Hancock tower.
My preview story is here.
In his pool report, which the White House relayed to other reporters, Bierman said Biden addressed about 110 major Democratic donors on the building's 58th floor.
He also said the vice president spoke for 21 minutes, during which he tried to rally core financial supporters; recited administration accomplishments; and talked about the need to work with Republicans while repelling some policy goals he said would damage
the nation’s economic recovery and enlarge the deficit.
A storified version of the report's highlights:
“Thank you on behalf of Barack and myself for all the hard work you did," Biden told his Boston audience. "I would not be standing here. He would not be representing the United States of America in South America right now, were it not for the work of you folks in this room and probably another 1,000 like you all across America.”
He added: “It’s not just that we couldn’t have won without you. We will not be able to win
again without you.”
Biden also spoke about new Republican majority in US House of Representatives.
“The cuts that the Republicans are talking about would not only cripple the economy, but they would also enlarge the deficit," he said.
Biden said of the more conservative members elected recently, “They mix up the Tea Party that took place in Boston Harbor and the Tea Party they represent.”
But Biden also called it a “myth” that the White House cannot work with Republicans,
pointing to the 17-day lame duck session as more productive “than any time in
the last two years.”
Biden was introduced by Governor Deval Patrick, who is planning to serve as a surrogate campaigner for Obama and Biden in the coming campaign.
“We stopped the red tide here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and we have
many of you to thank for that," Patrick said.
Offering what what could be his own stump speech, Patrick said of Republicans: “They
have set as their goal, not how to make a better country, but to stop this
administration.”
Among those spotted in the crowd were advertising executive Jack Connors, Lieutenant Governor Timothy Murray, Senate President Therese Murray, and House Speaker Robert DeLeo.
The food included passed hors d'oeuvres of miniature beef “Wellington” and warm melted-brie tartlets.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Pawlenty announces presidential exploratory committee
WASHINGTON — Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty is taking the first formal step today toward a presidential run, putting him in front of the pack of potential candidates.
Pawlenty announced — through a video posted on his Facebook page this afternoon — that he is forming a presidential exploratory committee. The committee allows him to begin raising money for a presidential race, even while not technically being a formal candidate.
The video shows Pawlenty in St. Paul, Minn., dressed in a beige jacket that is strikingly familiar to the barn jacket Scott Brown wore to victory in Massachusetts (Brown’s was made by Golden Bear Sportswear; Pawlenty’s clearly has a Carhartt label).
The heavily produced video also shows Pawlenty shaking hands, posing for pictures, and skating on an ice rink.
“There is a brighter future for America,” he says at one point, with soaring music in the background. “We know what we need to do: grow jobs, limit govt spending, and tackle entitlements.”
“Today, I’m announcing the formation of an exploratory committee to run for president of the United States,” he says toward the end, as fighter planes blast through the sky and fireworks go off. “Join the team, and together we’ll restore America.”
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich previously declared he intends to form an exploratory committee at some future date, likely in May.
Pawlenty has already traveled to New Hampshire and hired aides to work on a campaign, but the committee step is the next available to candidates to earn free media coverage in advance of a pomp-filled formal announcement.
The announcement also reflects the new-media tools available to candidates, in how they choose to make major political news. Rather than staging a press conference or addressing supporters in a ballroom, Pawlenty is choosing to weigh in on the most popular social networking site.
“Be sure to visit my Facebook page today at 3 p.m. ET for a special message exclusive to Facebook supporters,” Pawlenty posted this morning on his Facebook page.
He sent a similar message out on his Twitter feed.
Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com.
Biden visiting Hancock tonight for 'friend-raiser'
Vice President Joseph Biden is visiting the Hancock tower in Boston this evening for a pair of events, including one that Governor Deval Patrick says is a "friend-raiser" ahead of the 2012 presidential election.
One of the two meetings is taking place in the personal offices of Jack Connors, the local advertising executive who has been spearheading the fundraising effort for the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, according to a Connors assistant and a top local Democrat who saw the invitation.
"Massachusetts has been good to the Obama-Biden ticket, and was the last time around, and the administration has been good to Massachusetts, and the vice president is here to refresh those relationships and rally some of the organizers for the coming election," Patrick told reporters at the State House.
The trip is coming almost exactly two weeks after President Obama visited the city for a fundraiser on behalf of the committee charged with helping elect Democrats to the US House of Representatives.
The back-to-back visits underscore the party's emphasis on strengthening itself in the aftermath of the mid-term election, when the Democrats lost their House majority. Obama and Biden also are gearing up for what The Washington Post projected in December could be the first $1 billion presidential campaign.
Obama himself met last week with top donors in Washington, although he did not directly solicit contributions at that time.
Instead, the president told the group: "As 2012 unfolds, I expect that we’re going to have a lot of questions and there are going to be vigorous debates, but I don’t want us to lose sight of the huge opportunities we have to seize the moment and make sure that America is not just changed, but is changed for the better."
He added: "And my hope is that the same spirit that helped change this country in 2008, that that spirit is still in each and every one of you.”
Massachusetts was one of former President Bill Clinton's most reliable fund-raising states, but two area Democrats who helped him raise money — Steve Grossman and Alan Solomont — are now in different roles.
Grossman was elected state treasurer in November and just started his term in January; Solomont is serving as US ambassador to Spain and Andorra after an appointment from Obama himself.
"My understanding is it's a 'friend-raising' meeting getting ready for the 2012 elections," said Patrick.
Earlier in the day, Biden joined US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Delaware Governor Jack Markell, US Senator Chris Coons, and other officials from his home state of Delaware to tour the Howard High School of Technology in Wilmington.
According to a pool report, "they visited a classroom of students who were learning about physical science."
Biden told reporters he is hopeful that Howard High School's turnaround plan will help students, saying that "part of it is believing in them and setting the bar high," the report said.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Mass. congressional delegation on Libya
Goran Tomasevic/Reuters
Vehicles belonging to forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy explode Sunday after an air strike by coalition forces, along a road between Benghazi and Ajdabiyah.
The 12-member Massachusetts congressional delegation, all Democrats except for Republican Senator Scott Brown, offered an array of positions today in reaction to the launch of US air strikes on Libya over the weekend.
Here are the comments they or their spokesperson made to the Globe or, in Kerry's case, as well as on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Senator John Kerry, Democrat:
"Well, the goal of this mission ... is not to get rid of (Libyan leader Moammar) Khadafy, and that's not what the United Nations licensed. And I would not call it going to war. This is a very limited operation that is geared to save lives, and it was specifically targeted on a humanitarian basis. It is not geared to try to get rid of Khadafy. He has not been targeted. That is not what is happening here. So, in my judgment, we have to see where we go from here."
In an interview with the Globe, Kerry added: "I believe very, very deeply that America's strategic interests and our values require us to support people's aspirations. ...I think you have to have some faith in what the possibilities of diversity and pluralism can produce."
Senator Scott Brown, Republican:
"I support the administration's involvement at this point. Obviously, it gets to a point where you have to draw a line in the sand, and when innocent civilians are being killed, it's important for the world community to step forward, and we're doing it in a coalition manner, and I'm supportive of that."
Representative John Olver, Democrat, 1st District:
A spokeswoman said "he supports the steps the president, the UN, our European allies, and the Arab League are taking."
Representative Richard E. Neal, Democrat, 2nd District:
"I welcome the passage this week of UN Security Council Resolution 1973 implementing a no-fly zone over parts of Libya. I also support the establishment of an international coalition, working together with the Arab League, to prevent further atrocities from happening in flashpoints like Benghazi. It is clear that Colonel Khadafy and his regime were not going to stop the campaign of terror and violence against their own people. For the safety of innocent civilians, and to encourage the pro-democracy movements across the Middle East, I support the actions of the international coalition."
Representative James McGovern, Democrat, 3rd District:
"I just have this uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. . . None of us know who is really calling the shots in terms of the opposition. It's very dicey and very dangerous. I am hoping and praying for success. I am deeply worried."
Representative Barney Frank, Democrat, 4th District:
"If our role is limited to Tomahawk missiles from the ships, and the airplanes are French and British, I will support it. ...Our opposition is for America picking up the entire tab. The fact that you have such a multinational, multicultural support for this, I hope it is a new paradigm. "
Representative Niki Tsongas, Democrat, 5th District:
"I am concerned that our military action in Libya lacks a clear objective. It is critically important that our commitment there not extend beyond the scope of UN Resolution 1973 and under no circumstances should American ground troops be inserted into that country."
Representative John Tierney, Democrat, 6th District:
"These are the lingering questions: Why Libya? Why now? There are certainly other dictators acting badly toward the own citizens. And who is the opposition? If you're picking sides in a civil war you better know who you're siding with."
Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat, 7th District:
“The current government of Libya has lost all legitimacy. Left unchecked, Khadafy will commit unspeakable brutalities against his own people. ...The more nations involved in this multilateral effort, the more the people of Libya will know that the movement for democracy that is spreading throughout the Middle East has global support. We are watching a watershed moment not only in Libya but throughout the Middle East. History is on the side of these 21st century young, educated people who are calling for the end to this 20th century oil-fueled dictatorship. Seventy percent of Libya is young people, but they represent 100 percent of the future of the country. The message to Colonel Khadafy is clear: the entire world community is united in protecting the Libyan people. Libyans must be able to chart their own future, free from violence and intimidation.”
Representative Michael Capuano, Democrat, 8th District:
"So far, the only stated goal is to protect civilians, the civilian population, which is a laudable goal, but if that's the new measure of when military power's going to be put in play, well then I suspect we'll be going to the Congo and Sudan, Ivory Coast, Yemen, maybe Bahrain, very very soon, if that's the measure."
Representative Stephen Lynch, Democrat, 9th District:
"I was very troubled by the decision to use US forces and to do so without consulting with Congress. I don't believe that Libya presents a direct threat to the United States. Lacking those circumstances, I think it was incumbent upon the president to talk to Congress. We have got two wars going on right now. We are tremendously over-extended."
Representative William Keating, Democrat, 10th District:
"Since the humanitarian issues surrounding the non-engaged Libyan civilians have not been fully vetted to Congress, I'm forced to view this on a step-by-step basis. I feel strongly, however, that our involvement should not expand beyond that purpose."
Brown supports air strikes on Libya
Senator Scott Brown said this morning he supports the unfolding wave of U.S. air strikes on Libya, saying they are necessary to stop the killing of innocent civilians.
The Massachusetts Republican, confronting the first military action launched since he took office a year ago, said, "I support the administration's involvement at this point. Obviously, it gets to a point where you have to draw a line in the sand, and when innocent civilians are being killed, it's important for the world community to step forward, and we're doing it in a coalition manner, and I'm supportive of that."
Brown, who also is a JAG officer in the Massachusetts National Guard, refused to say if he would support the additional use of ground troops. President Obama has repeatedly said the action will be limited to air support in the form of an opening wave of cruise missiles attacks, as well as an overnight B-2 bombing run and the possibility of combat air patrols to enforce a UN-backed no-fly zone.
"That's a hypothetical I'm not really ready to comment on," Brown told a pair of reporters as he arrived at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center for the annual South Boston St. Patrick's Day breakfast and political roast.
"But I think that we're going to follow the lead and work together with other countries to determine what the obstacles are and where it goes from here," he added. "I think it's a mission in progress and we'll know more in a day or two."
Brown also refused to say if he would support strikes on Yemen and Bahrain, two other Middle Eastern countries where pro-democracy forces have clashed with authoritarian regimes.
"You're starting to get into hypotheticals, but in this instance, it's clear that (Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy) was using his own forces to kill innocent civilians, and that's where I draw the line," Brown said.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Kerry supports president's ultimatum to Kahdafi
By Donovan Slack, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- Senator John F. Kerry, who has been pushing in recent weeks for the establishment of a no-fly zone over Libya, issued a statement this afternoon supporting President Obama's declaration that he will order the use of military force if Libyan leader Moammar Kahdafi does not comply with a United Nations resolution directing him to stop military operations against the Libyan people.
“President Obama’s stern ultimatum to Kahdafi is the right message," Kerry said. "There must be a full cessation of hostilities immediately."
Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, reiterated earlier statements -- some of which were echoed by the president today -- that Kahdafi "has lost all legitimacy and determined international pressure will remain imperative to ensure that the will of the Libyan people prevails."
The senior senator from Massachusetts has been pushing for action in Libya since Feb. 22, after Kahdafi ordered attacks on Libyans who were protesting his regime.
The president announced today that the United States and its allies will not sit idly by as the Libyan leader uses violent force to suppress protests and re-take territory now in control of the opposition, including the major city of Benghazi, which has a population of 700,000 people.
Obama, saying the resolution passed yesterday by the UN Security Council lays out clear demands, ordered Kahdafi not to advance troops into Benghazi, to pull them back from other areas, allow humanitarian supplies to reach the Libyan people and restore gas and electric service throughout the country.
“Now once more, Moammar Kahdafi has a choice,” Obama said in brief remarks at the White House.
Obama said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will meet in Paris with officials from Britain, France and other allies tomorrow to discuss what actions the coalition will take. He said the goal of any action would be to secure the lives of civilians and not to topple Kahdafi's regime, which he said would be up to the people of Libya. The president added that he would not order any ground troops into the country, so military actions likely would be confined to air strikes.
“Our goal is focused, our cause is just and our coalition is strong,” Obama said.
Kerry credited the president this afternoon with "deft" diplomacy.
"The Obama administration’s deft diplomatic efforts that built a strong international coalition to enforce tough measures against Kahdafi have been essential," Kerry said. .
Donovan Slack can be reached at dslack@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @DonovanSlack.
Patrick to host fundraiser Sunday
Governor Deval Patrick is hosting a fundraiser at his Milton home Sunday evening despite his insistence that he is leaving political office after completing his term in 2015.
The suggested donation for the event, which will have a St. Patrick's Day theme, is either $250 or $500, with a notation on the invitation that up to $5,500 can be contributed.
Patrick spokesman Steve Crawford said the fundraiser will help retire the governor's campaign debts and also benefit the Massachusetts Democratic Party.
Earlier this month, members of a Boston law firm hosted a similar event on Patrick's behalf.
The first $500 donated - the maximum allowable annual contribution for individuals under state law - went to the governor's campaign account.
The remaining $5,000 was allocated to the state party.
The notation on the invitation for the Sunday event is a disclaimer outlining how any large contribution would be allocated, Crawford said.
Patrick has repeatedly said that he will serve no longer than two terms as governor. The Democrat has also ruled out a potential challenge to US Senator Scott Brown when the Republican seeks re-election next year.
Nonetheless, he has ramped up his political activity since winning his second term in November.
He flew to Washington to meet with Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine, and to Chicago to meet with David Axelrod, who has served as a top political adviser to both Patrick and President Barack Obama.
In addition, he is forming a political action committee to pay bills he anticipates incurring over the next two years as he speaks to his fellow Democrats and acts as a surrogate campaigner for Obama.
He addressed Colorado Democrats earlier this month.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Gingrich visits N.H. amid presidential consideration
NASHUA, N.H. — Newt Gingrich is making his first trip of the year to this politically crucial state as the Georgia Republican gauges whether there’s enough of a calling for him to run for president.
The former House speaker is scheduled to start today at a St. Patrick’s Day charity breakfast in Nashua, an event where those at the podium are judged more by the quality of their jokes than their political policies.
The breakfast has been a must-attend event in the past, with featured speakers including Pat Buchanan and Mitt Romney.
Later in the day, Gingrich is attending a luncheon at the Boys and Girls Club in Salem, N.H., before finishing his mini-tour with a dinner in Manchester.
Gingrich announced earlier this month he was starting an exploratory phase in his presidential run, and this marks his first trip to New Hampshire since that announcement.
It could prove to be a vital trip — for Gingrich’s decision in running for president, for the role New Hampshire would play in his campaign, and for the GOP elite here who are still looking for a candidate who can effectively challenge President Obama.
“Most of us have fond memories of him from 94,” said Charles Arlinghaus, president of the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, a Concord-based conservative think tank. “The question for him is, can he transfer that sort of celebrity. He’s a great talking head on television or giving a speech, which is a slightly different skill set than being a candidate for president.”
Gingrich’s trip comes amid heightened activity in the Granite State as likely presidential candidates begin to test run their messages. Stumping in the state last week were former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, US Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, and former US Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is speaking tomorrow night at a dinner in Manchester.
Romney, who addressed state GOP activists earlier this month, is far and away the frontrunner in New Hampshire —: and the state is vital to his hopes in becoming the Republican nominee.
Forty percent of likely GOP primary voters said they would vote for the former Massachusetts governor, according to a poll conducted last month by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. The only other candidate in double figures was Giuliani, with 10 percent. Only 6 percent said they would vote for Gingrich.
One hurdle for Gingrich: in the poll, 40 percent said they had an unfavorable view of him, a figure that was worse than every candidate except Sarah Palin (50 percent unfavorable) and Donald Trump (64 percent)
Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com.
Kerry urges Obama to impose Libya no-fly zone
WASHINGTON — US Senator John Kerry is urging the Obama administration to back a no-fly zone over Libya, calling for the United Nations to quickly approve a resolution to ground Libyan leader Moammar Kahdafi’s warplanes.
Kahdafi is using his air force to pound the rebels trying to overthrow him.
“The international community cannot simply watch from the sidelines as this quest for democracy is met with raw violence,” said Kerry, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, in a lengthy policy speech today.
The Massachusetts Democrat said the Arab League’s endorsement this weekend of a no-fly zone over Libya is unprecedented.
“The Security Council should act now, in my judgment, to heed the Arab League’s call” and to avert a humanitarian disaster, said Kerry, in remarks to a room packed with foreign journalists at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington think tank.
Kerry’s call for action on a no-fly zone marks an evolution in his view on the subject. He did not start out calling for immediate imposition of a no-fly zone; rather, he urged diplomatic and logistical preparation for the zone.
His call also puts him at odds with Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who has said attacking Libya's planes and air defenses would be an act of war.
The speech is the latest of Kerry’s high-profile efforts to guide US policy through the chain of popular uprisings in the Middle East. He urged preparations for a no-fly zone on the CBS News program “Face the Nation” two weekends ago.
Also, at the height of the unrest in Egypt last month, the senator penned a New York Times column encouraging embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s to give up power.
President Obama has not endorsed a no-fly zone, though he has “not taken any options off the table,” the president said on Friday.
Another option under consideration is for the US to give some $32 billion in frozen Libyan government assets to the rebels, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said on Tuesday.
Optics for trade mission change amid Fidelity decision
Office of the Governor
Governor Deval Patrick reads a newspaper today in London.
Governor Deval Patrick is in England, not Italy, yet there is an aura of Rome-burning-while-Nero-is-fiddling to his trade mission events and communications after Fidelity Investments announced Tuesday it's closing its Marlborough offices — and costing Massachusetts over 1,000 jobs in the process.
The first week of Patrick's international trade mission produced no job deals, despite him touring Israel with such heavyweights as New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.
Since the weekend, the immediate benefits of the trip have become even more imperceptible, as the governor has visited a World War II cemetery, taken a tourist's trip to the House of Commons for "question time," and held a series of meet-and-greet meetings with members of Parliament.
The purpose for the latter, according to a gubernatorial statement, was "to discuss growing economic opportunities between the UK and Massachusetts."
All the while, Patrick withheld issuing a statement on Fidelity's decision, delegating the duty to the acting governor, Lieutenant Governor Timothy Murray. Murray said the state was "disappointed" at the job cuts and would offer assistance to displaced workers.
Aides initially said the governor's busy schedule had kept them from reaching him or getting him on the telephone with Boston reporters. By late afternoon today, they put him on the phone with the Globe for what an aide said would be a two-minute conversation. It ended up lasting only slightly longer than that.
In the aftermath of the announcement, the governor did not jump on a plane to make any sort of direct appeal for the company to reverse its decision.
Instead, he remained in England on Tuesday, where he attended a ceremony to sign an agreement securing an exchange of stem cell bank best practices, participated in a roundtable discussion with biotech officials, and took the cemetery tour.
On Monday, his staff trumpeted his two meetings with the US ambassador to the United Kingdom, although Lou Sussman may be less known as diplomat than he is as the Chicagoan who raised a lot of campaign cash for Patrick's good friend, President Obama.
Patrick's staff also notes he met with the CEO of Lloyd's of London, and held an economic roundtable discussion with representatives of the financial services industry.
Today, as Marlborough reeled from a blow to its tax base, Rhode Island reporters highlighted their state's efforts to expand Fidelity's presence, and the Massachusetts Senate announced it would investigate the company's decision, Patrick went to his Twitter account and wrote, "Attended Prime Minister's Questions & later met Speaker of the House of Commons Bercow."
An earlier tweet read: "Met with Members of Parliament this morning in London."
One press release highlighted his economic partnership meetings with members of Parliament. Another one today echoed the governor's tweet.
It was headlined, "Governor Patrick Attends Prime Minister Questions; Meets with British-American Parliamentary Group."
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Governor to appear on 'The Daily Show'
It’s become a hot spot for politicians hawking books.
Tony Blair, Condoleezza Rice, and Jimmy Carter have all made appearances to promote their work. Now, it’s Governor Deval Patrick’s turn.
On April 12, the day his memoir is released, Patrick will be a guest on “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart, according to the show’s staff.
His star turn on the popular Comedy Central program is expected to be just one of several national television appearances he makes to promote his memoir, “A Reason to Believe: Lessons from an Improbable Life.”
His publisher, Broadway Books, has already confirmed that the governor has agreed to several speaking engagements to promote his work, including appearances at the National Press Club in Washington and the Harold Washington Library in Chicago.
No ink from Snowe, Collins on Senate GOP trade pact letter
Senate Republicans are threatening to hold up White House nominations unless the Senate passes trade deals with Columbia and Panama, but GOP moderates from New England aren’t of the same mind on the matter.
Forty-four Republicans signed a letter today telling Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada that they would block the administration’s nominees for commerce secretary and other positions until the Senate takes up the trade pacts.
Scott Brown of Massachusetts was among those signing the letter, but Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, the two Senators from Maine who have increasingly voted with Brown in a moderate GOP bloc in the Senate, did not sign. The third GOP abstainer was Rand Paul of Kentucky.
Spokespeople for Snowe and Collins did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The letter accused the president of “an apparent lack of interest in seeking approval of these free trade agreements.” Approval of the pacts would be beneficial to American workers, they wrote, and further delay is “unnecessary and inexcusable.”
“So important are these deals to our economy and our relations with these key allies in Latin America that, until the President submits both agreements to Congress for approval and commits to signing implementing legislation into law, we will use all the tools at our disposal to force action, including withholding support for any nominee for Commerce Secretary and any trade-related nominees,” the letter read.
Last week, Obama nominated Commerce Secretary Gary Locke to replace Jon Huntsman as ambassador to China, leaving the commerce chief position vacant and creating the opportunity for another high-profile nomination fight in the Senate.
Santorum, possible GOP presidential candidate, attacks Romney on health care
NEWTON — Former US Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, who campaigned for Mitt Romney in 2008 but is now weighing his own bid for the Republican presidential nomination, today attacked Romney for signing Massachusetts’ universal health care law.
Calling himself a "consistent conservative," on social and economic issues, Santorum said both the 2006 Massachusetts law and President Obama’s recent overhaul of the national health care system would drive more people in to government-sponsored health plans.
“The issues, unfortunately, don’t line up particularly well for Governor Romney this time, particularly with health care being front and center on the stage,” Santorum said in an interview before he addressed a Roman Catholic group.
“I feel we need someone who is a strong, principled conservative who believes not in government mandates, not in government control of the health care system, but in a patient-centered approach to health care,” Santorum said.
Santorum added that both the state and federal laws "tend to drive employers out of the private sector plans because they’re expensive and more people end up on the government plan."
“Ultimately, it’s a failure," Santorum said.
Romney's spokesman, Eric Fehrnstrom, responded today by saying the Massachusetts law may not work for every state.
Patrick meets with Mass., UK finance leaders
British Embassy
Sheriff Richard Sermon of the City of London chats with Governor Deval Patrick in London on Monday.
Governor Deval Patrick's trade mission resumed after a day off, with him convening a meeting of Massachusetts and United Kingdom financial services industry leaders in London today that focused on potential collaborations and job creation ideas.
“To maintain our competitive edge and attract the jobs of tomorrow, we must strengthen our ties to our UK counterparts and find new opportunities for mutual growth," Patrick said in a statement.
A discussion hosted by City of London Corporation in the center of London's financial district included executives such as John Hailer, president & CEO of Natixis Global Asset Management, as well as executives from PricewaterhouseCoopers, State Street Corporation, Citizens Bank, Bain Capital, Putnam Investments, Barclays Bank, and Goldman Sachs International.
Natixis Global Asset Management is a global asset management company headquartered in Boston and Paris with $719 billion of assets under management. Natixis employs 2,800 employees worldwide, including over 1,100 residing in Boston.
The roundtable marked the final forum during the first full day of the second phase of the trade mission. Last week, the governor visited Israel.
On Monday, Patrick and his delegation received a briefing from United States Ambassador to Great Britain Louis Susman.
They also traveled to the London Stock Exchange for an information technology sector roundtable.
Patrick then went US Embassy for a private meeting with Susman, a fellow Chicagoan and major financial backer of President Obama, before re-joining the delegation for a tour of Lloyd's of London and Lloyd's Market.
The delegation also met Lloyd's CEO Richard Ward, as well as Sean McGovern, director of North America.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Mass. details health law amid political debate
The state of Massachusetts is making sure former Governor Mitt Romney can't run away from the universal health care program he signed into law, and his opponents can't misrepresent it.
The Health Connector and the Executive Office of Health and Human Services, which are charged with implementing the 2006 legislation, sent out an e-mail Friday containing a Top 10 list of facts about the measure.
One specifically describes the law Romney enacted as the model for the federal universal health care program signed into law by President Obama last year.
It has become the subject of national debate, as Republicans have derided what they term "Obamacare," while Democrats have noted it was modeled on "Romneycare."
The connection is particularly sensitive for Romney, a prospective 2012 GOP presidential candidate, since conservatives whose support he will need in his party's primaries have generally opposed both laws.
Romney has tried to rebuff the criticism by arguing that states should be free to enact their own plans, not be subjected to a single measure imposed by the federal government.
Governor Deval Patrick, a Democrat who is planning to be a surrogate campaigner during Obama's re-election campaign next year, has publicly highlighted the similarities in the measures. Now his administration is echoing the message.
"As much is being written about our landmark 2006 Massachusetts health reform legislation and implementation, we want to make sure you have all the pertinent facts at your disposal," Connector spokesman Dick Powers said in the e-mail.
The No. 6 point says flatly: "Massachusetts health reform provided the model for national reform. Like Massachusetts, the new national law calls for the formation of (health insurance) Exchanges. The Health Connector’s tiering system, which offers consumers a choice of gold, silver or bronze coverage, was also adopted in a slightly expanded way. Like Massachusetts,the national law sets minimum coverage standards and will include benefits like elimination of pre-existing condition exclusions. A number of the benefits in the Massachusetts law are enhanced under national reform, most notably extension of subsidy assistance for individuals from 300 percent to 400 percent of the federal poverty level, extension of federally-subsidized coverage to legal immigrants and extension of insurance protections to self-funded private coverage."
Item No. 7 also touches another hot-button topic: the requirement in the law Romney signed that provides tax penalties for residents who are capable of buying insurance but fail to do so.
"The individual mandate has worked fairly and effectively to expand coverage in Massachusetts," says the fact sheet. "Some 97 percent of the taxpayers are complying with new health reform filing requirements. Furthermore, the Health Connector’s appeals process, which rules on hardship exceptions, has been fair to taxpayers, with a 60-percent approval rate for those who follow through with an appeal."
Powers said the poster was produced in-house, at no additional cost to the taxpayers. The two photos used, he said, came from annual progress reports about the state law.
"It wasn't meant to tweak anyone," said Powers. "One of the frustrating things about
sitting here is watching people on both the left and the right twist information to suit their ideological agenda. With bloggers taking a more active role, it's amazing how quickly bad information can and does spread. This is just our attempt to get the facts out there so the media and eventually their readers and listeners will have the correct facts. With federal reform under the microscope and a presidential election on the horizon, it's logical to assume that more eyes will be cast on what we're doing here."
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Donations show advancement of Romney campaign
While other potential Republican presidential candidates tried to grab the spotlight this week with a series of insider announcements about new staff hires, Mitt Romney claimed substantive ground for himself with a wave of campaign donations and a potent Florida endorsement.
In a statement yesterday, Romney's Free and Strong America PAC announced he had sent out another wave of contributions to 45 Republicans in Congress.
All told, they received $93,000. That follows the $208,000 that Romney’s PAC has given to 90 US Senate and House Republicans since the start of the year.
“There are many important issues facing Congress and the nation," the former Massachusetts governor said in the statement. "By showing our support for Republican candidates who are fighting for conservative principles in Washington, we hope to influence the national debate on jobs, taxes, the economy, and the budget."
The statement came amid a week in which Romney visited Texas to meet with key financial and campaign backers, and then aimed to visit Florida to meet with Republican Governor Rick Scott. Romney had campaigned for him last fall.
Their meeting ended up cancelled because of flight delays for Romney, but he nonetheless received the endorsement of state Senator John Thrasher. The St. Augustine Republican is a former House speaker who most recently served as chairman of the Republican Party of Florida.
“If Governor Romney decides to run for president in 2012, I will absolutely be supporting him and helping him in Florida,” Thrasher said an e-mail to Abel Harding, a columnist for The Florida Times-Union. “He would be a great GOP nominee.”
Due to population shifts, Florida will pick up two congressional seats — and two Electoral College votes — in the 2012 election. The state will also host the Republican National Convention, which is being held in Tampa.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
AG Holder speaking at Black Lawyers Association event
Attorney General Eric Holder is visiting Boston tonight to deliver the keynote address at the Massachusetts Black Lawyers Association annual gala.
Former Senator Edward W. Brooke III is slated to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award. Superior Court Justice Barbara Dortch-Okara and David Hall, president of the University of the Virgin Islands, are each being given the Trailblazer Award.
The dinner and awards ceremony takes place at the Boston Park Plaza & Towers, beginning at 6 p.m.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
A lesson from David S. Broder
During a career that has now spanned over 25 years, I've had a chance to meet and even work with several great and legendary political journalists, including R.W. "Johnny" Apple Jr. of The New York Times; Curtis Wilkie, Robert Healy, David Shribman, and Walter V. Robinson of The Boston Globe; Mary McGrory and David S. Broder of The Washington Post; and Walter R. Mears of The Associated Press.
The last two intersected in an infamous way, during the 1964 presidential campaign, when a group of reporters got to drinking before a late-evening Barry Goldwater speech.
Broder thought Mears had a few too many, so, ever the courtly mid-westerner, he decided to leave Mears a copy of his own story. His aim was to nudge his colleague along for early East Coast deadlines.
Instead, Mears banged out his own story, returned Broder's to him, and said in response, "David, I can write better drunk than you can sober."
But with Broder's death Wednesday at age 81, it's not journalism so much that prompted me to sit back down at my laptop after a long day in a new job.
It was to reflect on the uncommon decency displayed by a veteran worker for a newcomer in their shared profession. It's a lesson for everyone in every industry, and especially for me as I make the turn from the front- to back-nine of my career.
I can't believe I just wrote those words.
I graduated in 1985 from a small Wisconsin college, Lawrence University, and set out to build a career for myself in journalism. Having a father who was a stock broker and a mother who was a real estate agent, I had no real "in" with the profession, so I worked my way up the ladder.
My first full-time job was at the City News Bureau of Chicago, a legendary news institution that spawned such legendary writers as novelist Kurt Vonnegut, columnist Mike Royko, and investigative reporter Seymour Hersh — still going to this day.
I later moved from The Salem Evening News to The Sun of Lowell, where, in November 1990, I read a story in the Boston Sunday Globe recapping Broder's speech at Colby College. He had just received an honorary doctorate of laws and the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award.
I had long admired Broder and his reporting on and analysis of national politics, so much so that I subscribed to the Post's then-national weekly edition. It contained the best of the newspaper's stories from the prior week, as well as the columns of writers such as Broder.
"I realized that I have continuously looked to you for compass headings in my quest to be the most ethical and accurate newspaper reporter possible," I wrote in a Nov. 18, 1990, letter to Broder prompted by the story.
"For example, I have paid close attention to your warnings about crisscrossing the boundary between political insider and journalist," I added.
Noting how Broder encouraged all reporters to spend more time speaking with voters than campaign consultants, I felt inspired to ask Broder if I could come to Washington, work for him, and learn at the knee of the master.
"If you ever need a researcher or cohort to assist in the preparation of your column and articles, I hope you would consider me for that position," I wrote.
I sent the letter off, not really expecting a reply, battle-hardened from the challenge of breaking into the industry just five years earlier.
Yet several weeks later, a wide postcard arrived in the mail.
When I flipped it over, it was embossed with the name, "David S. Broder," and emblazoned with the Post's logo.
In between, in hand-typed lettering, Broder responded: "Dear Glen Johnson."
He thanked me for my note, resume, and sample newsclippings, and promptly said there were no researcher openings at the Post. But then, he went further.
"Your work reads to me as if you are past that point," Broder wrote. "You show a lot of skill and confidence in your reporting and I hope you'll let it carry you to the goals you seek, not step back into a researcher role."
He signed off with an affectionate "Yours," and used a pen to write, "David Broder."
Months later, lightning struck. At the height of President George H.W. Bush's popularity following Operating Desert Storm, a former US senator from the hometown of my small newspaper, Lowell's own Paul Tsongas, announced improbably that he'd challenge the incumbent president for re-election in 1992.
The Sun remains a relatively small paper, but it had a big heart, especially for the local story, so, by then as the Lowell city political reporter, the editor sent me out on the trail.
I filled one suitcase with my clothes, the other with a "library" of news clippings, notebooks, batteries, and acoustic couplers for my Radio Shack computer, as well as a copy of The Almanac of American Politics. I was a one-man show, but I got to work in proximity to some of the great or rising young political reporters of the time: Dan Balz of the Post, Cathleen Decker and Ronald Brownstein of the Los Angeles Times, Robin Toner and Richard Berke of The New York Times, and Wilkie himself.
I also was able to cross paths with Broder.
In April 1992, after Tsongas quit the race and "Comeback Kid" Bill Clinton was en route to the Democratic nomination and presidency, I wrote a thank-you note to Broder.
"I wanted to let you know that I enjoyed meeting you while I chased around Paul Tsongas for The Sun," I said.
By 1996, I was working for the AP in Boston and assigned to cover then-Governor William F. Weld's epic US Senate race against the Democratic incumbent, John Kerry. Clinton cruised to re-election against Bob Dole in a campaign that was largely a non-event.
By 2000, though, I had transferred to the AP's Washington bureau and landed a plum assignment covering the presidential campaign of then-Texas Governor George W. Bush in a wide-open race for the presidency. Mid-campaign, I joined the Globe, my hometown newspaper, and again ran into Broder on the trail.
Covering a presidential campaign is hard on everyone involved, from the candidate to the press corps to the legion of college kids who make everything work, from setting up events to unloading baggage from the charter jet.
I was amazed to see Broder, then 71, still schlepping along, listening to the candidate speeches, traipsing through Iowa and New Hampshire, and polishing gems gleaned from those voter conversations about which he always preached.
One day, in Florida as best I can remember it, I found myself trudging into a filing center behind none other than the Dean himself, David S. Broder.
There were plenty of tables at which to sit, but for a still-young political journalist, there was only one place to be.
I took the seat next to Broder.
We had chatted earlier in the trip, but as we sat next to each other and worked on our stories, he for the Post, me for the Globe, I recalled the history of our interaction, from my time in his native Chicago at the City News Bureau; to the days at The Sun as I chased after him and the other Boys on the Bus; to the present, when we together watched an election whose conclusion neither of us could have imagined at that moment.
I also remembered that everywhere I went that campaign, I carried a camera in a case affixed to my belt.
Aware of the preciousness of the moment, I pulled it out, passed it to anyone standing nearby, and asked them to take a picture of me and Broder.
Today, I remembered that picture, and flipped back through my Bush picture volume to find it.
The time-stamp on the back read, "2:49 p.m., Sept. 22, 2000."
At that moment, Broder was 71 and I was 37.
It was less than a year from Sept. 11, 2001, a day of infamy in American history, as well as the date on which Broder would mark his 72nd birthday.
It also was almost precisely a decade after I had written Broder that first letter, in which I sought to become his researcher and he pushed me to chase bigger goals, on my own.
Then, as now, another 10 years hence, I'm glad I followed his advice. And I have no doubt that in leaving this world, he'd hope that everyone follows his example as it comes time to send the next generation of workers on their way.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Obama meets with Celtics during MFA fundraiser
The nation’s No. 1 basketball fan met the team the Boston area hopes will be the nation’s No. 1 NBA franchise this year.
When President Obama visited the Museum of Fine Arts for a fundraiser this evening, he had a private meeting with members of the Boston Celtics.
Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett, and coach Doc Rivers were among those who talked hoops with Obama, a southpaw who maintains an active game and has his own court in the White House backyard. A notable absence was center Shaquille O'Neal.
The meeting was organized by two of the team’s co-owners, Jonathan Lavine and Stephen Pagliuca. Lavine is a managing director at Bain Capital, and Pagliuca tried his hand at party politics when he ran in the Democratic primary for last year's Massachusetts US Senate special election.
Several team members turned out for one of his fundraisers, too.
Lavine and Pagliuca also arranged for the Celtics to mingle with the crowd at the fundraiser, which is expected to raise $1 million for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. It’s the body charged with helping the Democrats regain the majority in the US House of Representatives in 2012.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Representative Steve Israel of New York, the committee’s chairman, and members of the Massachusetts House delegation were slated to attend, as well.
It’s something of a sports week for the president: not only is it conference championship week for NCAA teams, and “Selection Sunday” this weekend for teams entering the NCAA men’s basketball tourney, but Obama is also welcoming his hometown Chicago Blackhawks to the White House.
The squad won hockey's NHL Stanley Cup last year.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Live-blogging Obama speech
We used this live blog and tweets @globeglen to provide up-to-the-minute updates about President Obama's visit to TechBoston Academy in Dorchester.
4:06 p.m. - The president just wrapped up. No real rising close, no real oomph. But the kids are still thrilled he came.
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4:04 p.m. - This has to be the most pastoral presidential event I have ever covered. Very sober atmosphere, very respectful crowd, very solemn president, despite his jokes.
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4:02 p.m. - Obama concedes it will "cost money" to make changes he's proposed, but he immediately segues to budget cuts he has offered as means to support the education programs for which he wants to pay.
"We cannot cut back on job-creating investments, like education," he said. "There's nothing responsible about cutting back in our investment in these young people."
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3:57 p.m. - Instead of pouring money "into a broken system," president says, Arne Duncan has launched "Race to the Top," which draws applause. Says if states show good programs, "we'll show you the money."
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3:55 p.m. - Students answer with slow "y-e-e-s-s-s" when Obama asks if they come from tough neighborhoods. But then he notes their high achievement rates.
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3:53 p.m. - Obama notes each student here gets laptop upon enrolling. They then have to take care of it, and use it to take core math and other classes, including forensic science. President jokes he's not even sure what that is.
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3:50 p.m. - President laments USA falling to ninth in nations in terms of proportion with college degree. It used to be first.
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3:47 p.m. - Cheer as president explains he came to TechBoston because "you are model of how it's done" for rest of country.
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3:45 p.m. - Obama recalls time at Harvard Law and how Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard. Then he started a "modest" computer software company. When kids didn't laugh, president reminded them it was a joke. They laughed at that.
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3:43 p.m. - Shriek from students as Obama takes stage.
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3:39 p.m. - Melinda Gates says she and "Bill," as in Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, are happy they invested in school nearly a decade ago.
She is recalling excitement among students they just meant at knowing where they are going: to college.
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3:37 p.m. - Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Melinda Gates are announced to stage. She is speaking first.
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3:34 p.m. - They just announced "the event will begin momentarily."
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3:28 p.m. - The president is running more than 15 minutes behind schedule, allowing the Boston city councilors in the room to work the crowd for votes.
Newton Mayor Setti Warren, a potential US Senate candidate, is also in the audience.
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3:05 p.m. - Rotor noises above from a State Police helicopter signal the motorcade's arrival at TechBoston. The president was touring a classroom and meeting some students before speaking in the gym.
Former Boston newswoman Rehema Ellis is on-hand to live shots for MSNBC.
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2:46 p.m. - There's a lull in the activities as the president tours the school and the audience waits in the gynmasium. It's a relatively small crowd in here, very controlled, unlike more rambunctious campaign events. Still, all the guests appear excited.
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2:36 p.m. - HE must almost be here... presidential seal attached to "blue goose" armored presidential lectern.
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2:34 p.m. - Two students just led Pledge of Allegiance and did heartfelt rendition of national anthem that left their classmates cheering. Then they hugged each other with ear-to-ear smiles. Nice start.
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2:30 p.m. - TechBoston Academy JROTC color guard bringing in American flag.
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2:23 p.m. - Inside TechBoston Academy, people being asked to take their seats. Behind podium, banner reads, "Winning the Future," the president's forward-looking slogan since State of the Union. Presidential seal, always a last-minute addition, still not affixed to podium.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Education push triggered Obama's Boston visit
President Obama today is following the lead of other Democrats who view Massachusetts as a campaign finance ATM, yet he's hoping the focus will instead be drawn to a high-profile visit he's making to a Boston school.
Joined by Education Secretary Arne Duncan and philanthropist Melinda Gates, the president will tour and then speak at TechBoston Academy in Dorchester. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation provided some of the funding to found the school in September 2002.
Obama will echo his State of the Union speech, as well as a visit he made last week to a rebounding Florida school, as he argues government, businesses, philanthropists, educators, and local communities have to jointly promote innovative education strategies that prepare American students to — in his vernacular — "win the future."
“There is no better economic policy than one that produces more graduates," said an excerpt of Obama's prepared text. “That’s why reforming education is the responsibility of every American — every parent, every teacher, every business leader, every public official, and every student.”
Obama's 2012 budget calls for $90 million in funding for the creation of a new grant competition called the "Advanced Research Projects Agency – Education" (ARPA-ED).
Groups would compete to create breakthroughs in using technology to empower learning and teaching.
The budget also calls for extending the "Investing in Innovation" (i3) program with a $300 million competition with a priority for projects in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
Despite being considered hospitable Democratic territory, the president was being greeted by a protest organized by some of his fellow Democrats.
Former Representative Joseph P. Kennedy II, along with current Representatives Edward J. Markey, Michael Capuano, and James McGovern, called a news conference to protest the administration's proposed cut in the LIHEAP program.
It provides assistance to people who cannot afford their heating bills.
LIHEAP currently receives $5.1 billion under the federal budget; the president has proposed cutting it by $2.5 billion.
After the events at TechBoston Academy, Obama was traveling across town to the newly refurbished Museum of Fine Arts for the fundraiser.
In an e-mail soliciting contributions, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi labeled the gathering as "an unforgettable evening with President Obama and leading Democrats from across America."
She added: "It is critical that we show the world how strongly we support President Obama's bold vision to encourage innovation and invest in America's future."
One of Obama's prime boosters in the area, Governor Deval Patrick, is missing the events because he is in Israel at the outset of a trade mission.
He and Obama share the same political advisers, and Patrick is gearing up to serve as a surrogate speaker for the president's re-election campaign next year.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Fellow Democrats to protest Obama
President Obama is getting an unruly reception as he heads for an education event and party fundraiser in Boston today — from his fellow Democrats.
Former Representative Joseph P. Kennedy II, along with current Representatives Edward J. Markey, Michael Capuano, and James McGovern, have called a news conference to protest the administration's proposed cut in the LIHEAP program.
It provides assistance to people who cannot afford their heating bills.
To add drama to the event, it will be held at the East Boston home Joe and Katherine Oliveri, who saw their federal Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program benefit drop by 30 percent this year.
Their current allotment would be cut in half under the White House budget proposal. LIHEAP currently receives $5.1 billion under the federal budget; the president has proposed cutting it by $2.5 billion.
"Energy prices have now gone down but the cost of the program has stayed the same," the president said last month. "Let's go back to a more sustainable level."
The event is scheduled for 10:30 a.m., less that four hours before Air Force One touches down at Logan International Airport.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Live-blogging Romney speech
Check back tonight as I live-blog here at "Political Intelligence" and tweet @globeglen about Republican Mitt Romney's speech at the Carroll County Lincoln Day Dinner in Bartlett, N.H.
8:54 p.m. - Wireless outage at hotel delayed me in reporting antler sold for $1,050.
Auction ending, but crowd at Red Parka in North Conway, N.H., expected to grow shortly.
Thanks for reading. Come back to "Political Intelligence" on Monday morning for my analysis for Mitt Romney's message tonight.
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8:35 p.m. - Speech concluded, the live auction is now beginning.
First item for bid is ... the moose antler.
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8:31 p.m. - The would-be candidate gets thick of voice and choked up in chest as he begins delivery of patriotic conclusion to remarks.
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8:21 p.m. - Romney, rebutting some critics, also addresses the universal health care law he signed while governor of Massachusetts. Some of his prospective rivals complain, as Obama himself even notes, that the state plan was the model for the federal law the president enacted last year.
"You may have noticed that the president and his people spend more time talking about me and Massachusetts health care than 'Entertainment Tonight' spends talking about Charlie Sheen," he said to laughter.
"Now, our approach next door was a state plan, intended to address state problems, in ways that were in many ways unique to Massachusetts. What we did was what the Constitution intended for states to do — we were one of the laboratories of democracy," he added.
"Now, our experiment wasn’t perfect; some things worked, some didn’t, some things I’d change. One thing I would never do is to usurp the constitutional power of states with a one-size-fits-all federal takeover. I would repeal Obamacare.
"My experience has taught me that states are where health care programs for the uninsured should be crafted, just as the Constitution provides. Obamacare is bad law constitutionally, it’s bad policy, and it is bad for America’s families. And that’s one reason President Obama will be a one-term president," he said.
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8:16 p.m. - The Republican says he likes President Obama, but he "doesn't have a clue how jobs are created."
In a bit of gender outreach, Romney adds: "He doesn’t know what goes through an entrepreneur’s mind when she borrows and scrapes to get the money to start a new company — because he’s never done it himself."
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8:11 p.m. - Romney says by delaying recession recovery, president has added to "Obama Misery Index."
It will only be addressed "with a new president of the United States."
Then he recapped his work as a turnaround artist, in business, at the Salt Lake Olympics, and as governor of Massachusetts.
Romney complains that Obama delegated economic recovery to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, while he pursued personal priorities like health care reform and cap-and-trade policy.
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8:06 p.m. - Romney says he likes New Hampshire so much, he "may play a double-header" here, but the applause line falls strangely flat.
He's now getting into meat of anti-Obama attacks, saying president is unprepared to conduct foreign policy.
"Instead of leading the world, he's been tiptoeing behind the Europeans," Romney said.
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8:03 p.m. - Someone looking suspiciously like a television commercial or campaign-announcement movie-maker was shooting video of Romney as he worked the room and, now, as the people are applauding.
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7:59 p.m. - Mitt and Ann Romney introduced, and he sets to microphone. Immediately says the "Romney for President" signs lining the drive must have been old ones from the garage.
His wife, Ann, is speaking, saying she is the one encouraging him to think about running.
Recalling their 42 years together, she said he is a problem-solver and "actually quite selfless" as shown as a husband and father.
"I love him and I think he should really think about it," she said.
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7:51 p.m. - Guinta told crowd of about 300 it was great to arrive in Washington as part of a Republican majority, but it can be even better.
"I cannot wait, I cannot wait, to be in Washington watching a Republican sworn in as president," he said.
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7:48 p.m. - The speaking program has resumed with Representative Frank Guinta, former mayor of Manchester.
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7:42 p.m. - I guessed wrong: Romney went for the pot roast and "cleaned the plate," crack staff assistant Will Ritter said.
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7:37 p.m. - The dinner plates have just gone down. Some are getting glazed salmon. Some are getting chicken marsala. Others are getting Yankee pot roast, the smell of which dominates the air.
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7:10 p.m. - The moose antler debate is resolved: Mitt Romney has signed it before the bidding has ended.
And to describe it as a mere moose antler is also to not do it justice; it is a moose antler bearing a painting of the Old Man of the Mountain and an autograph from Mitt Romney.
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6:53 p.m. - The dining has commenced: again, the options are chicken marsala, glazed salmon, and Yankee pot roast.
My bet for Romney, who may spend the whole time shaking hands, is salmon. He's very careful about what he eats, and Zen — a sushi place near the State House — was a favorite haunt.
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6:48 p.m. - Senator Kelly Ayotte is following party Chairman Jack Kimball at the microphone.
She says there is a battle in Washington between fiscal responsibility and "bigger government, bloated spending."
The senator complains that the spending freeze President Obama proposes would extend to only 12 percent of the budget.
"If we make a difference in 2012, ... we can make a difference across this country by passing things like a balanced-budget amendment,'' Ayotte said.
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6:41p.m. - The most intriguing item in the silent auction to raise money for the Carroll County Republicans is a moose antler. The great debate is whether to have Romney sign it first to drive up bidding, or personalize it afterward for the winning bidder.
Two other auction items: a massage, and a hair cut.
New Hampshire's Republican senator, Kelly Ayotte, is also in attendance, but she has told reporters she has yet to endorse a candidate in the primary campaign.
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6:36 p.m. - Mitt and Ann Romney have arrived, shaken hands around the room, and stood for the invocation.
The former governor is dressed casually, leaving the tie back in Massachusetts and appearing open-collared in a sport coat.
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6:15 p.m. - Mitt Romney has yet to arrive in the ballroom.
Those Republicans who ridicule President Obama for speaking from a TelePrompTer won't take any solace from Romney: He's got one set up on the stage.
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5:55 p.m. - The likely candidate is upstairs at a private reception, but the ballroom is filling up with guests and supporters.
Among those reporters joining Sue Page in making the trek from DC are Erin McPike of Real Clear Politics and Jeff Zeleny of The New York Times.
Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom has also arrived.
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5:12 p.m. - My Globe colleague Matt Viser and I have made it to the Grand Summit Hotel overlooking Attitash Mountain. It was a nice drive up from Boston, but it was foggy with the warmer weather melting some of the abundant snow.
Outside, you could allay any thought about whether Romney has decided to run for president for a second time: The driveway was lined with "Romney for President" signs (see the photo above I snapped).
As usual, the AP's New Hampshire photographer Jim Cole was staked out at the front door, awaiting the candidate. Just inside were Romney supporters Jim Merrill and Tom Rath, as well as Sue Page of "USA Today."
A bit of a rough reception walking in the door, though. We went into the ballroom to set up our equipment and make sure the wireless connection was good and, well, to start live-blogging, when a Romney aide asked us to leave the ballroom.
Apparently, the Romney folks aren't letting the media in until 5:30 p.m.
Harkens back to the days of Romney's velvet ropes outside the governor's office in the Massachusetts State House.
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Organizers say the doors open at 5:30 p.m. and the program begins at 6 p.m.
For those interested, the menu includes a choice of chicken marsala, glazed salmon, and Yankee pot roast.
This will be Romney's public first speech in the lead primary state this year, and the former Massachusetts governor will continue to lay the groundwork for a second White House campaign beginning this spring.
I've just posted a preview of the remarks here.
The trip also offers a chance for Romney and his staff to work the locals — and the local scene.
Longtime spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom tweeted earlier today that he's planning to hike Tuckerman Ravine on the southeast face of Mt. Washington tomorrow if it doesn't rain.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Romney says Obama missed N.H.'s message
Republican Mitt Romney defended the universal health care law he signed while governor of Massachusetts tonight even as he attacked President Obama over his own health care law, as well as his conduct of domestic policy and foreign affairs.
In his first speech of the year in the lead-primary state of New Hampshire, Romney said Obama didn't internalize the lessons he should have learned while campaigning in the state in 2008, so it's time for "a new president."
In remarks delivered at the Carroll County Lincoln Day Dinner in Bartlett, N.H., Romney said: "Senator Obama campaigned hard in New Hampshire but he apparently didn’t like what he saw. He certainly didn’t learn from it. Instead of lowering taxes, he raised them. He wrapped businesses in red tape, he grew government, he borrowed trillions of dollars, and he made it clear that he doesn’t like business people very much."
Romney says that has triggered a "deeper recession" that delayed the nation's economic recovery.
"The consequence is soaring numbers of Americans enduring unemployment, foreclosures and bankruptcies," said Romney, who closely followed a prepared text of his remarks by reading off a TelePrompTer. "This is the 'Obama Misery Index,' and it is at a record high. It’s going to take more than new rhetoric to put Americans back to work — it’s going to take a new president."
The Democratic National Committee responded with a "Fact Check" rebutting many of Romney's claims. It cited Congressional Budget Office and media reports saying the administration's stimulus bill had added jobs, while pointing to different sources that criticized Romney's job creation record during the four years he was governor Massachusetts.
Factcheck.org wrote that Massachusetts gained only 1 percent in payroll jobs during that term, while the nation added 5.3 percent.
On the subject of health care, Romney took on critics — some prospective White House rivals — who complain that the state plan was the model for the federal law the president enacted last year. Obama himself has credited Romney for presaging his own plan.
"You may have noticed that the president and his people spend more time talking about me and Massachusetts health care than 'Entertainment Tonight' spends talking about Charlie Sheen," Romney said to laughter.
"Now, our approach next door was a state plan, intended to address state problems, in ways that were in many ways unique to Massachusetts. What we did was what the Constitution intended for states to do — we were one of the laboratories of democracy," he added.
"Now, our experiment wasn’t perfect; some things worked, some didn’t, some things I’d change. One thing I would never do is to usurp the constitutional power of states with a one-size-fits-all federal takeover. I would repeal Obamacare.
"My experience has taught me that states are where health care programs for the uninsured should be crafted, just as the Constitution provides. Obamacare is bad law constitutionally, it’s bad policy, and it is bad for America’s families. And that’s one reason President Obama will be a one-term president," he said.
Romney has yet to formally declare if he will launch a follow-up to his unsuccessful 2008 presidential campaign, but his spokesman offered a fresh take on his timetable.
"I don't know precisely when Governor Romney will announce a decision about his future plans, but I feel confident that when he does it, they'll be playing baseball at Fenway Park and the snow will be gone and the sun will be shining warmer on our faces," said spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom.
The Boston Red Sox open their home baseball schedule on April 8 when they host the New York Yankees.
Romney, a former venture capitalist, has argued that the country needs someone with a business background as it rebounds from the Great Recession. In his remarks, he underscored the point.
"We need to stop penalizing companies that want to invest in America," he said. "Right now, we tax companies who make money overseas if they want to bring it home, but we don’t tax them if they keep their money abroad. That makes no sense at all. We want that money here, invested in new factories, new equipment, and new jobs."
Romney added: "How much money do American companies store overseas that’s waiting to come back? Estimates range as high as $1 trillion. Bringing a trillion dollars back to the United States will create hundreds of thousands — or even millions of good, permanent, private sector jobs."
The dinner speech marked Romney's second visit to New Hampshire this year. On January 31, he made a private trip in which he met with small business leaders in Manchester and job re-trainees at Nashua Community College.
In 2010, he made four campaign visits over five days. Romney also continues to own a vacation home overlooking New Hampshire's Lake Winnipesaukee.
In addition, Romney's so-called "leadership" political action committee, the Free and Strong America PAC, donated $86,335 to various candidates and Republican committees in New Hampshire during 2010. The biggest recipient was the state committee's non-federal account, to which the PAC donated $15,000.
Romney also sprinkled $500 and $1,000 checks on individual candidates across the street.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Summers to address Boston Chamber on Monday
Larry Summers, President Obama's former National Economic Council director, is addressing the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce on Monday.
Summers will speak at noon at the Boston Harbor Hotel. The address is open to members of the Chamber, although the general public can register at the door and attend for a $95 fee.
Summers had served as Treasury secretary under President Clinton. In the Obama administration, he advocated for a stimulus package more focused on tax cuts than infrastructure development.
He was among three top economic policymakers to depart the administration last year, along with Peter Orzag, director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Christina Romer, head of the Council of Economic Advisers.
Summers formerly was president of Harvard University. Following his stint in Washington, he now is director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Romney returns to N.H. as candidacy nears
Former Governor Mitt Romney is speaking in New Hampshire Saturday night as his still-unannounced second presidential campaign gathers momentum.
Since a two-week break in Hawaii over Christmas, when both he and President Obama were vacationing in the 50th state, the Massachusetts Republican has undertaken an aggressive travel schedule making clear his intentions even if he has yet to declare them outright.
Romney has traveled from coast to coast and overseas as well. He's been on late-night television and "The View." He's talked cars at the Daytona 500 and gotten a trim at Tommy Thomas's barber shop, a political stomping grounds in Atlanta.
On Saturday alone, he's speaking behind closed doors in Florida to a meeting of the Club for Growth, then flying north for a speech at the Carroll County Lincoln Day Dinner at the Attitash Grand Summit Hotel in Bartlett, NH.
It will be his most prominent public audience since he addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington early last month.
The appearance also comes as likely rivals Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty, Mike Huckabee, and Haley Barbour ramp up their own activities — and their rhetoric.
Barbour, the governor of Mississippi, was especially entertaining on Tuesday as he sat beside Governor Deval Patrick and testified before a US House committee examining Obama's health care overhaul.
You might have thought that Patrick, a Democrat from blue-state Massachusetts, would have been Barbour's target. Instead, it was Romney, a fellow Republican, who endured the governor's silver-tongued jabs.
“Massachusetts has a state health insurance program that they’re obviously happy with, and we think that’s their right," Barbour said.
Then, deftly unsheathing a dagger, he added: "And Senator (Edward M.) Kennedy and Governor Romney and then Governor Patrick, if that's what Massachusetts wants, we're happy for them. We don’t want that. That’s not good for us."
Nor is that kind of talk good for Romney.
Try as he may, Romney has found it a challenge as he's insisted the state universal health care law he signed while governor of Massachusetts is different from the federal one Obama enacted into law last year.
It does him no good when a potential opponent reminds the GOP base, which can't find enough pejoratives to condemn "Obamacare," that Romney created its predecessor in concert with Kennedy, a favorite party target before his death in 2009.
The argument that may gain the most traction for Romney is that Massachusetts was free to design its own program, and other states should have the same option without having a federal plan imposed upon them.
Obama has delighted in declaring that his plan was modeled on Romney's, muddying a potential 2012 opponent in the process. But he may have given the former governor the most viable form of cover this week: The president shifted course and said he would not object to allowing states to design their own programs, as long as they are at least as good as the federal law that is being put into effect.
That sounds like the message that has been coming from Romney ever since he transitioned from governor to presidential candidate.
The speech Saturday comes as the pulse of the Republican campaign quickens.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich announced yesterday that he was entering the "testing the waters" phase. That will allow him to raise money and hire staff before declaring whether he is moving to an exploratory committee.
Barbour has been toying with reporters, telling them to watch his waistline as the clearest indication of his own possible candidacy — and then claiming it is getting more trim.
Huckabee has been delighting in polls showing him running strong among social conservatives, and Pawlenty has been taking advantage of a veteran staff of advisers to efficiently plot his own campaign and pick his spots for making news.
Elsewhere, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin remains free of any of the traditional constraints, given her ability to command an audience and raise money in a snap.
That is why it will be interesting to hear what Romney has to say.
Instead of letting his opponents frame him, he will have the opportunity to make his own case. And in the lead presidential primary state, the reason for his remarks will be clear, whether or not he wants to admit it yet.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Brown abstains from signing GOP letter on Berwick
Most Senate Republicans are asking President Obama to withdraw the nomination of the man central to implementing the sweeping national health care law passed last year, but Senator Scott Brown is not among them.
Forty-two GOP senators sent a letter to the White House today complaining of Donald M. Berwick’s past statements and lack of experience, and saying the president should start again with a candidate to head Medicare that Republicans could support and confirm.
“Withdrawing Dr. Berwick’s nomination would be a positive first step in rebuilding the trust of the American people,” the letter read.
Brown, who was elected in large part because of his opposition to the health care law, did not sign, and nor did the two moderate Republicans from Maine, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. The other two absent Republicans are Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Rob Portman of Ohio.
Brown spokeswoman Gail Gitcho said the Massachusetts Republican “has always been troubled” by Berwick’s recess appointment. Senators should have the chance to question the candidate, she said, and Brown would make up his mind about Berwick after doing so.
“The president can nominate the person he thinks is best for the job and Senator Brown looks forward to reviewing Dr. Berwick's credentials," she said in a statement.
The president temporarily appointed Berwick, a former Harvard professor, when the Senate was on recess, but he has never been confirmed. The head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has a key role in implementing the overhaul that Congress passed last year.
In response to the letter, the White House said that Berwick is “far and away the best person for the job.”
“He's already doing stellar work at CMS: saving taxpayer dollars by cracking down on fraud, and implementing delivery system reforms that will save billions in excess costs and save millions of lives. We won't be withdrawing the nomination,” the statement said.
Obama, Melinda Gates to visit TechBoston Academy
President Obama, joined by Melinda Gates and Education Secretary Arne Duncan, will visit TechBoston Academy in Dorchester when he comes to Boston on Tuesday.
A White House official said the visit will build on the president's State of the Union call for America to be better educated than the nation's competitors and "win the future."
The official said Obama "will discuss the shared responsibility that government, businesses, philanthropists, and communities have to promote innovative education strategies that will prepare American students to compete in a 21st century economy."
TechBoston Academy was founded in 2002 with the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It offers its students in grades 6-12 a college preparatory curriculum. It has middle and high school campuses. The president will visit the upper campus, which is located in the former Dorchester High School and educates students in grades 10-12.
The White House noted the academy integrates technology into all its classes, and students there benefit from honors/AP classes, dual enrollment opportunities at local colleges, and an extended day program.
The school has numerous private-sector, non-profit, and higher-education partners including Apple, Cisco, Dell, Harvard University, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Tufts University, UMass-Boston and Year Up.
Obama will also be attending a Democratic fundraising dinner afterward at the Museum of Fine Arts.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Romney hires new communications adviser
Andrea Saul, a veteran of political campaigns in the western US, is joining Mitt Romney's political action committee as the Republican readies for a second presidential campaign.
In a statement today, Romney said Saul will serve as a communications adviser to the Free and Strong America PAC.
She most recently served as press secretary for Carly Fiorina’s unsuccessful US Senate campaign in California. Previously, Saul worked as the top communications aide to Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.
The statement said that during the 2008 election, Saul was director of media affairs for the McCain-Palin presidential campaign, responsible for organizing all television, radio, and surrogate activity. She held a similar job at the Republican National Committee, too.
In addition, Saul served briefly served as communications director for Florida Governor Charlie Crist as he ran for the US Senate. She quit when Crist decided to leave the Republican Party and run as an independent.
Much of Romney's communications work has been handled by his longtime spokesman, Eric Fehrnstrom, but he has been building his own political consulting firm after helping Republican Scott Brown win a US Senate special election last year.
In the upcoming election cycle, Fehrnstrom is planning to spend more time helping Romney develop his advertising strategy and television commercials.
Romney is speaking Saturday in both Florida and New Hampshire, and is expected to kickoff his campaign sometime during the next two months.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Hudak running anew in Mass. 6th District
Hudak is back.
Bill Hudak, the Tea Party-backed Republican candidate in the Sixth Congressional District who lost to incumbent Democrat John F. Tierney in the fall, is going make another run at the seat in 2012, he said today.
“After conversations with numerous advisors and campaign volunteers throughout the district, it is clear that my support remains widespread and deep,” Hudak said in a statement. “In fact, since last November I have received hundreds of e-mails and phone calls from supporters urging me to continue the fight.”
Hudak's decision was not a surprise. In a sense, he had never stopped running.
Just days after the November election in which he garnered 41.4 percent of the vote to 54.7 percent for Tierney, Hudak sent a fund-raising letter to supporters, seeking contributions so he can "continue to stand" because, while he "lost the battle," the "war of 2012 is not over."
He signed the missive, "Future Congressman, 6th MA District.”
Hudak, a Boxboro lawyer, campaigned as a self-described "Reagan Republican" committed to a traditional platform of lower taxes and less spending. He was endorsed by US Senator Scott Brown, former Governor Mitt Romney, and and former presidential candidate Steve Forbes.
But he struggled to overcome controversy dating to the presidential election of 2008, when he placed a sign in his lawn that compared Barack Obama to Osama Bin Laden. He also fought accusations that he was sympathetic to the so-called birther movement, after he urged a reporter to look into allegations that Obama was born in Kenya.
Tierney, who has not said whether he will seek a ninth term in 2012, also battled controversy during the campaign.
Just weeks before Election Day, Tierney’s wife, Patrice, pleaded guilty to four counts of aiding and abetting the filing of false tax returns for her brother, a federal fugitive who has been indicted on charges of illegal gambling and money laundering. She was sentenced to 30 days in jail.
Kerry seeks new money for democratic transition in Middle East
Senator John Kerry today unveiled plans to offer financial assistance to promote democracy and reforms in the Arab world.
Although he did not put a dollar figure on the amount he is seeking, the Massachusetts Democrat called for "significant financial commitment" of new money to be earmarked for economists, election experts, and aid to people in the Arab world who are pushing for a historic transformation of their region.
“Events this powerful demand a response of equal power," Kerry said in remarks prepared for delivery in his capacity as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "Our commitment now to the ordinary people who are risking their lives to win human rights and democracy will be remembered for generations in the Arab world. We have to get this moment right. We are working here in the Senate with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to create a package of financial assistance to help turn the new Arab awakening into a lasting rebirth."
Kerry was speaking at a hearing about the State Department's budget at a time when Republicans have vowed to cut foreign aid funding. But he said the aid package has bipartisan support.
"We have not worked out the numbers or the details yet, but I am convinced a significant financial commitment by the US to assist in this monumental and uplifting transformation is key to its long-term outcome and our relationship to it," he said. “I understand that we face a budget crisis in our own country. But we can either pay now to help brave people build a better, democratic future for themselves or we will certainly pay later with increased threats to our own national security."
But Kerry did not say how the new fund would relate to programs that are already in the State Department budget for promoting democracy and reform in the Middle East, such as the Middle East Partnership Initiative and contributions to the National Endowment for Democracy.
It is unclear what impact US aid will have at this stage on people who have already toppled governments of Tunisia and Egypt, and appear to be on the verge of driving Libya's Muammar Qaddafi from power.
Kerry spoke before Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defended the State Department's 2011 budget request.
Kerry also urged consideration of a no-fly zone over Libya, where Qaddafi has attacked protesters with militias backed by helicopters and warplanes.
Obama to visit school in Boston area next week
WASHINGTON – President Obama is planning to visit a school in the Boston area next week during a visit to Massachusetts, the White House announced this afternoon.
Obama is planning to visit the school on March 8, to build on his call for a better education system that he outlined last month in his State of the Union address. Obama has also been pushing this year for an overhaul of the No Child Left Behind law, and the White House is planning a series of education-related events over the coming weeks.
“We have to stop tinkering around the margins,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said on a conference call this afternoon.
Jen Psaki, deputy White House communications director, said that the exact school that Obama will visit in the Boston area had not yet been finalized.
“We hope to have those details in the coming days,” she said.
The White House also announced that Obama would travel on Friday to Miami Central Senior High School in Florida. He will be joined at that event by former Governor Jeb Bush, who is the brother of Obama’s predecessor. The president on March 10 will host a conference at the White House on preventing bullying.
Obama is also planning to be in Boston on March 8 for a major fundraiser with top national Democrats, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com.
President endorses Brown proposal on health care
WASHINGTON — President Obama said Monday he now supports a plan by
Republican Senator Scott Brown that allows states to opt out of the health care overhaul’s key requirements early, a concession that positions the president as willing to compromise on his signature accomplishment.
Obama's shift was announced in an address to the nation’s governors, many of whom have sued the White House to prevent implementation of the health care law. While boosting the prospects of the Massachusetts senator’s bipartisan bill in the Senate, the new position is unlikely to placate the health care law’s detractors or gain approval in the GOP-controlled House. And such an endorsement will not win back support for Brown from Tea Party conservatives, who ferociously denounce the law as an overreach of federal power.
The senator has previously called for the repeal of the health care overhaul, but has shown a willingness to work within the existing rules to change the law for the benefit of Massachusetts residents.
Brown and Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon filed the bill earlier this year. The legislation would enable states to request permission to withdraw from the law’s mandates in 2014 rather than in 2017. To receive the exemption, the states must demonstrate that they could find other ways to cover as many people as the original law would — something Massachusetts has already accomplished — and do so without adding costs. The earlier date is when many of the act’s central provisions take effect.
The legislation is unlikely to significantly affect Massachusetts, which already has implemented many of the core elements of the national plan, but it would allow other states to forge their own plans.
The president said such a change would allow states to tailor the law to their own needs.
"Alabama is not going to have exactly the same needs of Massachusetts or California or North Dakota," Obama said in making the announcement. "We believe in that flexibility."
Brown said that he was pleased with the president's support but reiterated his opposition to the overall law. "(Senator Brown) strongly opposes the federal health care law, and believes states should have the ability to implement their own plans that provide quality care for all their citizens," his office said in a statement.
Tom Miller, a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said that the legislation probably won’t earn Brown any additional support from conservatives; rather, he’s trying to earn support from moderates.
"People who think this bill is fundamentally flawed and the approach is the wrong one to begin with should not take much solace in saying that if you can come up with a slightly different approach to the basic system," he said.
Patrick: Seriously, I don't want to be president
Politico reporter Jonathan Martin sat down with Governor Deval Patrick yesterday and asked him if he were positioning himself for a White House run with his recent travels and political meetings.
"I should say it loudly — no, I am not," the governor replied, leaning into the tape recorder so his words were clearly heard.
Patrick said his only ambition is to serve out his second term.
That's not exactly true, though. His only ambition until 2015 is to serve out his second term.
Then, he's admitted, it's to return to the private sector and make money — lots of it.
Patrick has been in Washington attending the National Governors Association annual winter meetings. Last night, he and his wife, Diane, joined their counterparts at the White House for dinner with President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama.
Earlier, the governor sat down with Politico and other media organizations for a lightning round of interviews.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Patrick's Bronx cheer for Romney highlights national emergence
Governor Deval Patrick yesterday kicked off a two-year period in which he will both try to sell himself and President Obama to the American people, and his first true taste of the national stage was positive.
He was polite, as always, as he and three fellow governors held a roundtable discussion on ABC's "This Week." He sold Massachusetts, as the Democrat promised to do while responding to critics of his upcoming travels.
But he also found himself reticent by comparison with a rising Republican star, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, extending all the way to a trick-but-not-unfathomable question from segment host Jake Tapper.
He asked Patrick if Mitt Romney, his predecessor and a likely candidate for the presidency in 2012, did a good job during his four years as governor of Massachusetts.
"I think one of the best things he did was to be the co-author of our health care reform, which is model for national health care reform," said Patrick.
It was the political equivalent of a Bronx cheer for Romney, who is facing criticism from many Republicans, especially conservatives, for what they have come to dub "Romneycare" with endearment equal to that which they hold for "Obamacare."
Patrick added: “What these folks did in Massachusetts is, frankly, the same thing that the Congress did, which is take on access (to health insurance) first and come to cost control next. ... And just as we have, I think, shown the nation how to provide universal care through a public-private model, I think we can crack the code on health care costs.”
When Tapper asked again if Romney had done a good job, the governor again refused to go negative. Instead, he stuck with a kill-him-with-kindness approach that has already been employed by both Obama and his former press secretary, Robert Gibbs.
"On that one issue, I think he deserves a lot of credit,” said Patrick.
Haley had no qualms about taking the bait, which let her execute the surrogate playbook with aplomb.
It's easy to see why the 39-year-old Haley, who became the nation's youngest sitting governor when she was sworn in last month, is already being talked about as a potential vice presidential running mate.
The first rule as a surrogate is that it's not about you as much as it is the person or viewpoint you're supposed to promote.
When Tapper asked Haley if fellow Republican Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin was right to propose eliminating the collective bargaining rights of most public workers to help balance his state's budget, she was decisive and clear.
"He is trying to trim his budget," said Haley. "He is trying to make the tough decisions that the people of Wisconsin wanted him to do. What I think is a shame is the fact that you got Democrat senators who represent the people of Wisconsin and are so cowardly that they left their own state. I think that’s an absolute slate of who should be thrown out of office as soon as they get back."
Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, a Democrat like Patrick, kept referring to his days in the restaurant industry as he preached understanding and urged management and labor — and the senators who have fled to neighboring Ilinois — to work collectively.
Patrick, too, was conciliatory, offering a mini-commercial for Massachusetts as he talked about his efforts to overhaul public pay and benefits, and to make fundamental changes such as consolidating the transportation system.
"All of this with labor at the table, so there’s another way to approach that," he said in reference to Walker's tactic.
When Tapper asked Patrick if it was "cowardly" for the Democrats to have fled, which they did to block the Republican Party from passing Walker's legislation, the governor showed the limits of his hubris.
“I try to make a practice of just governing Massachusetts and not trying to govern other states," he said.
Haley again was unambiguous in underscoring her party's view.
"Let's be clear," the leader of South Carolina said in discussing the developments in Wisconsin. "This was cowardly. This was irresponsible. They left their state when their state needed them the most because they don’t want to take a vote. Whether they are for it or against it, you come back and represent the people of your state."
Haley also proved deft after watching a clip of another potential 2012 candidate, Sarah Palin, wholeheartedly endorsing her gubernatorial candidacy last year. That prompted the question, would she return the favor should Palin run for the White House next year?
"I want all of the candidates to come to South Carolina," she said. "I want the people of South Carolina to get to see them the way I get to know them. I want them to campaign hard, and then when the right time comes, I will endorse. But there is no one that I feel like I owe at this time."
The exchanges contrasted compassionate and analytical with tart and visceral — not unlike the 2008 campaign between Obama and GOP nominee John McCain.
Patrick has always cast himself as above the partisan fray, but his election campaigns have shown his willingness to get down and dirty as needed. He gave a reminder last week, when he said his travels would promote the state, while Romney's at the end of his gubernatorial term turned the state into a "laughingstock."
Right now, though, with his own re-election campaign just completed and Obama's still to begin, Patrick is in a more soulful period as he prepares to embark on a book tour to sell his memoir, "A Reason to Believe."
Some speculate the book is the requisite prelude to some other campaign, but Patrick has said no and decisively ruled out one race yesterday. When Tapper moved to the subject of the 2012 White House race, the governor cut him off to volunteer, in jest, "I am not running."
But Obama is, and Romney is likely to, and so yesterday was as much about raising Patrick's profile as he attempts to sell his book as it was about introducing him to a national audience as he prepares to become the president's pit bull.
Patrick brings much to the table, in that regard. Not only did he replace Romney as governor, but he implemented the health care law the former governor signed into law.
Republicans will surely dismiss Patrick's comments as partisan, but many undecided voters may find special credibility in his analysis of the similarities and differences between the state health care law Romney signed and the federal bill Obama enacted, much to the chagrin of Romney's fellow Republicans.
Patrick is also extremely comfortable in his own skin, something that always seems to be a challenge for Romney. Should Romney get his party's presidential nomination, Patrick will have already laid out for Obama the road map for attacking him. Obama should draw confidence from not only his fellow Democrat's words, but also his manner.
Patrick is beginning this journey with an aggressive schedule in Washington. Over the weekend, he attended to his official duties at the National Governors Association, while also promoting himself.
He held a fundraiser, and did a series of interviews with reporters from the National Journal, Politico, and other publications.
He also did his stint on "This Week," and a top adviser did little to conceal the endgame.
“It’s nice he's going on the Sunday-morning talk shows," communications director Brendan Ryan said. "And I think it will help him as he works as a surrogate for Obama the next two years.”
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Patrick lauds Romney for health care law
Governor Deval Patrick today praised his predecessor, Mitt Romney, for the health care legislation the former Republican governor crafted with the Democrat-controlled Massachusetts Legislature.
Appearing on ABC's "This Week," Patrick singled out health care as one issue Romney "deserves a lot of credit" for over his four years in office, linking his predecessor to the issue that, as a likely presidential candidate, Romney would probably prefer to avoid.
"One of the best things he did was to be the co-author of our health care reform, which has been a model for national health care reform" Patrick said.
Patrick also talked about state budgeting as a budget standoff continues in Wisconsin over collective bargaining rights.
The governor said labor and government don't need to be at odds during tough fiscal time, saying that Massachusetts balanced its budget while funding education.
"We can do this with labor at the table," he said.
Patrick defends travel against Romney comparison
Governor Deval Patrick today defended his decision to travel more during his second term, saying it is far different from the extensive travel engaged in by Republican Governor Mitt Romney that prompted sharp criticism from Democrats.
Patrick, himself a Democrat, said, "I'm going out promoting the commonwealth, while he was out making us a laughingstock.”
The governor was referring to Romney's extensive travel in preparation for his 2008 presidential campaign. In but one example of his out-of-state comments, Romney once told South Carolinians "being a conservative Republican in Massachusetts is a bit like being a cattle rancher at a vegetarian convention."
Patrick recently visited Washington and Chicago to prepare for an expected role as a surrogate speaker on behalf of President Obama during the Democrat's re-election campaign next year.
Next month, Patrick is also visiting Denver to address a Democratic dinner, before jetting off to Israel and the United Kingdom on a trade mission. In April, he will be participating in a multi-city tour promoting his memoir. He has also promised more trade missions.
“It’s not a bad thing for us to raise our profile" the governor said during his monthly appearance on WTKK-FM.
He said bragging about balanced budgets, an improved bond rating, and high student achievement scores is "a story we ought to be telling."
He then veered into the political, recalling a Globe story from 2006 that detailed how Romney had spent all or part of 212 days out of state that year.
"That’s a lot different from what I'm taking about, and I'm going out promoting the commonwealth, while he was out making us a laughingstock.”
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Cantor heads to Harvard to outline economic vision
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is heading north of the Mason-Dixon Line tonight to visit the liberal environs of Harvard University and outline a conservative economic vision.
In a speech at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, which will be webcast live at 6 p.m., the Virginia Republican will speak of a country he sees at an economic crossroads, confronting two alternate visions.
One echoes the image of protests that swept Europe last year and continue in some places today, as members of the public and government workers rebelled against cuts in pension and other entitlement programs.
The other is the image of town hall meetings that played out across America in 2009, propelling the anti-government Tea Party revolution and helping the GOP reclaim the House majority this past November.
Cantor said one view is of a future dependent on government financing; the other is rooted in personal entrepreneurship.
“If you think about it, these were very young people worried about their retirement benefits before they’ve worked their career," Cantor told the Globe in reference to some of the participants in Greece, France, and other European nations.
The town hall participants, by contrast, "choose a future based on individual actions, opportunity not created by the government but by the private sector," he said.
Cantor, the top deputy to House Speaker John Boehner, insists his is not a partisan analysis, only a philosophical one. But his comments echoed a partisan opinion piece he recently wrote for Politico, in which he criticized President Obama's budget proposal and said "kicking the can down the road is no substitute for real leadership. Just ask Greece."
In the same column, he urged action to avoid "a European-style debt crisis."
Cantor said an relying too heavily on government support forces increased spending. That triggers tax increases that, in turn, sap capital from the private marketplace. Reducing business taxes and reducing government regulation, he argues, will help keep capital in the private sector.
As to why he's taking his message to an Ivy League institution oft-derided by conservatives, Cantor said: "Harvard is one of the premier institutions of higher learning in the world. We’ve been successful in America because we’ve been able to educate our population to think critically. It’s allowed America to become the crucible of innovation.’’
His deputy chief of staff, John Murray, said the visit is the leader's ongoing campaign to speak "beyond the base," including reaching out to young people, minorities, and university audiences.
Cantor has already spoken at William & Mary and had a speech at the University of Michigan snowed out. He's headed next for Stanford University.
The goal is to make "more of a vision statement than a political statement.”
Murray added: "We have a very systematic strategy to ensure that the work we are doing here inside the Beltway is being transmitted and translated in good venues," he said.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Patrick, Coakley back Obama decision to stop defending DOMA in courts
Attorney General Martha Coakley, who filed a 2009 lawsuit that helped persuade a federal judge in Boston to declare the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional in July, said she was “very pleased” with the president’s decision to no longer defend the law.
“Today’s decision…is another very important victory for the civil rights of same-couples and their families,” Coakley said at a press conference in her Boston office. “We think the reasoning, as expressed by General Holder is, in some ways, dependent on the extensive discovery and arguments that occurred in Massachusetts."
In a statement released by his office, Governor Deval Patrick threw his support behind the Obama administration.
“I am tremendously heartened today by President Obama’s decision to turn away from this divisive and unfair law,.'' he said. "In Massachusetts, we believe that every person ought to be able to marry whomever they love, and we believe the rest of the country is moving forward in that direction, too."
Coakley told reporters that the law has now been declared discriminatory and unconstitutional by the judge in Boston, Joseph L. Tauro, and by the Obama administration.
Capuano now says he regrets urging union protesters to get 'bloody'
US Representative Michael E. Capuano, who decried violent political rhetoric after last month’s fatal shooting rampage in Tucson, said today he regrets urging union workers at a rally in Boston yesterday to “get a little bloody.”
"I strongly believe in standing up for worker rights and my passion for preserving those rights may have gotten the best of me yesterday in an unscripted speech,” the Somerville Democrat said in a statement. “I wish I had used different language to express my passion and I regret my choice of words."
Capuano was referring to remarks he made at a raucous rally of about 1,000 union workers who were outside the State House, protesting Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, and his plan to limit public employees' collective bargaining rights.
"I'm proud to be with people who understand that it's more than just sending an e-mail that gets you going," Capuano had declared. "Every once in a while you need to get out on the streets and get a little bloody when necessary."
The union crowd greeted Capuano's exhortation with cheers, whistles, and applause.
But his remark raised eyebrows elsewhere because Capuano was among the lawmakers who were calling for cooler political rhetoric after his Democratic colleague, Gabrielle Giffords, was shot in the Tucson rampage that killed six other people last month.
At the time, Capuano had said the shooting was probably inevitable because of the nation's increasingly heated political rhetoric.
“Many of us were afraid for a long time that something like this would happen, with the level or the tone of the discourse over the last several years," Capuano told WGBH on Jan. 22. "It's gotten violent and personal.”
Capuano echoed that sentiment in a Jan. 9 interview with the Globe.
“Everybody knows the last couple of years there’s been an intentional increase in the degree of heat in political discourse,” he said. “If nothing else good comes out of this, I’m hoping it causes people to reconsider how they deal with things."
Capuano ran unsuccessfully for the US Senate in 2009, and is considering a run against Republican Scott Brown in 2012.
Thune decides against White House run
South Dakota Senator John Thune released a statement today saying he will not seek the presidency in 2012.
"There is a battle to be waged over what kind of country we are going to leave our children and grandchildren and that battle is happening now in Washington, not two years from now. So at this time, I feel that I am best positioned to fight for America’s future here in the trenches of the United States Senate,'' the Republican said in a statement.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Obama heading to the Hub for fundraiser
WASHINGTON – President Obama is heading to Boston next month for a major fundraiser with top national Democrats.
Obama will be in the Hub for a dinner on March 8 to raise money for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
“March 8th promises to be an unforgettable evening with President Obama and leading Democrats from across America,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi wrote this morning in a fundraising letter. “I look forward to sharing it with you.”
Pelosi’s letter also announced a contest for those who donate at least $5, to win a trip to Boston that includes airfare, hotel, and a guest spot at a dinner with Obama and Pelosi.
Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com.
Obama defends cuts to home heating aid program
President Obama today defended his plan to cut by half the home energy assistance program, which tens of thousands of New Englanders rely on to help pay their home heating bills.
"On the LIHEAP program, the home heating assistance program, we doubled the home heating assistance program when I first came into office in part because there was a huge energy spike, and so folks, if we just kept it at the same level, folks would have been in real trouble,'' Obama said at a press conference, in response to a question about unpopular cuts in his newly released budget proposal. "Energy prices have now gone down but the cost of the program has stayed the same. So what we've said is let's go back to a more sustainable level.''
Funding for the program had been boosted to $5.1 billion for this fiscal year, but House Republicans are seeking immediate cuts, before all the money is disbursed. In the president's budget for the next fiscal year, the money allocated would be cut to $2.6 billion. Both efforts to pare the program have been denounced by Bay State legislators.
US Representative Edward Markey, a Malden Democrat, has been the Democrats point person on GOP efforts to cut at least $400 million from the program this year. He is offering an amendment to restore proposed cuts.
“Cutting off funds for this program now means that millions of families could have their heating cut off,” said Markey last week. “These families would be forced to decide once again between heating and eating.”
Both Republican Scott Brown and Democrat John F. Kerry in the Senate have urged Obama to reconsider cuts next year.
At the press conference today, Obama said his administration would be open to adding money to the program as needed.
"If it turns out that, once again, you see a huge energy spike, then we can revisit it, but let's not just assume because it's at a $5 billion level that each year we're going to sustain it at a $5 billion level regardless of what's happening on the energy front," he said. "Now, that doesn't mean that, you know, these aren't still tough cuts. Because they're always more people who could use some help across the country than we have resources. And so it's still a tough decision, and I understand people's frustrations with some of these decisions."
Fundraiser seeks big money for Patrick, party
Local Democrats and political insiders are holding a fundraiser for Governor Deval Patrick next month — and seeking up to $5,500 per person — despite the Democrat’s assertion he will not seek a third term in 2014 or challenge Republican Senator Scott Brown next year.
A spokesman said the event is to help retire campaign debts while simultaneously boosting the Massachusetts Democratic Party.
The first $500 of each donation would go to Patrick, the maximum allowable annual contribution for individuals under state law. The remainder of any contribution would go to the party, which can accept up to $5,000 annually from individuals.
The party spent over $2.5 million on Patrick’s behalf last year during his re-election campaign, primarily for mailings and television ads.
It spent another $712,000 on Patrick during the first three years he was in office. During his 2006 campaign, his first as a political candidate, the party spent $2.4 million helping Patrick get elected.
The party is led by John Walsh, who managed Patrick’s 2006 campaign.
The fundraiser is being organized by three members of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP, a South Carolina law firm that has a Boston office and is active in government lobbying.
The invitation for the March 7 gathering at the office lists the co-hosts as Peter Haley, a partner specializing in commercial law; Robert Crowe, a Democratic fundraiser who is co-chairman of the firm’s Government Relations practice, and; Christopher Greeley, who is managing director of the firm’s public strategies group.
Greeley is a registered state lobbyist whose clients include the Boston Beer Co., maker of Sam Adams ale, and Bristol Community College, a public entity. He was in the public spotlight when he managed Senator John Kerry’s 1996 epic re-election campaign against Republican William F. Weld.
Greeley said today: "Bob, Peter, and I are longtime supporters of Governor Patrick, both when he ran in his first term and when he ran for re-election, and are happy to continue our support."
Greeley acknowledged he lobbies state government, as disclosed in annual filings with the secretary of state. But he said he had no idea if Patrick had any aspirations beyond eliminating his campaign debt.
"That's a question for the governor," he said.
Patrick would have to establish a federal fundraising account to run for the Senate, but the state party could help him whether he ran for state or federal office.
Patrick has ruled out seeking re-election or filling the Democratic void in what has the potential to be a high-profile Senate race.
Brown shocked the party in a special election last year and claimed the seat held for nearly a half-century by a liberal party icon, Edward M. Kennedy. Many political strategists say only Patrick or Kennedy’s widow, Vicki, has the stature to knock him out of the Senate.
A Patrick spokesman said the governor has over $200,000 in debts he is trying to repay and the fundraiser is for that purpose. The governor’s year-end campaign finance report showed a cash balance of $20,000 and nearly $88,000 in debts, including $20,000 to Doug Rubin, Patrick’s chief political strategist.
Strategists often delay fully billing a campaign until after an election, to preserve donations for campaign work and to avoid disclosing their fee while it could be problematic for a candidate.
Patrick’s campaign “left the re-election committee with a small debt,’’ spokesman Steve Crawford said in a statement. “The Massachusetts Democratic Party needs additional resources to meet its goal of continuing the strong neighbor-to-neighbor effort it undertook in the last election."
Despite Patrick’s public assertions, he has only heightened interest in his political intentions with his recent activities and travels.
He went to Washington last week to have dinner with Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine. He is charged with recruiting surrogate speakers for President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign.
Patrick could be a particularly effective counter-puncher if his immediate predecessor as governor, Mitt Romney, wins the GOP’s presidential nomination.
Meanwhile, over the weekend, Patrick made an overnight trip to Chicago to meet with political strategist David Axelrod, who previously served as a Patrick political adviser and left the Obama administration last month to prepare for a re-election role.
Patrick was slated to see Obama himself today during a ceremony at the White House, but he cancelled his trip after falling ill.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Romney makes business case to franchise group
LAS VEGAS — Mitt Romney sought yesterday to distinguish himself from President Obama, his potential 2012 election opponent, by casting himself as a friend to the nation’s business community.
A week after Obama tried to repair relations with the US Chamber of Commerce, a pro-business target of the president and his fellow Democrats during last year’s midterm elections, Romney was the keynote speaker before thousands of attendees at the annual meeting of the International Franchise Association.
The former governor of Massachusetts was not subtle in his outreach to the small business owners who populate the group and fuel much of the nation’s economy, highlighting his past as a venture capitalist and aligning himself with their workplace values.
“I respect American business, and people who start businesses that are small and grow to be large are people that I salute,’’ he said.
“What scares me is that I’m worried that Washington, and politicians who don’t know butt kiss about the free-enterprise system and our economy, are slowly but surely doing things which smother the American spirit of enterprise and innovation and pioneering,” he added. “They don’t understand what it is that makes us work.”
Romney went on to focus on what he saw as differences between the public and private sectors, often referring to “they’’ in government and saying “I’m not really a politician yet. I have to get elected at least twice to be a politician.’’
Romney decided against seeking a second term in 2006 to make what turned out to be an unsuccessful presidential run in 2008. He is expected to launch a second White House campaign in the spring, although he told the franchisees in response to a question, “I’m not going to do something like that here.”
He lauded one coveted 2012 GOP supporter, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, for attacking skyrocketing government pension costs, while also crediting New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, for proposing massive government layoffs to cope with his state’s budget problems.
In response to another question, Romney distinguished the state universal health care law he signed in 2006 from the federal law signed by Obama last year. He said individual states, not the federal government, should decide what is best for themselves. “You learn from experiments,” he said. “Some parts worked well; some didn’t.”
Romney said private sector work is “far less forgiving’’ than government work, because when government makes a mistake, “we simply pass that cost on to the taxpayers, or we borrow more money and pass it on to the next generation.’’
Small business owners know, he said, that if “you make a mistake like that, you go out of business. You lose your job. You lose other people’s jobs. . . . That’s why the best and brightest are in your world, and not in the government world.’’
Business owners, Romney said, also analyze data. In government, however, “the policy makers, the politicians, they have their answers without benefit of the data.’’
And he said government leaders have no concept of the value of incentives.
“In government, they spend little time thinking about what impact what they do has on human behavior, because, frankly, they’ve lived so long in a realm where they can command what you do, they don’t think a lot about how to convince you or encourage you to do what they want you to do,’’ said Romney.
Two attendees said they liked what they heard.
"I think the people who are running our country have such an unrealistic non-grasp of the private sector and how it really works," said Leigh Harting of St. Petersburg, Fla., a business development manager for Modern Business Associates.
Michael Ridd of Salt Lake City, who works for Jiffy Lube, said: "He's got a strong magnetism. He had a leadership quality. He looks right. He sounds right. And he's doing the right things."
Aides refused to make the former governor available to the media after his speech. He did meet with some of his 2008 supporters, as well as a second group of businessmen and women to talk about jobs.
Romney is expected to meet this morning with potential campaign fund-raisers.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Romney tops Obama in N.H. poll
President Obama's support in New Hampshire is less than granite solid.
In a WMUR Granite State Poll released today, Mitt Romney garnered 49 percent of the vote to 41 percent for the president, who took the state in his 2008 win over Republican John McCain.
Any poll this early in the election season -- no prominent GOP candidate, including Romney, has even declared yet -- is nothing more than political hardtack for old political salts to chew upon. And most of the likely voters in the poll said they have not yet decided whom to back. Nonetheless, if the former Massachusetts governor is to be successful in a second quest for the White House, the path is likely to begin in New Hampshire.
Romney stumbled out of the gates in the 2008 GOP primaries, losing to McCain even though the state was in his political backyard. To prevent a rerun of that result, Romney has focused much of his early energies on the state, setting up a quasi operational base there at his summer home in the lakes region.
The poll shows Romney well out in front of potential GOP challengers, getting the nod from about 40 percent of likely voters in the Republican primary. The rest of the pack were huddled in the single digits, save former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who had 10 percent of the votes. They were followed by 7 percent for former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, 7 percent for former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, 6 percent for former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, 6 percent for 2008 vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, 5 percent backing Representative Ron Paul, another 2008 candidate, and 3 percent for businessman Donald Trump.
Romney has consistently led potential Republican candidates since the UNH Survey Center began tracking the race two years ago. The center conducted the poll for WMUR.
"Romney is doing well in part because his brand of Republicanism fits with most New Hampshire Republicans, who can be characterized as 'Rockefeller Republicans,'" Andrew Smith, director of the UNH Survey Center, told WMUR. "New Hampshire is one of the least religious states in the country, and social conservatives have difficulty winning here. Fiscal issues are much more potent in the Granite State."
President Obama fares better among all likely voters in a hypothetical matchup against Palin, winning 57 to 34 percent.
The survey polled 757 randomly selected adults -- including 357 likely Republican voters -- from Jan. 28 through Feb. 7. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
Brown joins Kerry in denouncing cuts to heating aid program
Republican Senator Scott Brown has joined his Democratic counterpart John F. Kerry in opposing plans to cut by half home fuel aid to struggling Americans next winter.
In his budget proposal for the next fiscal year, President Obama is reportedly calling for a $2.5 billion cut in the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which has helped nearly a quarter million households in Massachusetts this year.
Such a cut is unconscionable, Brown said.
"I can point to countless items in the president's budget that should be cut before LIHEAP funding. With Massachusetts residents getting pounded by brutal winter storms, cutting LIHEAP funding is a non-starter for me,"’ Brown said in a statement today to the Statehouse News Service.
Yesterday, Kerry wrote a letter to the president, calling on him to keep funding at its current level of $5.1 billion.
"I’ve always supported serious efforts to restore fiscal sanity, but in the middle of a brutal, even historic, New England winter, home heating assistance is more critical than ever to the health and welfare of millions of Americans, especially senior citizens,"’ Kerry wrote.
Representative Edward Markey, Democrat of Malden, called on the House Appropriations Committee to resist paring the program.
"Cutting funding for LIHEAP so dramatically would have a devastating impact on millions of American families already suffering from the economic downturn," he said in a letter today.
Markey has been battling House Republicans who are considering immediate cuts to the program this winter, as part of their effort to slice $100 billion from President Obama's spending requests.
"It takes a frigid heart for Republicans to continue to defend tax breaks for oil and gas companies, while putting heating fuel assistance for America’s neediest on the chopping block," Markey said.
Obama reportedly seeks cuts in heating oil aid
President Obama is planning to request that funding for heating oil aid to the poor be cut in half in his upcoming budget proposal, according to several news reports.
The president would seek to reduce the Low Income Home Energy Heating Assistance Program from the current funding of $5.1 billion to $2.6 billion, the Associated Press said, citing a source familiar with the budget discussions. Obama is expected to release his overall budget proposal on Monday. It would cover the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.
Advocates for the poor consider the program a lifeline to struggling homeowners in the winter. So far this season, Massachusetts has received $173 million; the poorest households in the state would receive $1,050 to help pay their heating bills. About 200,000 Bay State households qualified for the aid last year.
Senator John F. Kerry wrote the president today to express his concern over possible cuts.
"I’ve always supported serious efforts to restore fiscal sanity, but in the middle of a brutal, even historic, New England winter, home heating assistance is more critical than ever to the health and welfare of millions of Americans, especially senior citizens,'' the Massachusetts Democrat wrote.
"Families across Massachusetts, and the country, depend on these monies to heat their homes and survive the season,'' Kerry wrote. "It is estimated that over 3 million families that qualify for heating assistance would not receive it if the funding levels are not maintained."
Struggling homeowners are caught in a vortex of difficulties, with heating oil prices rising, temperatures tumbling, and the economy still stuttering. Before a recent dip in prices, crude oil had been trading near two-year highs. It closed today at about $87 a barrel in New York commodity markets.
President Obama and members of his administration have warned that cuts would be painful and would target programs he supports but are essential to slow the ballooning national debt.
Trip, book release signal new Patrick phase
Governor Deval Patrick woke up this morning in Washington after a dinner last night with Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine.
Bostonians, meanwhile, awoke to a front-page story by the Globe's Michael Levenson outlining the contents of Patrick's upcoming autobiography, "A Reason to Believe," which he plans to publicize with a multi-city book tour.
The twin developments, coupled with Patrick's post-election promise to travel more in promotion of the state and its businesses, signal a new phase in the relationship between the people of Massachusetts and their Democratic governor.
Plainly put, the citizens of the state are going to see him less while the citizens of the nation — and the world — see him more. The first stops are Israel and Britain, where Patrick will lead a trade mission next month.
Patrick insists his outward gaze won't lead to anything else, but voters who just re-elected him over Republican Charles Baker don't need too much of a memory to feel jittery.
Patrick's election in 2006 broke a 16-year string of Republican rule that saw a somewhat unfocused period of leadership.
William F. Weld upset Democrat John Silber in the 1990 gubernatorial race, and then in 1994, beat Democrat Mark Roosevelt to claim a second term. By 1996, though, he was challenging Democratic Senator John Kerry in what turned out to be an epic election.
Weld lost but decided in 1997 the next best course was to resign and seek an appointment as U.S. ambassador to Mexico. Then-Senator Jesse Helms, a conservative Republican from North Carolina not particularly enamored with Weld's more liberal social views, snuffed out those ambitions.
Weld was replaced by his lieutenant governor, Paul Cellucci, who successfully ran for governor in his own right in 1998. Yet by 2000, he was campaigning to help Texas Governor George W. Bush become president, and when he won, Cellucci was awarded with an appointment as US ambassador to Canada.
His lieutenant governor, Jane Swift, stepped in as acting governor and fully intended to run for governor herself in 2002 when Mitt Romney returned to Massachusetts as an Olympics savior and elbowed her aside.
He barely assumed office before he started positioning himself for his 2008 presidential run. The most telling fact was that he worked to become chairman of the Republican Governors Association in 2006, which gave him a prominent mid-term election platform but also required that he become the organization's vice chairman in 2005, since the No. 2 official customarily ascends to the No. 1 spot the following year.
That meant that Romney, who took office in January 2003, had to work in 2004 to secure a post in 2005 that would allow him to get a job in 2006 that would segue to a campaign launch in 2007 for a seat up for election in 2008.
The timeline is instructive in reflecting on Romney's statement two weeks ago — as he emerged from a meeting with Massachusetts House Republicans amid speculation about a second presidential run, and prepared for a similar session with members of the New Hampshire Legislature — that "I'm not doing any campaigning, thanks."
When Romney left as governor after just one term, and Patrick won an upset in the 2006 election as a political neophyte, the new governor had to bat down all manner of speculation about his commitment to the job.
Promise as he might to serve out his term, and pledge as he may to even run for re-election in 2008, Patrick had to repel, to the point of exasperation, questions about whether he was interested in serving in the Obama administration, the US Senate, or being nominated to the Supreme Court.
After winning re-election last fall, the governor was up front about saying he would not seek a third term. Patrick explained that after eight years in public office, it would be time to return to the private sector and seek its financial benefits. He also pledged to serve out his term, and went so far as to claim a distinction between himself and his GOP predecessors.
"We had had too many years of leadership more interested in having the job than doing the job," he said last month during his inaugural address.
Then Patrick headed to Washington one February evening, and announces plans to head overseas next month.
Patrick' staff wouldn't explain the dinner meeting with Kaine, but the governor has already expressed interest in campaigning on behalf of President Obama when he seeks re-election in 2012. Kaine is in charge of recruiting a squad of effective surrogate speakers, and Patrick surely qualifies.
In April, Patrick's book is being released. The cover itself promises readings not only in Boston, but Washington, Chicago, and New York.
While Patrick labors to distinguish the remainder of his tenure from that of his predecessors, his schedule has the potential to speak for itself.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
NH GOP chair picks Bostonian as communications director
The new chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party has chosen a woman with Boston connections to be his communications director.
Chairman Jack Kimball announced today the selection of Christine Baratta. She is a Lowell native and was a talk-radio producer in Boston for over 10 years.
Prior to joining the NH GOP, Baratta served as a communications consultant on state and federal campaigns in New England, and was communications director during Jim Bender's unsuccessful US Senate campaign in New Hampshire last year.
"With her media experience and communications skills working on political campaigns, I am confident she has the ability to effectively cultivate our message of strong Republican values,'' Kimball said in a statement.
Baratta said: "I look forward to an exciting year welcoming the Republican presidential candidates as we gear up for the first-in-the-nation primary. The people of the Granite State spoke loud and clear in last November’s election by sending the tax-and-spend crowd in Concord packing in a clear rejection of the Democrats' ill-conceived policies and reckless spending habits."
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Patrick visiting DC to nosh with DNC chair
Governor Deval Patrick is making a quick trip to Washington tomorrow night for dinner with Democratic National Committee Chairman Timothy Kaine.
A spokesman would not detail the exact nature of the conversation but said Patrick was not attending any other events or fundraisers. There also was no meeting planned with his friend President Barack Obama.
The spokesman said Patrick would return to Massachusetts on Wednesday morning.
The chairman is the former governor of Virginia and attended Harvard Law School with Patrick. He now is charged with boosting the party in the aftermath of its mid-term election losses and in anticipation of Obama's 2012 re-election campaign.
Patrick and Obama, meanwhile, have shared the same political advisers — David Axelrod and David Plouffe — and the governor has already said he expects to campaign on behalf of the president. Having successfully won re-election with much the same political biography and administration record, Patrick could be a prominent surrogate speaker, especially if former Governor Mitt Romney is the Republican presidential nominee.
As governor, Romney signed into law the nation's first universal health care law. Obama did the same for the country last year, but Romney has criticized the federal plan and tried to differentiate it from the state's plan. Patrick has had to enact the law created by Romney, which would give special potency to any Romney rebuttal he could offer.
Romney is expected to announce his candidacy for the 2012 GOP nomination this spring.
In addition to their profession and personal interaction, Kaine wrote a testimonial for Patrick's upcoming book.
"I met Deval Patrick in the spring of 1980 at Harvard Law School," said Kaine. "I realized quickly that he was a remarkable person — confident, compassionate, and a wonderful listener. He combined a youthful energy with a sense of wisdom and balance that belied his youth."
Referring to the title of the book, he added: "'A Reason to Believe' describes the unique set of experiences — both difficult and uplifting — that have forged this important and historic public servant. Governor Patrick's book offers hope to anyone that adversity can be overcome and pain turned into perspective. It also provides a clear-eyed defense of idealism that is rooted in a basic value — everyone has something important to offer the world and the responsibility to do so."
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Kerry diplomatic while not being diplomat
Senator John Kerry spent a good deal of time over the weekend being diplomatic even as his staff played down his interest in being the country's top diplomat.
The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee delivered an Egyptian tour de force during an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press," amid some back-and-forth about his possible interest in serving as secretary of state in the future.
Globe columnist Joan Vennochi intensified the discussion last week with an op-ed piece headlined, "Kerry’s sharp eye on the secretary spot." Building off a column about the turmoil in Egypt that Kerry himself wrote last week for The New York Times, Vennochi said the Massachusetts Democrat "is running an unofficial campaign to become the next secretary of state. For once, he looks artful, as well as ambitious."
The column prompted ABC News to ask Kerry's staff whether, in fact, he was running a stealth campaign to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has confessed to being bone-weary amid the incessant travel that underpins the life of any secretary of state.
That query, in turn, prompted a 148-word statement from Kerry spokeswoman Jodi Seth.
"I don't know what else we can do to stop the parlor game speculation about who's coming and who's going," the statement said. “Lord knows we've knocked it down a thousand times over, and at a time of such challenge for American foreign policy, the punditry is especially unwelcome and unhelpful."
Then Seth added: "The one thing that hasn't changed one iota is that John Kerry loves his job as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and as the senior senator from Massachusetts. He worked a long time to get this job, and doing your job so well doesn't mean you're auditioning for another job.”
To further underscore the point, Seth continued: "So one last time: The only job John Kerry is contemplating, or considering, is the one job he already has, and he isn't looking elsewhere. Sometimes in politics, no really means no, and sometimes the best place to be really is the place you already are, end of story."
That said, Kerry's appearance on "Meet the Press" made clear he's certainly not some backbencher when it comes to the Obama administration's conduct of foreign policy.
The senator told host David Gregory he spoke on Saturday with Omar Suleiman, long the director of the Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate and now the country's vice president. He mentioned he also had spoken yesterday with Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League and a likely candidate for Egyptian president in elections promised for later this year.
Speaking on Super Bowl Sunday, Kerry quipped that the Germans, French, British, Turks, and others were also "flooding the zone" with diplomatic communications.
Perhaps most interestingly, Kerry spoke with authority as he distanced the administration from the recent comments of the US special envoy to Egypt, former Ambassador Frank Wisner.
While President Barack Obama told reporters last week that it was time for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to step down amid mass protests against his authoritarian regime, Wisner said over the weekend that Mubarak must stay in power "in order to steer those changes through."
Wisner added: "I therefore believe that President Mubarak's continued leadership is critical. It's his opportunity to write his own legacy."
Clinton subsequently said Wisner "is not speaking for the administration,'' but Kerry drove home the point on Sunday-morning television.
"I think that Mr. Wisner's comments just don't reflect where the administration has been from Day One," Kerry said. "And that was not the message that he was asked to deliver or did deliver there."
The senator went on to say that while the timing of the public eruption in Egypt was surprising, the forces propelling it were not. In fact, he noted that a year ago in Doha, Qatar, "I gave a speech in which I laid out much of what needed to be done in the region."
He added that just three weeks ago, also in Doha, Clinton made a similarly tough statement.
"It was a very dramatic statement," Kerry added in reference to Clinton's speech, moments after he appeared to suggest he had been ahead of the curve on the issue.
Despite his spokeswoman's protestations, Kerry has made no secret of his interest in serving in the Obama administration. He waged a none-to-subtle campaign to be secretary of state, even highlighting a meeting he had on Nantucket in May 2008 with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Obama ultimately tapped Clinton, his former rival for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.
Since then, Kerry has immersed himself in his Foreign Relations Committee work, even while steadily expanding his portfolio as an unofficial administration emissary. He has made missions to Pakistan amid concerns about terrorism and to the Sudan in an effort to stave off civil war.
And it was up to Kerry — not Obama, Biden, or Clinton — to spend hours dining and walking with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in the fall of 2009 when it appeared he might not accept a new presidential election amid evidence of fraud in the first vote.
Any future nomination to serve as secretary of state may rest on Biden as much as Clinton or Obama. While Clinton would have to step aside to create a vacancy, and Obama would have to name any replacement, Biden has served as Obama's chief in-house foreign affairs adviser based, in large measure, on experience from his own tenure as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Biden may not be able to appoint Kerry to the post, but any opposition to Kerry assuming the role would be hard for the senator to overcome, given his stature in the West Wing.
Left unsaid, too, is the ripple effect for Massachusetts from any change.
Kerry isn't up for re-election until 2014 — two years after the next presidential election, and what would be the halfway-point in an Obama administration were the president to win a second term. It would be a logical point for any Cabinet member to step down, including the secretary of state. Colin Powell did just that after serving as secretary of state for the first term of President George W. Bush's administration.
Were Kerry to become secretary of state then, it would be up to Governor Deval Patrick to pick his successor. And that possibility may determine who steps up to challenge Senator Scott Brown when the Republican himself seeks re-election next year.
One school of thought is that US Representative Michael Capuano, the only House member to take a shot at succeeding the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy, might take another shot at joining the upper chamber of Congress in 2012.
Even if he were to fail, Patrick could reward his valiant effort on behalf of the party by appointing him to any Kerry vacancy.
The other school of thought is that potential Brown challengers such as Representative Edward J. Markey, the dean of the congressional delegation, or Vicki Kennedy, the late senator's widow, might skip a contentious campaign against the politically adept Brown for the safer route of a direct gubernatorial appointment.
Kennedy has repeatedly — and recently — ruled out a 2012 campaign; Markey has not.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Kerry on `Meet the Press' this weekend
Senator John Kerry will appear on ``Meet the Press'' this Sunday.
His staff said this afternoon the Massachusetts Democrat will discuss the latest developments in Egypt.
Earlier this week, Kerry wrote an op-ed column calling for President Hosni Mubarak to step down following mass protests about his three decades of authoritarian rule. Things have only gotten worse, with violent confrontations between Mubarak's supporters and detractors.
Not only does Kerry serve as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but he has been an unofficial Obama administration envoy to Central Asia, the Middle East and the Sudan.
``Meet the Press'' airs at 10:30 a.m. Sunday on WHDH-TV, Channel 7.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.
Obama signs off on New START treaty in White House ceremony
WASHINGTON — In a ceremony at the White House today, President Obama signed the final ratification documents for the New START nuclear arms treaty with Russia. The United States and Russia are expected to exchange ratification documents this weekend, thereby bringing the treaty into force, according to Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Kerry was Obama’s point man in winning Senate ratification for the treaty.
“The new treaty represents an important milestone in arms control agreements between the United States and Russia,” said Kerry, in a statement issued after the signing ceremony.
“Anytime we reduce the number of nuclear weapons deployed by these two countries, we make the world a safer place for everyone. The agreement signed today by President Obama, which was ratified in a bipartisan Senate vote in December, means that American inspectors will once again be visiting Russian nuclear installations and the number of nuclear weapons deployed by both countries will be reduced. When the treaty enters into force this weekend, it will signal to other nations that the United States and Russia are working together to reduce their arsenals and stop the spread of nuclear weapons technology to other countries.”
Obama challenges high school students to book him as commencement speaker
WASHINGTON -- President Obama challenged public high school students in Massachusetts and across the country today to book him as their graduation speaker.
The second annual Race-to-the-Top Commencement competition asks students to write essays and submit statistics that show their school is doing an extraordinary job of preparing them for life after high school. Obama will give the commencement address at the winning school.
“I’m looking for the school that’s doing the best job of preparing students for college and careers,” Obama said in a statement today. “The winning school will understand that their number one priority is making sure that our kids are learning what they need to succeed in this 21st century economy.”
East Boston High School, Somerville High and Lowell High were among more than 1,000 schools that competed in the challenge last year. The winner was Kalamazoo Central High School in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Applications for this year's challenge must be submitted by February 25 at www.whitehouse.gov/commencement.
Donovan Slack can be reached at dslack@globe.com.
Romney blasts Obama, says 'no decision' on presidential bid
WASHINGTON – Former Governor Mitt Romney tonight blasted President Obama, going after him using a line of attack that opponents have utilized before: competency for the job.
“He’s trying awfully hard,” Romney said during an appearance on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News. “The problem is, he just doesn’t know what to do.”
Romney said that not only were President Obama’s policies misguided, but that he had been “cavalier” in dealing with the economic woes facing the nation.
“It’s sad to watch in some respects because obviously we care very deeply with what’s happening with the country, we want people to get back to work,” Romney said. “But he just doesn’t know what the right things are that he’s got to do to make that happen. He’s really put in place over the last two years about the most anti-investment, anti-business, anti-jobs regimen that we’ve seen probably in the past couple decades.”
It marked a sharp tone for Romney, and came the day after President Obama called for bipartisanship in his State of the Union address.
Romney, when asked whether repealing Obama’s signature health care plan should be the top priority, said, “Oh, sure. A new spending entitlement for the federal government is absolutely the wrong idea.”
Health care is thought to be a major hurdle for Romney in seeking the Republican presidential nomination because the national plan closely mirrors the one that Romney helped pass in Massachusetts.
Romney also criticized Obama’s call for a five-year freeze on discretionary spending, saying it wasn’t enough.
“His idea of running spending up to the highest level in American history, and then saying why don’t we freeze it there – it’s almost laughable, given the scale of the challenges we face,” Romney said, pointing to budget cuts he made as governor of the Bay State. “But you have to cry instead when you think of all the people that are suffering because of it.”
Romney is widely expected to announce that he will run for president, but was coy about that decision tonight.
“You know, no decision at this point,” he said. “We’ll give that some thought, obviously, and we’re doing the things we need to to keep in the public eye.”
The longtime businessman then said it was important for the field to have a businessman.
“I don’t know who all is going to get in the race, but I do believe that it would be helpful if at least one of the people who’s running in the Republican field had extensive experience in the private sector – in small business, in big business,” he said.
Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com.
Obama renominates Berwick to key post
WASHINGTON -- President Obama has renominated Donald Berwick to be administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a pivotal position in implementing the president’s health care law.
The renomination was one of almost 40 made late today, including several nominees with Bay State ties.
Using a recess appointment, Obama had placed Berwick, a Harvard professor and Boston pediatrician noted for his work to improve health care without raising costs, into his position on July 7 after the Senate did not confirm him.
Some Republicans contended Berwick’s positions could lead to care rationing; others hinted they would vote against him in protest of the president’s health care overhaul.
The use of a recess appointment allows a president to fill a position without Senate confirmation when Congress isn’t in session. Because of the way he was appointed, however, Berwick’s term runs only to the end of this year, and he would need to win confirmation in order to carry out key changes to the health care system.
Since in office, Berwick has been developing a system of innovation sites across the nation to test ways to improve care and cut costs. The sites are the first step in changing the fundamental ways the government pays physicians and hospitals.
The renomination was one of several from the president yesterday:
-- Craig Becker, to the National Labor Relations Board. His appointment was blocked by Republicans, who thought his positions were overly pro-labor. Obama made a recess appointment for Becker in April.
-- Francis J. Ricciardone Jr., as ambassador to Turkey. The Boston native and Malden Catholic graduate had been blocked from his position by Senator Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas, who said he thought Ricciardone would not be committed to democratic reform in Turkey. Under Senate rules, a single senator can place a hold on a nomination, which would require 60 votes to lift. Ricciardone had served as ambassador to Egypt from 2005 to 2008, appointed by President George W. Bush. Obama had installed him in Ankara with a recess appointment last month.
-- Robert Stephen Ford, as ambassador to Syria. Ford, who had served as ambassador to Algeria, had been blocked by Republicans who believed installing a full ambassador in Damascus would reward Syria, which has had ties with terrorist groups. Obama had used a recess appointment last month to install Ford.
-- Scott C. Doney, as chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, has been holding up the nomination of Doney, a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, to protest the slow pace of permits for offshore oil drilling following the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
Dean: Tea Party fears nation's diversity
WASHINGTON – Former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean this morning said that while the Tea Party movement was fueled by economic concerns, it was also part of an undercurrent of discontent over a country that has grown more diverse and elected its first black president.
“I think it's the last gasp of the 55-year-old generation, and not the first gasp of the new generation," Dean told reporters at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. "It’s a group of older folks who have seen their lives change dramatically...They don't know what to do. It's just a huge change. They never thought the day would really come ... Every morning when they see the president they’re reminded that things are totally different than they were when they were born. I think that has a lot to do with it.”
"I don’t believe this is a racist thing,” he added. “I see it as an evolutionary thing of getting used to something that’s new and different…It takes time for people to adjust to a major change, and this country made a major change.”
During the hour-long breakfast, Dean also sharply criticized top advisers to President Obama, saying they had “contempt” for other Democrats and had squandered the president’s ability to deliver on his promise to change politics.
“If you want to change Washington, you can’t have people who are of Washington,” said Dean, a former Vermont governor and 2004 presidential candidate.
"The core issue is the contempt -- which not just the progressives were treated by but lots of people were treated by -- by senior advisers around the president who have been here for 20 years and thought they knew everything and we knew nothing,” Dean added. “That is a fundamental flaw in any kind of administration. As they say, 'Don't let the door hit you in the you-know-what on the way out.’”
The Obama administration has been going through a staff shakeup. Rahm Emanuel, the president’s chief of staff, resigned three months ago to run for mayor of Chicago. Senior adviser David Axelrod is also planning to depart and return to Chicago. Press secretary Robert Gibbs, who once criticized “the professional left” for not recognizing big legislative accomplishments, announced this morning that he was resigning to become an outside adviser.
"There is a huge senior staff shakeup going on at the White House," Dean said. "I think that is a very good thing and I think that will help."
Dean, who has been a critic of Obama’s for some of his policies, said he would not challenge the president in the Democratic primary and would discourage anyone else from running.
"I think it's incredibly unlikely and I think it would be foolish," he said of an intra-party challenge to Obama’s reelection. "I certainly wouldn't entertain it and I hope nobody would."
He said Indiana and North Carolina would be difficult states for Obama to carry again, but said he expected the president to win in Virginia, Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada.
Dean also discussed health care, saying the individual mandate requirement that is being challenged in federal courts is “not necessary” and would not impact the core bill if it is eliminated. The individual mandate, which requires residents to purchase health insurance, is modeled after the health care reforms in Massachusetts.
Dean pointed to Massachusetts as a model for health care changes, saying that the state’s 2006 law is now spurring further reforms that the nation should heed. Bay State officials have been considering a fee-for-service approach that Dean and others argue will curb the soaring costs of health care.
Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com.
House Dems reject Obama's tax plan
WASHINGTON – The House Democratic caucus this morning voted to reject President Obama’s tax compromise, a stinging rebuke of the president that throws into question whether his plan will pass.
By a voice vote, Democrats passed a resolution saying that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should not bring the negotiated package to the House floor, unless changes are made. The vote is nonbinding, but it demonstrates the growing rancor among House Democrats, and their desire to see key changes made to the package before they will vote on it.
“This is what’s called negotiations, and this is what many of us have been concerned about,” Representative Michael Capuano, a Somerville Democrat, said in an interview. “No one is trying to hurt or embarrass anybody. We’re just saying that we were independently elected and we have our own principles, and we don’t think many of those principles were met – or that a strong attempt was made at those principles.”
“It doesn’t assure victory,” he added, of the caucus vote. “But if I’m going down, I want to go down fighting. At least now I feel like I’d be going down fighting.”
The caucus did not vote on which changes should be made, but Democrats have been requesting several items, such as adding several billion dollars to extend renewable energy tax credits. Democrats have also opposed the proposed provision on the estate tax, contending that a rate of 35 percent is too low and the thresholds of protected assets — $5 million for individuals and $10 million for couples — are too high.
Several senators have also requested that credits for the ethanol industry be extended as part of the package.
The White House predicted that the package would ultimately pass.
“At the end of the day, this will get done,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said. He also said that there are elements of the plan that both parties don’t like – but will have to accept.
“If everybody took out what they didn’t like we would have nothing,” Gibbs said.
Representative Edward J. Markey, a Malden Democrat and dean of the delegation, also voted today to reject the proposal.
“I have serious concerns about any package that continues tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires when they don't need them and we can't afford them,” he said in a statement. “I am also concerned that expiring tax credits for clean energy technologies are not being renewed, which could jeopardize tens of thousands of jobs in wind, solar and geothermal production.”
Markey also said he wanted to provide seniors with a one-time $250 Social Security payment.
“In its current form, I cannot support the proposal worked out with the Senate Republicans,” he said.
Representative Peter Welch, a Democrat from Vermont, has been circulating a letter saying that the plan is unwise. That letter has been signed by 53 House Democrats, including Representative Barney Frank, of Newton, and Representative Stephen Lynch, of South Boston.
If all 179 House Republicans vote in favor, they would still need 39 Democrats to vote in favor of the bill. That support would probably come from conservative Democrats who have not been as opposed to the package, but if Pelosi doesn’t even bring it to the floor for a vote, it would effectively kill the current plan.
The Senate, meanwhile, appeared to be moving toward debate on the issue. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid may bring the issue to the floor as early as today, which would set up votes on the matter for Saturday.
Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com.
Kerry backs Obama on tax deal
WASHINGTON – Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, defended President Obama tonight from some of the intra-party fighting over the tentative agreement the president made with Republicans over extending the Bush-era tax cuts.
Kerry, who has been a top White House ally in that past, said that he did not agree with certain portions of the plan, but that it was a pragmatic realization of what is currently politically doable.
“It's a lot easier to deal in hypotheticals than it is to deal with the Senate as it is,” Kerry said. “We don't have 60 Senators who oppose the Bush tax policies the way I do, and the way Barack Obama and Joe Biden do, so how do you wrestle with that? Are you willing to say no to unemployment insurance if this is the only way to get it?”
“The truth is, the President got a lot of things here we've been fighting for that we haven't yet been able to win any other way,” Kerry added.
Kerry’s statement was distributed by the White House tonight as part of a daylong series of endorsements from various politicians, from Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle, a Democrat, to Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett, a Republican.
Senator Scott Brown, a Massachusetts Republican, has so far not taken a firm position. His spokeswoman, Gail Gitcho, said yesterday that "He will review the compromise, and while the proposal may not be ideal, he wants to make sure that it is good for American families and a victory for taxpayers." Gitcho said tonight that his position had not changed.
Here is Kerry’s complete statement:
"It's no secret that I've opposed the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. I voted against them in 2001, 2003 and 2005, and I said I'd roll them back in 2004 if I was elected president. I take a backseat to no one when it comes to opposing George Bush's tax policy. They didn't create jobs and they dug an enormous deficit hole that was dumped on President Obama. President Obama knows that. He opposed the Bush policy every step of the way and as a Senator, Joe Biden was right here with me fighting against them.But don't forget for a second that when it came down to the votes in the Senate, the President was dealt a very tough hand. All 42 Senate Republicans voted in lockstep to hold the middle class tax cuts and unemployment insurance hostage, and our Democratic caucus wasn't unified.
The votes on Saturday were just the latest reminder when we lost a bunch of Democrats, and the math is clear our bargaining position was going to be even harder come January with all these new Republican Senators. So I think the President had a hard decision to make. He obviously decided that the best possible compromise was to get unemployment benefits, middle class tax cuts, and the Recovery Act provisions extended in exchange for these upper income tax extensions that he opposes, and he decided that in two years the fight over tax breaks for the wealthy will be rejoined.
This wasn't an easy call for him. It's a lot easier to deal in hypotheticals than it is to deal with the Senate as it is. We don't have 60 Senators who oppose the Bush tax policies the way I do, and the way Barack Obama and Joe Biden do, so how do you wrestle with that? Are you willing to say no to unemployment insurance if this is the only way to get it? That's what our caucus wrestled with today. Yes, it's a very steep price to pay for something the Senate should've done months ago as a matter of decency and common sense, but how do you cut off 52,000 people in Massachusetts who need those unemployment benefits? Are you really willing to walk away from these middle class benefits which we can't get otherwise when you know the tax cuts for the upper end are going to be extended come January anyways? The truth is, the President got a lot of things here we've been fighting for that we haven't yet been able to win any other way."
Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com.
Summers says failing to approve tax deal could bring about 'double-dip' recession
WASHINGTON — Failing to approve the tax compromise President Obama negotiated with Republican leaders would put America’s fragile economy at risk for a double-dip recession, Larry Summers, the head of the National Economic Council and one of the president’s top advisors, said today.
The economy, while slowly growing, has not yet reached “escape velocity” from the recent downturn, Summers said at a press conference at the White House. “Failure to pass this [compromise] bill in the next couple weeks would significantly increase the risk of a double dip,” he said.
Obama is facing heated opposition to the tax cut deal from Democrats, who oppose the extension of Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, and a proposed estate tax that is lower than many Democrats wanted. The president is touting other parts of the deal, such as an extension of tax cuts for middle class families, a 13 month extension of federal unemployment benefits, a cut in the payroll tax and other tax cuts for students and businesses. However, a number of prominent Democrats, including members of the Bay State delegation, have said they will oppose the compromise.
In response to the criticism, David Axelrod, a senior advisor to the president, said today that opponents should consider the potential results of refusing to compromise, and having a protracted fight over the tax cuts.
“What is the end game and what is the consequence of playing it? Do they have the sense of how that ends?” Axelrod said. A protracted fight, he said, could have resulted in higher taxes on the middle class. “We shouldn’t play Russian Roulette with people’s lives.”
White House celebrates Hanukkah with help from Needham woman
Susan Retik Ger, of Needham, had a vital role in this evening’s White House Hanukkah celebration; she and her family lit the menorah for over 500 guests hosted by President Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.
Festivities included a special performance by jazz saxophonist Joshua Redman, son of African-American saxophonist Dewey Redman and Jewish-American dancer Renee Shedroff, and a musical tribute to Jewish-American composers by the U.S. Marine Chamber Orchestra.
Retik Ger was chosen for her work with Afghan widows through her organization Beyond the 11th, which she founded following the death of her husband in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. President Obama also honored Retik Ger in August with a 2010 Citizens Medal.
Obama pardons two turkeys in annual White House tradition
WASHINGTON — President Obama this morning offered the traditional presidential pardon to two Thanksgiving turkeys, wisecracking that it “feels pretty good to stop at least one shellacking this November,” a reference to the election drubbing Democrats suffered in the mid-term elections.
This year’s national turkey is named Apple; its “understudy” is called Cider. They come from Foster Farms Wellsford Ranch near Modesto, California. A panel of judges selected the two turkeys to receive their presidential pardons.
“It’s kind of like a turkey version of Dancing With the Stars, except the stakes for the contestants was much higher,” Obama joked at the White House.
Turning serious for a moment, the president called Thanksgiving “a holiday that asks us to be thankful for what we have, and generous to those who have less…a time to spend with the ones we love, and a chance to show compassion and concern to people we’ve never met. It’s a tradition that’s brought us together as a community since before we were a nation, when the ground we’re standing on was nothing but wilderness.”
The president also thanked members of the US military who will spend the holiday far from home.
Now pardoned from the table, the birds will live out their lives at Mount Vernon, Virginia.
See Obama's to-do list for Congress before Republican majority arrives in House
WASHINGTON — President Obama has a long to-do list and high expectations for this lame-duck session of Congress, before Democrats must yield control of the US House of Representatives to a newly elected Republican majority.
The president’s to-do list begins with tax issues, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in a briefing with reporters today. The most pressing tax issue is the Bush-era income tax cut that expires at the end of the year. The president wants to allow the cuts to expire on family income over $250,000 and extend it for income below that amount; Republicans want Congress to extend the cuts to all income.
Other priorities the president wants to see Congress address include:
* Renewal of a program to extend unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless.* Ratification of the New START nuclear arms treaty with Russia, which is “critically important to our national security,” Gibbs said.
* Ending the “don’t ask-don’t tell” policy that forbids openly gay people from serving in the US military.
* And the so-called Dream Act, which would provide a path to citizenship for certain young illegal aliens who go to college or serve in the military.
Mitt Romney and President Obama would tie in a presidential election held today, says Quinnipiac poll
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and President Obama would be neck-and-neck if a presidential election were held today, according to a Quinnipiac University poll that also shows 49 percent of the respondents believe the president does not deserve a second term.
About 45 percent of those surveyed preferred Romney, who is considering another run for the presidency after his candidacy in 2008, and 44 percent backed Obama. In another close match-up, the president edges former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, another GOP presidential candidate in 2008, by 46-to-44 percent. Both of those results are within the poll's margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
The president fares better against a galvanizing force in GOP circles, Sarah Palin. The former Alaska governor trails the president by 8 percentage points, 48-40, among respondents.
“At this point, former Alaska Gov. Palin runs the worst against President Obama,'' Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said in a report on the poll. "She is very unpopular among independents and although she recently said she thought she could defeat Obama, the data does not now necessarily support that assertion.”
When asked by Barbara Walters in an interview last week whether she could defeat the president, Palin replied: "I believe so."
The ABC interview is scheduled for broadcast Dec. 9.
Palin remains strong among the GOP base, the Quinnipiac poll shows, mirroring other recent nationwide surveys. Among GOP respondents, Palin garnered 19 percent of the vote, followed by Romney with 18 percent, Huckabee at 17 percent, and former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich at 15 percent.
Among Democrats, respondents overwhelmingly backed Obama, with 64 percent saying they do not want anyone to challenge him in the primaries, with only 27 percent backing a competitive race.
“The Democratic base remains squarely behind President Barack Obama when it comes to his reelection, but his weakness among independent voters at this point makes his 2012 election prospects uncertain,” Brown said.
Overall, 49 percent of American voters say Obama does not deserve reelection, compared to 43 percent who do, according to the national poll, which surveyed 2,424 registered voters a week after the midterm elections on Nov. 2.
Obama gives Bill Russell medal of freedom
WASHINGTON – President Obama announced this afternoon that former Celtics legend Bill Russell will be given the highest civilian honor.
Obama will name Russell as one of the recipients of a 2010 Medal of Freedom, according to a White House official. He joins a range of others, including former President George H. W. Bush, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, philanthropist Warren Buffett, poet Maya Angelou, and cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
The medal is presented to individuals who have made contributions to the security or the national interests. It will be presented at a ceremony early next year.
Several other athletes have gotten the award, including Hank Aaron and Muhammad Ali, but Russell appears to be the first professional basketball player to be honored. But he’s not the first familiar to Boston fans. Ted Williams was given the award in 1991.
Baseball legend Stan “The Man” Musial is also being recognized this year.
Here is the entry on Russell sent out this afternoon by the White House:
Bill Russell is the former Boston Celtics’ Captain who almost single-handedly redefined the game of basketball. Russell led the Celtics to a virtually unparalleled string of eleven championships in thirteen years and was named the NBA’s Most Valuable Player five times. The first African American to coach in the NBA—indeed he was the first to coach a major sport at the professional level in the United States—Bill Russell is also an impassioned advocate of human rights. He marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and has been a consistent advocate of equality.
Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com
President Obama compares his health care plan to Romney’s
Former Governor Mitt Romney has kept a high profile throughout the midterm election season endorsing and fundraising for GOP candidates, an effort that some analysts say has established his position as frontrunner for Republican nomination in 2012. Romney hasn’t escaped President Obama’s attention – and in a CBS “60 Minutes” interview last night, Obama compared his health care plan to Romney’s and practically announced Romney’s candidacy.
Obama weighed the political costs of health care reform and said Republicans didn’t cooperate as much as he had hoped they would.
“We thought that if we shaped a bill that wasn’t that different from bills that had previously been introduced by Republicans, including a Republican Governor in Massachusetts who’s now running for President, that we would be able to find some common ground there,” said Obama. “And we just couldn’t.”
Romney’s status as the establishment candidate and his executive role implementing universal health care in Massachusetts may hurt him in Tea Party circles, the Globe reported last week. Romney, who hasn't said yet whether he will seek the presidency, has said his state plan differed from the president’s federal program.
Catch the full CBS interview, and watch for Obama’s remarks on Romney around 20:41.
Obama pledges to focus on the economy and jobs in wake of election
WASHINGTON — After a day to reflect on the landslide election that gave Republicans control of the US House, President Obama pledged to take the message from voters to heart, and “focus on the economy and jobs and moving this country forward,” promising to work with Republicans in coming weeks to have a productive lame-duck session before the new Congress is sworn in.
The president offered short remarks this morning after meeting with his cabinet.
Obama said the Congress must act to extend an expiring tax cut to middle class families — though Republicans want the cuts extended to all income levels.
“We’ve got to provide businesses some certainty about what their tax landscape is going to look like, and we’ve got to provide families certainty,” the president said. “That’s critical to maintain our recovery.”
The president also announced that he has invited all newly elected governors to the White House on December 2.
“I think it’s a terrific opportunity to hear from them, folks who are working at the state and local levels, about what they’re seeing, what ideas they think Washington needs to be paying more attention to,” he said.
Romney calls on Obama to use mid-term defeat as opportunity to curb spending
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney called on President Obama to turn the humbling defeat of Democrats in the mid-term elections into an opportunity to wrangle and subdue government spending.
"Government is smothering the pioneering, entrepreneurial spirit that propelled our economy past those of older, larger nations,'' Romney wrote in an op-ed column in today's Washington Post, one day after Republicans seized control of the House of Representatives and state houses across the nation. "Ever higher taxes on small and big business, layers of red tape, onerous labor regulations, and punitive bureaucrats and lawsuits are suffocating US economic vitality. So far, the president and his fellow travelers in Congress have made things worse: If Obama is serious about changing the way things are done in Washington, he must slay the job-killing beast Washington has become.''
Since voters perceive the president and Democrats as being most responsible for increased spending, Obama is in a unique position to fix the problem, Romney contended, likening his role to a "Nixon to China" opportunity. President Nixon, with his pedigree as an arch anti-communist, was able to neutralize opposition from the right wing of his party to his rapprochement to China. Romney calls on Obama to do the same with the Democrats' liberal wing.
Specifically, Romney pushed the president to take on the burgeoning entitlement programs by changing how cost-of-living increases are given to Social Security beneficiaries and how Medicaid funds are disbursed to the states. He also called for the president to extend all of the Bush tax cuts, including those for the richest Americans.
On his website, Romney, considered a likely candidate for the presidential race in 2012, released a statement that lauded the efforts of his supporters and his political action committee to help propel Republican candidates to victory across the nation on Tuesday. The PAC contributed about $1.1 million to more than 500 candidates and he campaigned for about 60 candidates in more than 30 states, the statement said.
Obama heads to Rhode Island
WASHINGTON -- After campaigning this week on the West Coast, President Obama heads east on Monday for a planned trip to Rhode Island, according to the White House.
The president will visit the Ocean State community of Woonsocket, where he will tour American Cord & Webbing, a manufacturing company, and deliver remarks to workers.
Unlike a lot of places the president has campaigned this fall, Rhode Island doesn’t have a hotly contested US Senate race. However, Rhode Island Democrats desperately want to hold onto the US House seat being vacated by Patrick Kennedy, who is retiring at 43 after eight terms.
For Republicans, taking the seat associated with the youngest son of the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy would be a tremendous symbolic victory, though the race is an uphill climb in a district that typically leans toward Democrats.
Public polls suggest that the Democratic candidate, Providence Mayor David Cicilline, has a double-digit lead on Republican nominee John Loughlin, a state representative.
What may be interesting next week is how Obama addresses Rhode Island's race for governor. The Democratic candidate, Frank Caprio, is the party’s best chance to take the office Republicans have held for 16 years.
However, former Republican US Sen. Lincoln Chafee, now an independent, is running in a dead-heat with Caprio in a multi-candidate race. And it was Chafee who crossed party lines to endorse Obama before the 2008 Rhode Island Democratic primary. Chafee even appeared with the presidential hopeful at a campaign rally in Providence, back when Obama was locked in a nationwide battle for delegates with Hillary Clinton.
Caprio, however, endorsed Clinton in 2008.
Obama continues campaigning on the West Coast
WASHINGTON — President Obama’s fall campaign road show continues this week on the West Coast, where the president will try to rally Democrats in Seattle to support US Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington. Murray is trying to hold off a challenge from Republican Dino Rossi, a commercial real estate executive and a former state senator.
The president will fly to Seattle on Wednesday. On Thursday, Obama will meet with a local family for a discussion about women and the economy, before headlining a campaign event for Murray at the University Of Washington, according to the White House
Recent polls put Murray up by close to five points in the race, according to public polls aggregated by the web site Real Clear Politics. Republicans need to gain 10 seats next month to win a majority in the Senate, and the Washington race is a key target for the GOP.
Democrats are turning out the party heavyweights to help Murray. Former President Bill Clinton is expected to appear with Murray at an event today, and Vice President Joe Biden is on the schedule for tomorrow.
Kerry: 'Congress didn't do its job in the first place' to end 'don't ask, don't tell'
Two days ago, California federal judge Virginia A. Phillips ordered the Pentagon to end its policy of barring gay troops from serving openly in the military; today, the Justice Department has sought a delay in her injunction, placing the administration and President Obama in the position of defending a law it has called on Congress to strike down.
In a statement to the Globe this evening, Senator John Kerry said that Congressional partisanship forced the administration “into legal decisions that could have been avoided with adult leadership in Congress.”
Read his full statement below:
“The fact that this issue ended up in the courts at all is evidence that Congress didn’t do its job in the first place. We’ve had politicians who've said for years they’d end this policy when the military said that time had come. Well, Admiral Mullen, Secretary Gates, and a whole lot of generals and service members said that time was now. Even General Colin Powell who defended the policy 17 years ago said it’s outdated. We had hearings, we had debate, we had discussion. There never should’ve been a filibuster, period. The only reason is the worst partisan gridlock I’ve ever seen that defers tough decisions for the sake of an election, and now forces the Administration into legal decisions that could have been avoided with adult leadership in Congress. Without question, we should’ve had 60 votes to do what’s responsible and allow a vote to end Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Chelmsford family joins Obama for tax credit push
WASHINGTON – Sure, they had to miss a couple of classes. But it was worth it.
The Maynard family, from Chelmsford, Mass., traveled to Washington today for a presidential meeting in the Oval Office. They were greeted by President Obama, who was promoting a tax credit that has helped families send their children to college.
Obama also called on Congress to make the American Opportunity Tax Credit permanent. The credit, which provides $2,500 annually, was part of the stimulus bill that Obama signed last year and has been included in his 2011 budget proposal that has not yet been acted upon.
“We’ve got to make sure that in good times or bad, our families can invest in their children’s future and in the future of our country,” Obama said in the Rose Garden, with the Maynards and two other families standing behind him.
More than 12 million people used the tax credit last year, according to the Treasury Department.
The Maynards were one of those families, who used the credit to help put their twin 21-year-old daughters – Elizabeth and Katherine – and their son, Greg, through college. The family was chosen because Greg had responded to messages through his employer, Public Interest Research Group, looking for families that benefited from the credit.
They flew into Washington today, and planned to head back to Massachusetts tonight. They had several minutes with Obama in the White House and emerged beaming.
“I had to miss two classes,” said Elizabeth, who attends UMass Amherst. “They said it was ok, though.”
“When do you get to do something like this?” said Phil, the father.
“That,” said Katherine, who goes to the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, "was wicked cool."
Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com.
Obama praises efforts underway to rescue Chilean miners
With one of the year's most compelling international stories evolving on the television today, President Obama prefaced his planned Rose Garden remarks on education with praise for the rescue efforts underway to save the Chilean miners trapped underground for 69 days.
"This is obviously something that's captivated the world’s attention and this rescue is a tribute not only to the determination of the rescue workers and the Chilean government, but also the unity and resolve of the Chilean people who have inspired the world," the president said. "Let me also commend so many people of goodwill, not only in Chile, but also from the United States and around the world, who are lending a hand in this rescue effort -– from the NASA team that helped design the escape vehicle, to American companies that manufactured and delivered parts of the rescue drill, to the American engineer who flew in from Afghanistan to operate the drill.
"Last night, the whole world watched the scene at Camp Esperanza as the first miner was lifted out from under more than 2,000 feet of rock and then embraced by his young son and family. And the tears they shed -– after so much time apart -– expressed not only their own relief, not only their own joy, but the joy of people everywhere. So it was a thrilling moment and we're hopeful that those celebrations duplicate themselves throughout the rest of today."
Obama marks 10th anniversary of terrorist attack on USS Cole
WASHINGTON - President Obama today marked the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attack on the USS Cole by calling on Americans to remember the sacrifice of the 17 US sailors killed in the attack off the coast of Yemen.
“We pay tribute on this day to the courage and sacrifice of those who lost their lives in this attack, and to their families,” the president said in a statement. “We remain steadfast in our support for the brave men and women of our armed forces who continue to risk their lives around the world to defeat these terrorists and to keep our nation safe, and we stand with our military families who sacrifice so much to support them.
“I will never forget meeting with some of the families of the victims of this bombing in February 2009. I am deeply grateful to them for their sacrifice, and their efforts to keep the memory of this tragic event alive in our nation’s conscience. The families and loved ones of those we lost are in our hearts and prayers, and the American people stand with them on this solemn day of remembrance.
“Al-Qa'ida continues to use Yemen, as well as other places around the world, as platforms from which to pursue its murderous agenda, and we continue to work closely with our Yemeni and other global partners to counter the al-Qa’ida threat. As we do, we will always remember those we lost on the USS Cole, and we will honor their legacy of selfless service by advancing the values that they stood for throughout their lives. “
Obama signs bill to expand technology access for disabled
WASHINGTON – President Obama this afternoon signed legislation spearheaded by Representative Edward J. Markey that significantly expands the digital horizons of the disabled.
The bipartisan legislation increases access for the disabled to a panoply of high-tech devices and means of communications, from phones calls over the Internet to enhanced TV remotes and easier-to-use smartphones.
“The bill I’m signing today into law will better ensure full participation in our democracy and our economy for Americans with disabilities,” Obama said today in a ceremony at the White House attended by Markey and several other lawmakers.
The 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act mandates that remote controls have buttons to easily access closed captioning on broadcast and pay television; requires telecommunications equipment that makes calls over the internet to be compatible with hearing aids; and makes television program guides and selection menus accessible to those with vision loss. It also requires captioning on new TV programs that are offered online and improves the web accessibility of smartphones.
“We’ve moved from Braille to broadband, from tracing words in palms to navigating a Palm Pilot,'' Markey, a Democrat of Malden who introduced the legislation in June 2009, said in a statement. "Americans with disabilities need access to the latest 21st century communications and video tools to compete in the job market and engage in daily activities that increasingly rely on the latest technologies.”
The new law also provides $10 million annually for low-income Americans who are both deaf and blind to use for purchasing accessible internet access.
At the ceremony, Obama recognized Markey and several other members of congress. He also paid tribute to another attendee: Stevie Wonder.
“I happen to be listening to him this morning when I woke up,” Obama said. “He’s what I work out to. He’s what I sweet-talk Michelle to.”
Earlier in the week, Obama signed a bill that removes the phrase “mentally retarded” from all federal health, education, and labor laws. It replaces the phrase with “intellectual disability.”
Obama bids farewell to Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel
Today was stand-up comedy day at the White House, with President Obama and his outgoing chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, cracking up White House staff with one-liners at the morning press conference to announce that Emanuel is leaving his job. He is expected to run for mayor of Chicago.
The news had leaked long before the media event—Emanuel’s departure had been widely reported yesterday. And so the president began, “Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the least suspenseful announcement of all time.”
After lavishly praising Emanuel’s work in the White House, the president needled Emanuel for his reputation as an explosive personality known to use foul language.
“…When he was a kid [he] had lost part of his finger in an accident, and it was his middle finger, so it rendered him mute for a while.” It’s a joke Obama has used before.
Emanuel took the ribbing in stride. “I want to thank my colleagues for your patience the last two years,” he said. “I'm sure you’ve learned some words that you’ve never heard before—and in an assortment of combination of words.”
Emanuel said he was looking forward to getting back to Chicago. “These are unprecedented and great times in Chicago, Mr. President. The Chicago Bears are 3-0.”
“Unbelievable,” the president, a Bears fan, agreed.
Kerry defends Obama on Don Imus show
WASHINGTON – Senator John Kerry this morning defended President Obama while trying to skirt questions over whether the Massachusetts Democrat would have done a better job if he were sitting in the White House.
“You would have been a better president than President Obama turned out, wouldn’t you?” asked Don Imus, whose show airs on FOX Business Network.
“Uh, no,” Kerry said. “What are you asking me to do? Make a stupid comment?”
“I have confidence I would have been a good president,” Kerry added. “I back President Obama. And I think he’s done a terrific job under very difficult circumstances.”
Imus then asked, “You wouldn’t have done better?” and Kerry replied, “I would have tried to do better.”
“Just trying to walk you into that,” Imus said.
“I know you are,” Kerry said. “And I’m trying like hell to stay away from it.”
During the appearance, Kerry also said Obama “has made some of the toughest decisions of any president in 50 or 60 years.” But he also said that health care “hasn’t been sold as effectively as it should be” and, on the economy, “we’ve missed some opportunities, frankly, to turn it around.”
He also stood by his recent comments that voters don’t pay attention and are influenced by “a simple slogan.”
“I don’t blame people for not paying attention,” Kerry said. “I think people are turned off by it. That’s why they’re angry today. They don’t think we’re dealing with the real problems. And I think they’re tired of the consultants and the money and everything reducing their lives to these very simplistic, non-factually based sloganeering campaigns that don’t create jobs and that don’t solve problems and don’t reduce the deficit and don’t find the compromise. I think that’s why the electorate’s so angry. I think it’s an accurate thing that people are turned off of Washington, they’re turned off of the process.”
At the end of the segment, Imus again chided Kerry about his former presidential aspirations.
"It's always a pleasure to have you on," Imus said. "You're like trying to book the president, I would remind you, because you're not."
"Thank you, I needed the reminder," Kerry said with a laugh. "Thank you."
Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com
Dukakis shared his strategy for midterm elections at the White House
WASHINGTON -- Former Massachusetts Governor Michael S. Dukakis, the failed 1988 presidential nominee, recently visited the White House and delivered his strategy for the midterm elections: pound key precincts across the country with the message that Republicans want to implement the same policies that led to the Great Recession.
Dukakis, who said in a telephone interview that he "popped in" to the White House while on a trip here several weeks ago, said he told aides to President Obama that Republicans "want to go back and do exactly what got us in this mess in the first place."
"It seems to me there has to be a single message coming from Democrats, from the president on down," Dukakis said. "We've got to pound that message as hard as can from now until November."
Asked if the White House aides were receptive, he said, "I think they certainly get it." He declined to name the aides he met at the White House.
Dukakis said that it was also important for Democrats to remind voters that former President George W. Bush left the country with an increasing deficit.
Urging Democrats to focus the message through grassroots efforts in key precincts, Dukakis concluded: "If we do that and deliver this message over and over again, we are going to be OK."
Obama highlights milestones in new health care law
WASHINGTON – President Obama today is highlighting milestones in the new health care law, seeking to counter widespread criticism of the overhaul passed six months ago by featuring stories of real people who are already benefiting from some of its provisions.
The White House launched a new website with a link titled "50 States, 50 Stories.’’ He was hosting more than 30 state insurance officials at the White House (including Bay State insurance commissioner Joseph Murphy) and visiting a Virginia family to discuss the legislation.
The effort to show tangible benefits includes a White House-produced web video of a Keene, NH woman – Gail O’Brien – who has non-Hodgkins lymphoma. She lacked insurance when she was diagnosed and said she was denied coverage because she was already sick. But since the law’s passage she has been able to buy coverage through a new pre-existing condition insurance plan established under the law. Obama said she was the first NH resident to sign up for the pre-existing plan.
On the administration’s promotional video, O’Brien receives what the White House describes as a "surprise phone call’’ from the president, who is shown speaking to her from the Oval Office.
"If it wasn’t for you, I probably wouldn’t be here right now,’’ O’Brien tells the president, from the dining room of her bungalow. The president replies: "You’re the poster child for why this is so necessary and why we’re so proud of the reforms we initiated.’’
A number of provisions of the law take effect today, including a requirement that children up to age 26 be permitted to remain on family plans and a ban on lifetime coverage limits. The main requirement, that virtually all Americans obtain coverage, does not kick in until 2014.
Polls show that only about a third of Americans favor the law, while 30 to 40 percent oppose it. The economy has eclipsed health care as the top priority for most voters. A recent poll conducted by The Associated Press found that few people understand how the bill will work.
The GOP is plotting ways to repeal sections of the law if it gains enough power in Congress in the mid-term elections. The Republican National Committee today listed a number of news clippings on its website today that it says shows many Democrats are running from the bill, "for their political lives.’’
Obama hedges question on Elizabeth Warren as head of new consumer financial protection bureau
WASHINGTON – For Elizabeth Warren, the suspense continues.
President Obama, asked at a White House press conference this morning whether he would pick the consumer champion to run a newly created consumer financial protection bureau, said he is still not ready to make an announcement.
Advocates have been pushing the White House to name the Harvard law professor to the agency, which was created as part of the financial regulatory overhaul passed by Congress this summer. The new bureau will have the power to create rules to help prevent credit card companies and mortgage brokers from burying borrowers with excessive debt.
Asked directly whether he would nominate Warren, Obama credited her with coming up with the idea for the agency but said only he "will have an announcement soon.’’
"The idea for this agency has been Elizabeth Warren’s. She is a dear friend of mine. I have been in conversations with her. She is a tremendous advocate for this idea,’’ Obama said.
But he added, "It has only been a couple of months. This is a big task standing up this agency.’’
Asked by a reporter if he worried that Warren could not win confirmation in the Senate, Obama did not answer directly but alluded to the intense partisan divides in the chamber that have resulted in long delays for his nominees.
"I am concerned about all Senate nominations these days,’’ he said. "I’ve got people who have been waiting six months to get confirmed.’’
Obama to deliver second annual Back-to-School speech Tuesday
WASHINGTON — Marking the beginning of a new school year, President Obama will address the country’s students in his second annual Back-to-School Speech on Tuesday, September 14.
Obama’s address to the country’s youth last year was preceded by waves of criticism by outraged conservatives, who said they feared the president would use the occasion to indoctrinate a captive audience of impressionable young brains with liberal political thoughts.
Instead, the president offered the pupils a pep-talk about trying hard, staying in school and doing their best.
“Every single one of you has something you’re good at,” the president told students last year. “Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide.”
This year’s speech will be from Julia R. Masterman Laboratory and Demonstration School in Philadelphia, a 2010 National Blue Ribbon School, according to the White House.
The president’s Back-to-School Speech will live-stream on WhiteHouse.gov.
BC men's hockey team will attend White House reception for student-athletes
WASHINGTON — Representatives from the Boston College Men’s Ice Hockey team will join student-athletes from dozens of schools at a reception at the White House on September 13, according to the Obama administration.
“The President will welcome student athletes from dozens of schools and various sports to congratulate them on their accomplishments in the classroom as well as on and off the playing field,” the White House said in a statement. In recognizing the sports teams, Obama is continuing a tradition started by President George W. Bush.
FULL ENTRYObama travels to battleground states to speak on the economy
WASHINGTON -- President Obama will make two stops next week to key battleground states to deliver remarks about the nation's economy, the White House has announced.
On Monday, the President will attend the AFL-CIO's Laborfest event in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a state in which Democratic incumbent Senator Russ Feingold is facing a serious challenge from the expected Republican nominee, businessman Ron Johnson.
Obama then travels to Cleveland, Ohio on Wednesday, to speak again on the economy. In Ohio, Republican Rob Portman and Democrat Lee Fisher are battling to replace retiring Senator George Voinovich, a Republican.
Then on Friday, the president will hold a press conference at the White House.
Obama says speech on Iraq tonight will be no 'victory lap'
WASHINGTON -- Speaking today to American troops at Fort Bliss Army Base in Texas, President Obama said his speech to the nation tonight on Iraq won't be a "victory lap," and that a lot of work remains to be done in that country.
"The work that continues is absolutely critical: providing training and assistance to Iraqi security forces because there’s still violence in Iraq, and they’re still learning how to secure their country the way they need to," Obama said. "And they’ve made enormous strides thanks to the training that they’ve already received. But there’s still more work to do there.
"We’re going to have to protect our civilians, our aid workers and our diplomats who are over there, who are still trying to expand and help what’s going to be a long road ahead for the Iraqi people in terms of rebuilding their country.
"We’re still going to be going after terrorists in those areas. And so our counterterrorism operations are still going to be conducted jointly. But the bottom line is, is that our combat phase is now over. We are in transition. And that could not have been accomplished had it not been for the men and women here at Fort Bliss and across the country."
The president thanked the troops and their families for their sacrifices, and said that America has "the finest fighting force in the history of the world."
After speaking for about 10 minutes, the president made the rounds and shook hands with some 170 troops, asking many of them their names and how long they had served, according to pool reports.
Obama golfs with Bloomberg, discusses the economy
EDGARTOWN -- After a six mile bike ride with his famliy this morning, President Obama is back on the links at Vineyard Golf Club. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is playing with the president today. White House staff said the two leaders discussed the economy before heading to the first tee.
First Family takes a bike ride as Vineyard vacation draws to a close
WEST TISBURY- With their 10-day Martha's Vineyard vacation winding to a close, the First Family got out for a bike ride today on a paved path through a state forest in the center of the island.
The entire First Family was wearing helmets this year, unlike last year's vacation when the president took some grief for riding without one and exposing the First Noggin.
Obama to deliver speech on Iraq Tuesday evening
President Obama will travel to Fort Bliss, Texas, to meet with U.S. troops on Tuesday, and then will deliver a highly anticipated speech on Iraq from the Oval Office at 8 p.m., the White House has announced.
President Obama and his family are currently on Martha’s Vineyard for a 10 day vacation that ends Sunday.
Obamas while away rainy days on Martha's Vineyard
OAK BLUFFS -- On the third rainy day in a row on Martha’s Vineyard, President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama went out for lunch today at Nancy’s, a harborfront restaurant in Oak Bluffs.
More than halfway through their 10-day Vineyard vacation, the First Family has been riding out recent rainstorms by reading books and playing board games at the 28-acre estate they are renting in Chilmark.
The president and his wife also went out to dinner last night at State Road Restaurant in West Tisbury with friends Valerie Jarrett, Eric and Cheryl Whitaker and Vernon and Ann Jordan. They stayed for more than two hours. As the First Couple left the restaurant, the president told damp pool reporters who had been waiting in a light drizzle: "I'm having a great time -- doing a lot of reading," then ducked into his waiting SUV.
The President this morning held a conference call on the state of the economy with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Council of Economic Advisors Chair Christy Romer and National Economic Council Director Larry Summers. They spoke about recent data reports, global markets and economic growth, according to the White House.
FULL ENTRYObama to give speech to mark reduction of US troops in Iraq
President Obama will deliver a major speech August 31 to mark the reduction of US troops in Iraq to below 50,000, and the shifting mission of US forces from combat to support of Iraqi forces, White House staff said this morning.
The president will talk about the progress US forces have made in Iraq, about America's policy going forward, and the bravery and sacrifice of the U.S. troops that have served in the war since the U.S. invasion in 2003, said White House Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton, in a briefing to media on Martha's Vineyard.
Homeland Security Advisor John Brennan said that continued attacks from extremists in Iraq have failed to spark widespread sectarian violence, and that the United States is "reducing our footprint in Iraq on our terms."
"Since the president took office we have removed some 94,000 troops from Iraq," said Brennan.
The time and location for the president's speech have not been finalized, Burton said. President Obama and his family are vacationing on Martha's Vineyard this week, and are due to leave on Sunday.
Obama spends stormy afternoon playing basketball in an elementary school
After a quiet morning at the estate the First Family is renting on Martha's Vineyard, President Obama is spending a stormy, windy afternoon playing basketball inside Oak Bluffs Elementary School, according to pool reports. The White House has not yet disclosed the names of the people playing with the president, who is a well-known basketball enthusiast.
Obama's staff highlights country's progress since last Vineyard vacation
VINEYARD HAVEN -- The president may be on vacation on Martha's Vineyard, but his communication staff is still working to drive home the president's message that his policies pulled the economy back from the brink of collapse. At a press briefing on the island this afternoon, the president's deputy press secretary, Bill Burton, was asked if there was any difference between Obama's stay on the Vineyard last year, and this year's vacation.
Burton immediately responded: "I would say the difference between last year’s vacation and this year's is that since his vacation, the auto industry is back on its feet, health reform care has passed and the economy is starting to move in a different direction than it was moving before.”
Obama goes to Bunch of Grapes bookstore with his daughters
President Obama and his daughters Malia and Sasha ventured off the First Family's vacation estate on Martha's Vineyard for some shopping this morning at Bunch of Grapes bookstore in Vineyard Haven, according to pool reports.
Main Street was blocked off for the presidential visit. Pool reports say that hundred of people stood behind yellow police tape to get a peek of the president, who left the store with two brown shopping bags to the cheers of the crowd.
President Obama lands on Martha's Vineyard
MARTHA’S VINEYARD -- President Obama arrived on Martha’s Vineyard this afternoon to begin a 10-day vacation with his family, after using a quick White House appearance to fire one last, departing shot at Republicans for delaying jobs legislation.
Obama will be resting after spending several days stumping for Democratic candidates around the country, seeking to drum up support for his economic initiatives, and seeking to shore up support for the healthcare overhaul.
Continued stagnation in the economy is giving Republicans high hopes for the mid-term elections.
In a brief statement before he left the White House, Obama said a small-business bill he is championing should not fall victim to partisan politics. He accused a "partisan minority" in the Senate is refusing to allow the bill to move forward -- calling their actions "obstruction that defies common sense."
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele hit back by calling the administration's attempts at financial recovery an "epic failure."
"It is way past time for the White House to be straight with the American people and admit that $862 billion stimulus did not do what was promised," Steele said in a statement. "It is clear that the Democrats’ strategy of reckless spending, ballooning deficits, and higher taxes are not the answer and that we need to pursue Republican pro-growth solutions to get our economy back on track.”
First Lady Michelle Obama and the couple’s children, Malia and Sasha, traveled separately, arriving unannounced on the island about three hours before the president.
This is the First Family's second trip to the Massachusetts resort island. The Obamas plan a low-key family vacation, with no public events scheduled. The president will try not to make any news during his stay, his staff says.
At 2:40 p.m. motorcade started rolling from the Vineyard airport to the president's rental home, Blue Heron Farm. Some well wishers appeared here and there along the roadside. A couple of them had small American flags. One woman in a floppy yellow hat flashed a double thumbs down.
Obama attacks Republicans for blocking jobs bill
Shortly before he lifted off on Marine One for some family time at Martha's Vineyard, Obama made a last-minute attack on Republicans for blocking a bill aimed at helping small businesses hire more people. In a brief statement, Obama said the bill should not fall victim to partisan politics. He accused a "partisan minority" in the Senate is refusing to allow the bill to move forward -- calling their actions "obstruction that defies common sense."
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele hit back by calling the administration's attempts at financial recovery an "epic failure."
"It is way past time for the White House to be straight with the American people and admit that $862 billion stimulus did not do what was promised," Steele said in a statement. "It is clear that the Democrats’ strategy of reckless spending, ballooning deficits, and higher taxes are not the answer and that we need to pursue Republican pro-growth solutions to get our economy back on track.”
Obama to land on Martha's Vineyard after 2 p.m. today
President Obama is expected to land on Martha's Vineyard today for the start of a 10-day vacation. Michelle Obama and the first couple's children are already on the island, having arrived slightly ahead of the president, who is expected between 2 and 3 p.m.
Martha's Vineyard man hopes to thank Obama with Jackie Robinson photo
OAK BLUFFS — During last year’s Obama family vacation on Martha’s Vineyard, part-time island resident Tom Murro and his daughter, Lauren, got to meet the president at Farm Neck Golf Club.
This year, Murro and his daughter are coming back to the Vineyard, to try to complete a long effort to present the president with a gift, to thank him for making the time to pose with them for photographs last year.
“Gifting Obama isn’t easy” said Murro, who doesn’t want to chance damaging the gift—a photograph—by mailing it, and can’t figure out how to get it to the president.
The gift is a photograph of Jackie Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers sliding safe into home plate in the 1955 World Series, ahead of the tag from New York Yankees catcher Yogi Berra. Murro had the picture autographed by Berra, who wrote: “Dear Mr. President. He was out.”
Murro, of New Jersey, is arriving on the island with the photo on Sunday, and is hoping to raise some attention to his plight so that some intermediary will volunteer to get the picture to the president.
The president is scheduled to arrive on Martha's Vineyard with his family this afternoon and plans to stay for 10 days. The trip marks the second year in a row the first family has vacationed on the island retreat.
Romney attacks Obama, Democrats on the economy
Former Governor Mitt Romney takes aim at President Obama and the Democrats on the economy with an op-ed in the Globe today, blaming them for deepening and lengthening the recession. “The policies of the president and congressional Democrats are job killers,” he said.
For Romney, a 2008 Republican presidential candidate who is widely considered a potential contender in 2012, this op-ed is the latest in a series that criticize Obama’s performance and positions: In June, he wrote about the oil spill in USA Today. In July, it was the arms reduction treaty in the Washington Post. This month, it’s the economy. Read “Grow jobs and shrink government” here.
Martha's Vineyard residents dish on Obama's visit at the dump
OAK BLUFFS — Should President Obama want to meet some year-round local residents when he arrives on Martha’s Vineyard tomorrow, he might consider a stop at the Oak Bluffs landfill, one of the few places the tourists generally don’t tread on this picturesque island.
In keeping with New England tradition, the local landfill is also a dumping ground for town news and gossip, and a place where opinions are easy to come by.
“The president should go someplace else,” said June Ferreira, a Highway Department employee who oversees trash and recycling drop-off by residents. “They block off our streets when he wants to go somewhere. What good does that do us?
“I think he’s got other pressing things he should be doing. Other people don’t have jobs—take care of that first.”
Ferreira is 60, deeply tanned, and has a loud, raspy laugh. She was born and raised on the island, descending from a family that has been here for a century or so. She used to have a job driving a school bus on the mainland, but gave it up when her father, now 88, developed dementia, because she doesn’t want to be far from him, she said.
Now she rarely goes off-island, except sometimes for groceries. “It’s just too expensive to buy them here,” she said.
A steady flow of year-round island residents visit the dump.
Brian Hughes, 57, an island composer and musician, is glad that Obama is reviving the Vineyard’s tradition as the “Summer White House,” as it was referred to after President Bill Clinton’s many trips here.
“He’s the president—when he comes to Martha’s Vineyard, I think that’s great,” said Hughes, who performed in a singing group for the Clintons in one of their first presidential retreats to the island, in the early 1990s.
Hughes disagrees with critics that say the president sends a bad message by vacationing when unemployment is high.
“When the president is vacationing, he’s working,” said Hughes. “He doesn’t get a vacation, he gets a change of venue.”
Obama to deliver speech on the economy at Wisconsin battery factory
WASHINGTON – Continuing to tout the economic stimulus that Democrats passed last year, President Obama is in Wisconsin today to deliver a speech on the economy to workers at a high-tech battery factory.
The president will speak at ZBB Energy Corporation, which used a $1.3 million loan from the stimulus to help pay to expand production capacity, according to the White House.
With the fall elections less than three months away, Obama will continue to pound the theme that the country must not go back to Republican economic policies, according to a preview of his remarks released by the White House.
Elected officials expected to be on hand for the president’s remarks include U.S. Senator Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat. Polls suggest Feingold has a tough fight for reelection this fall.
Reporters in Wisconsin asked Feingold this morning if he was reluctant to stand with the president, due to Obama’s lagging poll numbers, especially on his handling of the economy.
"Absolutely none,” said Feingold, according to pool reports. “I'm pleased to stand with this president anytime and anywhere and defend what we've done and what we're doing."
But Reince Priebus, chairman of the Wisconsin Republican Party, predicted that Obama’s visit “will ultimately be an anchor around Russ Feingold’s neck.”
“Barack Obama represents everything that people around here are sick of—runaway spending, debt, and a tin ear in Washington,” he said in an interview.
Obama urges House to approve $26 billion aid package
WASHINGTON – In brief remarks from the Rose Garden today, President Obama urged the U.S. House to approve a $26 billion package of aid to states that would bring $655 million to Massachusetts.
The money, "will help states avoid laying off police officers, firefighters, nurses and first responders," the president said. "This proposal is fully paid for, in part by closing tax loopholes that encourage corporations to ship American jobs overseas. So it will not add to our deficit. And the money will only go toward saving the jobs of teachers and other essential professionals.”
The U.S. Senate approved the aid package last week, overcoming a Republican filibuster. Massachusetts Republican Senator Scott Brown opposed the package, saying there were better ways to pay for it than by increasing taxes on multinational corporations. Other Republican senators decried the bill last week as a payoff for teachers’ unions.
The House is expected to vote on the package this afternoon.
"It should not be a partisan issue,” said Obama.
Obama family plans a weekend trip to the Gulf in August
The Obamas will travel to the Gulf region for the weekend of August 14, the White House has announced. No other details have been released.
The announcement follows rumbling from critics that the president should take his traditional August vacation in the Gulf, to bring publicity and help the area recover from the economic damage caused by the spill. Indicators are strong, however, that the first family intends to return to Martha's Vineyard for vacation in August.
A family getaway to the Gulf could help inoculate the president from charges that he abandoned the struggling region in favor of the pristine sands of the Massachusetts resort island.
Brown gets shout-out at financial regulation bill signing ceremony
WASHINGTON -- Senator Scott Brown, the Massachusetts Republican who played a vital role in passage of legislation to overhaul financial regulation, did not attend today's elaborate bill-signing ceremony -- but did get a shout-out from President Obama.
Brown joined with the two Maine Republican senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, as well as 57 Democrats, to provide the needed 60 votes to break a filibuster and approve the bill.
Yesterday, Obama told an audience of more than 400 people that while a "partisan minority" opposed the bill, he wanted to "thank the three Republican senators who put partisanship aside, judged this bill on the merits, and voted for reform. We’re grateful to them." He did not name the Republicans but their names had been well-publicized.
The audience, which included a host of Democratic leaders, applauded loudly.
Brown spokeswoman Gail Gitcho said that Brown did receive an invitation to the event, held at a federal conference center a short ride down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol. She said he did not show up in part because he had a "packed schedule." But, she said, "more than that he believes that it's time to move on and finally turn the focus to creating jobs and fixing the economy."
Some of most sustained applause at the event went to House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank of Newton and Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, who shepherded the legislation through their respective chambers of Congress.
Former Bay state staffer tapped to head the Office of Management and Budget
WASHINGTON -- President Obama tapped a former staffer to Bay state lawmakers Tuesday to the Office of Management and Budget, naming veteran budgeteer Jacob "Jack'' Lew to run the agency.
Lew, who worked for both Representative Joseph Moakley and former House Speaker Thomas P. "Tip'' O'Neill in the 1970s and 1980s, has a long record of public service, serving as both deputy director and director of OMB during the Clinton administration.
The 54-year-old Lew is currently a top aide to another Clinton -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- and would replace outgoing OMB director Peter Orszag if Lew is conformed.
"I was actually worried that Hillary would not let him go,'' Obama said in the Diplomatic Reception Room at the White House yesterday, introducing Lew. "I had to trade a number of number-one draft picks to get Jack back at OMB. ''
Lew might not have quite so much fun in this go-round. When he worked for former president Clinton, Lew presided over a fat budget surplus. If he goes back to his old job, Lew will be forced to wrangle with the biggest budget deficit in history, forcing him to look for more cuts and revenues to reach the president's ultimate goal of a reduced deficit.
"Jack’s challenge over the next few years is to use his extraordinary skill and experience to cut down that deficit and put our nation back on a fiscally responsible path. And I have the utmost faith in his ability to achieve this goal as a central member of our economic team,'' Obama said.
Senate Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota, called Lew "a superb choice'' and a person of "the highest integrity.''
"He knows how to make the tough choices. And he knows how to reach across the aisle to find bipartisan solutions,'' Conrad said.
Obama and family will spend the weekend in Maine
President Obama and the first family are planning a short vacation in Maine this weekend, traveling Down East on Friday for three days on Mt. Desert Island, the home of Acadia National Park, according to the office of U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, Democrat of Maine.
The Obamas will arrive Friday and stay through Sunday, Pingree said in a statement.
“What an honor that the Obama family has chosen Maine for vacation when they could have gone anywhere in the country," said Pingree. "Those of us lucky enough to live here know it’s the most beautiful place in the world and I’m glad we can share it with the first family.”
The Obamas have no public appearances scheduled during their weekend.
Mt. Desert Island, about a six-hour drive from Boston, includes the upscale seaside vacation town of Bar Harbor, not far from the foot of Cadillac Mountain, the highest peak in Acadia National Park. The 30,000-acre park is crisscrossed with hiking trails and "carriage roads" paved with crushed stone, built by the philanthropist John D. Rockefeller Jr.
Boston executive named to President’s Export Council
President Obama named Boston hospitality executive Richard Friedman to the President’s Export Council today, part of an initiative Obama created to fulfill his State of the Union promise to double US exports, which would support several million jobs, in five years.
“I’m honored to be selected by the President to serve and have made it my personal goal to try to help our country’s tourism, hospitality, air transit industries,” Friedman said in a statement.
The only New Englander appointee, Friedman will serve with many prominent business leaders associated with UPS, Dow Corning, MetLife, and the Walt Disney Company, among others. Boeing Chairman, President, and CEO Jim McNerney and Xerox Corporation Chairman and CEO Ursula Burns head the council as chair and vice chair, respectively.
Friedman is CEO of Carpenter & Company, Inc., and served as director of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board. Former President Bill Clinton appointed him as chair of the National Capital Planning Commission, a federal urban planning agency, in 2000.
Obama appoints Berwick to head Medicare and Medicaid during congressional recess
WASHINGTON — President Obama will use the congressional recess to bypass the Senate and appoint Harvard Professor Donald Berwick tomorrow to oversee Medicare and Medicaid, a White House official said tonight.
Berwick, a pediatrician and president of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, a not-for-profit organization in Cambridge, is widely respected by many veteran policy officials, but Republicans, calling him an advocate of “rationing’’ health care, had been expected to grill him on his views during his confirmation hearing. GOP leaders had also intimated they would use the hearings as a forum to reopen the battle on President Obama’s health care law.
Dan Pfeiffer, White House communications director, revealed the decision, known as a recess appointment, on the White House website. Lawmakers are on their annual Fourth of July break.
In vowing to fight his nomination, GOP lawmakers have cited Berwick’s support for controlling costs and his statements praising aspects of the United Kingdom’s national health system. They contend his positions show that he would seek to transform US health care into a tightly controlled system, reducing patient choices and delaying treatments.
In a speech before the Senate in May, Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky accused Berwick of being an “expert on rationing.’’
By lauding the United Kingdom’s National Health System, McConnell said, Berwick “is applauding a system where care is delayed, denied, or rationed.’’
Last night, Republican Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming issued a prompt response to the White House move:
“This recess appointment is an insult to the American people. Dr. Berwick is a self professed supporter of rationing health care and he won’t even have to explain his views to the American people in a hearing. Once again, President Obama has made a mockery of his pledge to be accountable and transparent.’’
As head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Berwick would administer an agency with 4,500 employees and an annual budget of $780 billion. The agency oversees the government health insurance programs for the elderly, the poor, and the disabled and will be a critical player in the health care overhaul law, which includes a massive expansion of Medicaid for low-income people and about $400 billion in cuts to Medicare over the next 10 years.
A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Medical School, the 63-year-old Berwick, who lives in Cambridge, is a professor at both Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health. In addition to his job running the 111-employee Institute for Healthcare Policy Improvement, he is a consultant in pediatrics at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Administration gives $250 million to create more doctors and nurses
The Obama Administration today moved to plug holes on the front lines of health care, spending $250 million with the intent to create more primary care doctors, nurse-practioners, and nurses in the United States. The money is half of $500 million that will be spent to boost the supply of primary providers. Shortages are chronic in the health system, which leads to inadequate preventive care and needless hospitalizations because problems were not treated early. Here is how the money will be spent, according to a press release from the Department of Health and Human Services:
- Creating additional primary care residency slots: $168 million for training more than 500 new primary care physicians by 2015;
- Supporting physician assistant training in primary care: $32 million for supporting the development of more than 600 new physician assistants, who practice medicine as members of a team with their supervising physician, and can be trained in a shorter period of time compared to physicians;
- Encouraging students to pursue full-time nursing careers: $30 million for encouraging over 600 nursing students to attend school full-time so that they have better odds of completing their education;
- Establishing new nurse practitioner-led clinics: $15 million for the operation of 10 nurse-managed health clinics which assist in the training of nurse practitioners. These clinics are staffed by nurse practitioners, which provide comprehensive primary health care services to populations living in medically underserved communities.
- Encouraging states to plan for and address health professional workforce needs: $5 million for states to plan and implement innovative strategies to expand their primary care workforce by 10 to 25 percent over ten years to meet increased demand for primary care services.
Brown to meet with Obama tomorrow
WASHINGTON – Senator Scott Brown tomorrow is planning to meet with President Obama in the oval office, his first formal meeting with the president since the Massachusetts Republican won his surprising election in January.
It is unclear what the two will discuss, although a Brown aide confirmed that they will meet and that Obama called the meeting.
A White House official said there was not one set topic for the meeting, and it would involve "a variety of issues of mutual interest." But Brown today has been critical of Obama’s response to the oil spill during a series of television interviews.
"Up to this point, I think there has been a lack of leadership on this issue," Brown said on NECN. "I think the time for the blame and finger-pointing is over, and I hope tonight will be a turning point."
He also indirectly criticized Representative Edward J. Markey, the Malden Democrat who today chaired a much-anticipated hearing with five major oil company executives.
"We want answers, but to hammer the entire industry just to get a photo opportunity I don't think is appropriate,” Brown said, when asked about Markey's hearing. “We need to work together to solve the problem and stop the name-calling and finger-pointing."
Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com.
New White House tradition (the post-speech Tweet) starting?
The White House press secretary said he'll take to the Twittersphere after President Obama's speech to the nation tonight.
Robert Gibbs made the announcement of a direct-to-the-people, post-presidential-speech Q&A via Twitter and also via this YouTube video.
"Haven't been on Twitter in a bit but back today - I will answer your questions live after the POTUS speaks tonight @ 8,'' Gibbs wrote in a Twitter message. He linked to his video message, in which he said people can send him questions now at www.youtube.com/whitehouse.
Obama is expected to focus on the oil spill in tonight's speech. Gibbs's last message on his official Twitter site, @PressSec, was on May 28, during a visit to the Gulf spill area in Louisiana. Most of his 221 Tweets have been work-related, but he also has recounted weekend bike rides, his NCAA March Madness brackets, and that he is following the Twitter feed of TV chef Bobby Flay.
Gibbs' Twitter messages are followed by more than 65,000 Twitter accounts.
Obama pushes Kerry's climate bill
WASHINGTON – In an indication that Democrats could renew their push for climate change legislation this year, President Obama this afternoon said he would attempt to round up votes for legislation filed by Senator John Kerry.
Obama, speaking at Carnegie Mellon University, urged the US Senate to take action on a bill that aims to reduce reliance on foreign oil while putting a price on carbon emissions. It was the fourth time in 12 days that Obama urged the Senate to act, comments that come in the wake of a massive oil spill in the Gulf Coast.
“Pittsburgh, I want you to know, the votes may not be there right now, but I intend to find them in the coming months,” Obama said. “I will make the case for a clean energy future wherever I can, and I will work with anyone to get this done, and we will get it done. The next generation will not be held hostage to energy sources from the last century. We are not going to move backwards, we are going to move forward.”
The comments immediately won plaudits from Kerry and Senator Joe Lieberman, who together filed energy and climate change legislation last month. The legislation has faced several hurdles, including no Republican support and a busy calendar ahead over the next two months before Congress leaves. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is planning to decide soon on whether to bring the climate change legislation to the floor this year, or if he will push for a smaller package. He has also pledged to take up an immigration overhaul this year.
“President Obama is clearly putting his shoulder to the wheel to pass comprehensive climate and energy legislation this year,” Lieberman and Kerry said in a joint statement. “Nothing could be more definitive than his explicit commitment today to find the remaining votes needed to pass this vital legislation.”
While critics have suggested that the oil spill has only added to the political uncertainty of passing the legislation this year, Kerry has argued that it makes the case more strong that alternative sources of energy should be promoted. President Obama also seemed to make that case this afternoon.
“Without a major change in our energy policy, our dependence on oil means that we will continue to send billions of dollars of our hard-earned wealth to other countries every month – including countries in dangerous and unstable regions,” Obama said. “In other words, our continued dependence on fossil fuels will jeopardize our national security. It will smother our planet. And it will continue to put our economy and our environment at risk.”
Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com.
Hometown loyalties aside, Obama welcomes Yanks
WASHINGTON -- There are days when being president of the United States is pure glory and pride. Receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, for example. Or standing in the East Room, surrounded by well-wishers and battle-weary colleagues, signing a health care law previous presidents had tried and failed for decades to accomplish. Or even the day before Thanksgiving, when the president gets to pardon a turkey and put the whole country in a festive mood.
And then there are days like Monday, when the president -- and avowed Chisox fan -- had to host the New York Yankees and congratulate them on winning the 2009 World Series.
"This is a team that goes down to spring training every year expecting to win it all -- and more often than not, you guys get pretty close," President Obama told the ballplayers in the East Room. "My White Sox would get close every year.
"That attitude, that success, has always made the Yankees easy to love -- and, let’s face it, easy to hate as well," the president added, drawing some chuckles from the audience.
Wall Street is getting hammered at the White House and on Capitol Hill, but Obama, following tradition, gave a hero's welcome to the other well-paid New Yorkers in pinstripes.
"For the millions of Yankees fans in New York and around the world who bleed blue, nothing beats that Yankee tradition," Obama said, lauding the team for its many wins over the years.
The assembled group -- including Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, whom Obama called "Yankees fans" -- were congratulatory at the political star-studded event. But away from the cameras, not everyone is quite so gracious.
When White House press secretary Robert Gibbs announced the Yankees event as he ticked off the president's schedule to reporters last week, he was greeted by a low and derisive hiss.
And last November, when the House of Representatives voted, as is customary, to approve a resolution honoring the World Series winners, a number of representatives balked.
Typically, lawmakers engage in some good-natured ribbing on the floor, then vote unanimously to congratulate the winning World Series or Super Bowl team. But last fall -- partly, a few lawmakers said at the time, because Representative Jose Serrano of the Bronx was walking around in a Yankees cap, trying to get New Englanders to actually cosponsor the resolution -- tradition was tossed.
Seventeen lawmakers -- including Quincy Democrat Bill Delahunt -- voted no. Another 11 -- including New England Democratic Representatives Niki Tsongas and John Olver of Massachusetts, Peter Welch of Vermont, and Paul Hodes of New Hampshire -- voted "present," an in-your-face way of saying, "I won't try to kill this resolution, but I sure as heck am not going on record congratulating the Yankees." Another 19, including Worcester Democratic Representative Jim McGovern, didn't vote.
There's always October.
Obama calls Brown from Air Force One
WASHINGTON -- President Obama called Senator Scott Brown this afternoon to discuss immigration and financial regulatory reform.
Obama made the call from Air Force One, as the president was on his way back to Washington from a fundraising trip to California.
Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton told reporters this afternoon that Obama called to talk about the two issues, but did not elaborate. Brown is opposed to the current financial reform proposal that Democrats have been pushing, and has said he would join a Republican filibuster against it.
Immigration could come up later this year, with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid saying that it would be a focus.
"The senator spoke with the president today regarding immigration," said Gail Gitcho, Brown's communications director. "Senator Brown told the president that he would review any legislation if it came before the Senate, but he believes that the immediate focus should be on fixing the economy and creating jobs."
Brown has opposed driver's licenses and in-state tuition breaks for illegal immigrants, although he has said that reforms should be made to help make the process easier for those seeking citizenship.
As a state senator in 2006, he co-sponsored an amendment aimed at barring companies that hired illegal immigrants from doing business with the state of Massachusetts. Earlier this year, before he won the US Senate special election, he filed legislation that would require the state attorney general to document proof of citizenship when prosecuting wage enforcement cases.
"I welcome legal immigration to this country," Brown said in a press release last year, in response to a state-commissioned report that urged Governor Deval Patrick to push for driver's licenses and in-state tuition for illegal immigrants. "However, we are also a nation of laws and government should not adopt policies that encourage illegal immigration. Providing driver’s licenses and in-state tuition to illegal immigrant families will act as a magnet in drawing more people here in violation of the law and it will impose new costs on taxpayers. Government should strictly enforce the law, not ignore it with a wink and a nod or, even worse, pass laws that condone illegal behavior.”
Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com.
Obama chooses Harvard professor Donald Berwick to run Medicare, Medicaid
WASHINGTON -- Harvard Medical School professor Donald Berwick's nomination to run the nation's Medicare and Medicaid programs is now official.
President Obama, whose staff several weeks ago floated Berwick's name to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, made the formal announcement Monday afternoon. Berwick, the president and CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, now must convince a US Senate still bitterly divided over the health care overhaul law to confirm him to the job.
Berwick's fans credit him with what they call innovative ideas to lower health care costs while maintaining quality care. That approach, supporters say, is critical in the next decade, when Medicare funding is set to be shrunk by $400 billion while Medicaid, the program for the poor and disabled, will undergo its biggest expansion in history.
"Dr. Berwick has dedicated his career to improving outcomes for patients and providing better care at lower cost," Obama said in a statement. "That’s one of the core missions facing our next CMS Administrator, and I’m confident that Don will be an outstanding leader for the agency and the millions of Americans it serves."
The American Medical Association also welcomed Berwick's nomination, calling the Harvard professor and pediatrician "widely known and well-respected for his visionary leadership efforts that focus on optimizing the quality and safety of patient care in hospitals and across health care settings."
The AARP, a powerful seniors' lobby, also hailed the pick.
"Dr. Berwick’s expertise on health care innovation and his dedication to quality improvement and patient safety would benefit the millions of low-income and older Americans served by Medicare and Medicaid," said John Rother, the group's executive vice president.
However, Berwick could face a tough nomination fight. His cost-cutting ideas could be seen as rationing, leading the Senate to revisit discredited claims that the health care law will include "death panels" assigned to deciding who lives and who dies. Republican aides are also scouring Berwick's writings, looking for controversial rhetoric.
Even if Berwick himself does not draw partisan attacks, his nomination hearings provide the Senate with another platform to fight about health care overhaul, an issue Republicans believe will be key to depleting Democratic majorities in Congress in this November's elections.
Berwick declined to comment pending his nomination hearings. His spokesman, Jesse duPont, said Berwick "is honored to be nominated and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement is gratified that a leader in health care quality improvement has been recognized by the Obama administration as a strong candidate to head up CMS."
Brown to meet with Geithner
WASHINGTON – Senator Scott Brown is meeting today with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, an indication that the Obama administration sees the Massachusetts Republican as someone who could be convinced to vote for the bill.
Brown yesterday said he would vote against the financial overhaul bill that Democrats are currently pushing as a way to curb the practices that contributed to the 2008 economic meltdown.
And while he left open the possibility that he could sign onto a compromise, he had pointed criticism for the administration.
Geithner coming to meet with Brown is also an indication of the administration’s push on the issue. Other likely targets are several New England Republicans, including Judd Gregg, of New Hampshire, and Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, both of Maine.
Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com.
Courteous crowds on the left and right greet Obama in Maine
PORTLAND -- Any visit by President Obama is bound to attract angry protesters, yelling loudly about “government takeovers” and talking about the nation’s descent into communism and heckling defiant Democrats.
Mainers, it seems, didn’t get the memo.
Sure, there is angst here among some health industry officials and business owners that the law could end up costing them a lot of money. But they use words like “concern,” not phrases like “Armageddon.” And yes, a smattering of anti-health care overhaul protestors showed up to mark Obama’s visit. But they didn’t yell; they only rang a bell for attention. And when pro-Obama voters walked through the opposing crowd, carrying their “Thank You” signs for the president, the anti-overhaul group graciously moved aside so their political foes could pass.
“I’m for sticking up for the constitution,” said Kandi-Lee Hoy, 48, reveling in the sunny weather as she awaited Obama’s arrival. Hoy said she felt the federal bank and auto industry bailouts, combined with the health care package, represented too much government control. But she had no unkind words for the thousands who were standing in line across the street to deliver the opposite message.
“They don’t want confrontation. They just want to get their message out,” said Chris Cinquemani, spokesman for the Maine Heritage Policy Center, which opposes the bill. Cinquemani himself had been walking up to strangers in the crowd, offering a handshake and introductions.
The pro-health care overhaul crowd was equally sanguine, laughing and waving as they waited, without complaint, for hours to get into the Expo Center. Even when directly facing their opponents, they avoided a war of words. “Some people say we’re really Canadian,” said one woman, referring to the notoriously good manners of their northern neighbors. She quickly added that she was proud to be a Mainer.
And while other states have already begun legal challenges to the health care law, Maine’s legislature moved quickly to adapt, establishing a bipartisan panel to figure out how the federal law will synch with the state’s own health care plan.
“We just have that kind of attitude,” said Democratic state legislator Sharon Treat. “It tends to prevail over negativity.”
Obama, too, shrugged off a negative review in Portland, where the president said he was greeted by a derisive “eh” by a man watching the presidential motorcade go by.
“Ultimately that’s what makes our country so great ... everybody is able to voice their opinions; everybody is able to get out there and organize. And you’re free to call your President an idiot,” Obama said.
Romney denounces health plan, process
Mitt Romney took a moment his book tour to lambaste the new health care law, calling for a repeal and characterizing President Obama as an abuser of power and purveyor of fraudulent claims.
"President Obama has betrayed his oath to the nation — rather than bringing us together, ushering in a new kind of politics, and rising above raw partisanship, he has succumbed to the lowest denominator of incumbent power: justifying the means by extolling the ends. He promised better; we deserved better,'' Romney wrote in a statement on the website of his political action committee, Free and Strong America.
The former Massachusetts governor has been criss-crossing the country and doing a series of interviews on his recently released book, "No Apology,'' which premiered Sunday atop The New York Times' best-seller list for non-fiction books. Romney had actively supported and signed the 2006 bill that greatly expanded availability of health care in the Bay State. Many analysts have pointed to the Massachusetts plan as a model for Obama's and the Democrats' national package.
Romney disagreed.
"His health care bill is unhealthy for America. It raises taxes, slashes the more private side of Medicare, installs price controls, and puts a new federal bureaucracy in charge of health care. It will create a new entitlement even as the ones we already have are bankrupt. For these reasons and more, the act should be repealed. That campaign begins today.''
Romney, who ran for the GOP nomination for president in 2008 and is considered a possible candidate in 2012, did not specify if he would play a role in any repeal campaign. His PAC has been a top fund-raiser for Republican candidates across the nation and he could use his influence to back candidates that support a repeal.
GLOBE STAFF
Obama marks St. Patrick’s Day at the Capitol
President Obama's "great-great-great-great-great" Irish grandfather imparted the gift of gab, so he opened the Friends of Ireland luncheon at the Capitol today with the traditional blarney.
"Today is a day we speak with pride of being Irish-American -- whether we actually are or not," Obama said, to laughter. "I am pleased to say that I can actually get away with it, and I've got the Taoiseach here to vouch for me."
Obama can trace his Irish lineage through his mother's family to County Offaly, the same county, coincidentally, that Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen, who was in attendance, was born. Obama learned of his Irish ancestry during the presidential campaign.
As in his remarks at last year's event, Obama jokingly asked why no one discovered his Irish heritage while he ran for office in Chicago, which he suggested might have helped his political career.
President Obama also took a moment to honor the late Senator Ted Kennedy; he thanked his widow, Vicki Kennedy, and son, Representative Patrick Kennedy, for their presence at the event.
"We all feel the heavy absence of one of our greatest Irish-Americans; a man who loved this day so much; a man who I believe is still watching this body closely, particularly this week -- and that is our beloved Ted Kennedy," he said.
Obama related a favorite memory of Senator Kennedy, who once joked, on St. Patrick's Day, that the votes he managed to gather from both sides of the aisle for a particular bill were owed to "the luck of the Irish."
"It's also nice when the luck of the Irish can bring us all together, Republicans and Democrats," Obama said.
Read the full transcript below.
FULL ENTRYObama's health summit shows philosophical differences remain
WASHINGTON – A bipartisan health summit between President Barack Obama and congressional leaders began this morning with sharp disagreements, and that's how it ended. The meeting lasted six-and-a-half hours and at the end, there was no grand compromise, and seemingly no changed minds.
Republican Senator Lamar Alexander started the session by calling on Obama and Democratic leaders to renounce the use of reconciliation – a budget procedure that would allow Democrats to pass a comprehensive health care bill with just 51 votes.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid quickly refused. "Reconciliation isn’t something that’s never been done before," he said, citing Republican use of reconciliation to pass Bush tax cuts. And at the end of the day, Obama, Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi expressed resolve to act on a measure with or without Republican support.
Beyond the intense fight over strategy, the rare and engaging debate also highlighted the deep philosophical differences that remain -- a year after the health care debate began -- over how aggressively the federal government should intervene to expand insurance coverage and fix an insurance system that everyone at the historic meeting agreed is in need of repairs.
As expected, the summit did not live up to its billing as a forum for compromise. But it certainly proved to be riveting political theater, a radical and refreshing departure from business as usual in the capital. Instead of talking to empty legislative chambers on C-SPAN or through carefully crafted media sound bites, the nation’s elected leaders sat eyeball-to-eyeball and held a frank debate over their differences.
Meeting at Blair House, a historic building across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, Obama sat at the head of a square conference table, flanked by Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Alexander, Senator John McCain and other Republican senators sat to Obama’s left.
Obama called on participants to focus on areas of overlap in their proposals. But the divide over substance and process immediately dominated.
Alexander called on Democrats to scrap their comprehensive proposals and work with Republicans to pass smaller, less ambitious changes to health insurance markets using a “clean sheet of paper.”
The GOP accused Democrats of disingenuous posturing at the summit because they continued to seek a massive overhaul that Republicans have already rejected. Alexander likened the summit to the “Detroit Auto Show” where Democrats pushed “the same model we saw last year.”
“This is a car that can’t be recalled and fixed and we would like to start over,” Alexander said.
McCain, who is facing a primary challenge from a conservative Republican in his home state of Arizona, launched into an attack on a variety of special political deals packed into in the bill the Senate passed on Christmas Eve, including the so-called “Louisiana Purchase” and Nebraska's “Cornhusker Kickback” – which were generous Medicaid benefits designed to gain support of moderate Democrats from those states.
He also cited a deal Obama’s administration negotiated with the prescription drug industry behind closed doors. Under terms of the deal, which were reported last spring, the White House got an $80 billion commitment from drug companies over 10 years to reduce drug costs for seniors on Medicare. In exchange, the White House agreed to drop efforts to bargain for lower drug prices the government pays under Medicare. It also agreed not to seek importation of lower-cost prescription drugs from Canada.
“People are angry. We promised them change in Washington,” said McCain, who was Obama’s Republican opponent in the 2008 presidential election. Democrats, he said, have treated the public instead to “unsavory dealmaking.”
“John, we’re not campaigning any more. The election is over,” Obama told McCain, urging him to focus on policy, not political talking points that are better suited for split-screen debates on Fox or MSNBC. “My hope is we can focus on the issue of how we get a bill done … We can have a debate about process, or we can have a debate over how we’re going to help the American people.”
Republicans around the table said that Democratic proposals to insure about 30 million Americans who lack coverage require expensive subsidies and too many coverage mandates that drive up premium costs. They said the taxes and Medicare cuts that would be required to pay for $1 trillion overhaul sought by Democrats would hurt many of the middle-class people the program is supposed to help.
Obama responded, however, that minimum coverage requirements are needed to sufficiently protect consumers. And, he said, the assembled politicians in the room benefit from such provisions.
“The federal health insurance program has a minimum benefit that we all take advantage of,” he said.
Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma and a doctor, ticked off a litany of his top priorities, including preventing and managing chronic illness.
Representative Dave Camp, Republican of Michigan, outlined a litany of disagreements Republicans have with the Democratic bills’ approach to dealing with rising health care costs. First, he said, Republicans don’t want a bill that provides large subsidies to help the uninsured afford coverage.
“A lot of Americans say to me, ‘If you are really interested in controlling costs, maybe you shouldn’t be spending $1 trillion on (expanding) health care benefits,” he said.
Camp said a key element to cost control that is missing from the House and Senate bills is medical malpractice reform -- discouraging people from filing frivolous lawsuits against doctors, which encourage physicians to practice “defensive” medicine by prescribing tests that are probably unnecessary just to protect themselves from liability.
Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, insisted the parties weren’t so far apart. He noted that setting up exchanges -- like the Massachusetts Health Insurance Connector Authority -- was a Republican idea.
But Republicans responded that the problem is with the way Democrats have constructed the exchanges -- the rules, they say, are too strict, requiring insurers to cover more than the basics, forcing premiums to go up. Representative Paul Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, said the GOP would rather let business associations pool members independently -- with government leaving it up to them to find the best products for their members.
“We don’t think the answers lie in Washington regulating all of this,” he said.
But Obama said Democrats want to set national ground rules for what insurance policies should cover. He outlined the Democratic objection to Republicans’ call to let insurance carriers sell insurance across state lines. The fear, he said, is that insurers will go to the least restrictive, least regulated state and race to cherry-pick the healthiest people from all the states with offers of cheap coverage, leaving sick people in ever more costly plans.
“If you set a baseline, you can have interstate competition, but it’s not a race to the bottom,” the president said.
Christopher Rowland can be reached at crowland@globe.com
Health summit draws protesters outside Blair House
WASHINGTON -- It was a protest cry that could only be shouted in Washington, DC.
“Stop reconciliation now!” yelled a man outside of Blair House today, railing against a legislative process and concept generally not discussed -- let alone protested -- outside the wonky walls of the US Capitol.
The man, carrying a sign that said, “Jesus Loves All Babies,” was referring to the possibility that a health care package will be added to a budget reconciliation bill. Budget bills require just a majority vote to be approved, and cannot be filibustered, as Republicans are threatening to do if the health bill is brought back to the Senate floor.
Other played to historical fears, with signs depicting President Obama with a Hitler-esque mustache. A half-dozen others went with the office-poster look of a photograph of an actual pig in makeup. “You Can Put Lipstick on a Pig -- It's still a Pig. Barack Obama, 9-9-08,” the signs said.
The protesters -- who came out more than an hour before Obama and lawmakers were scheduled to show up for their day-long health care huddle -- said they wanted to urge the president and members of Congress to scrap the measure that's been developed over the past year and start all over again.
“We're not against reform. We're protesting what is really a charade, not a summit,” said Nancy Pfotenhauer, 46, of Virginia and a member of Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group. Americans “want a clean slate. They do not like the massive government takeover option,” Pfotenhauer said.
Police moved the demonstrators across the street mid-morning, and they were quickly met by counter-protestors who demanded universal health care. A fierce verbal confrontation ensued on the narrow sidewalk, but no physical battles occurred. “Kill the bill! Kill the bill!” a smattering of protestors yelled, seeking to drown out their counterparts.
The pro-health care overhaul team, meanwhile, argued for a single payer system, expanding Medicare to cover all people. “Why the Summit Stall? Medicare for All!” their signs read.
Estrella Chaules of Sudbury, Mass., said she was disappointed that Obama hadn't been stronger in pushing a single-payer system. [Obama promised in his campaign a health care overhaul to provide near-universal coverage, but said a single-payer system would be politically impossible and too disruptive.]
“I think we need health care for all, and I'm just sorry that president Obama has forgotten or reneged on his promise to give universal health care for all,” said Chaules, who is 67 and retired. Chaules said her sister lives in Canada and received “great” health care there.
“Why can't we do the same? Why shouldn't we even be better? There are people who need health care who can't get it any other way.” she said.
Obama's healthcare proposal attempts a compromise between House and Senate bills
WASHINGTON -- President Obama's health care proposal, released this morning in advance of his bipartisan health care summit on Thursday, would attempt to protect consumers against large health insurance premium increases by allowing government regulators to review rate hikes and block any they deem unwarranted, administration officials said this morning.
The plan, which a spokesman called the president's "best shot" at working out a compromise between the House and Senate bills, is designed to provide a pathway for Congressional Democrats to pass a health care bill without any Republican votes, if necessary, using a process called "reconciliation" that allows the Senate to pass bills by a simple majority rather than the 60-vote threshold needed to avoid a filibuster by the minority party. The House would pass the Senate's health care bill and then both chambers would pass the White House's proposed fixes under reconciliation.
"The president believes the American people deserve an up-or-down vote on health reform," said White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said in a conference call with reporters this morning. "Our proposal is designed to achieve that if the Republican Party decides to filibuster.... That was certainly a factor in how we put the proposal together."
The White House proposal underscores that the president sees the summit as a chance to make the Democratic case for health reform to the American people and to argue that vision represents a stronger and more comprehensive solution than the ideas the GOP is offering. It also shows the president does not see bipartisanship as more important than passing a comprehensive health care bill.
Since Massachusetts voters elected Republican Scott Brown to replace the late Edward M. Kennedy in January, Democrats have been unable to pass a compromise version of the health care bills the House and Senate approved last year because they are one vote short of the 60 needed to prevent a Republican filibuster in the Senate.
The White House is trying to offer a way around that problem. Its plan is essentially a series of adjustments to the health care bill the Senate passed on Christmas Eve, meant to appeal to House Democrats who have balked at passing the Senate bill without any changes. Assuming no Republicans sign on, House Democrats could pass the Senate's health care bill, and then both chambers could adopt the White House's additional changes using reconciliation.
But it remains to be seen whether Congressional Democrats have the political stomach to pass a health care bill that polls show remains unpopular with the public. Some Senate Democrats are nervous about seeming to ram through major legislation -- even though Republicans have used the procedure to adopt sweeping tax and budget proposals in years past -- and House members wanted more concessions from the Senate.
Though the president has said he is interested in hearing Republicans' ideas for health reform and working with them on a bill, he has refused to agree to GOP demands that Democrats "start from scratch," which would probably mean no bill could pass this year. Most observers of the debate believe the parties are ideologically too far apart and appear politically unwilling to cooperate on a true compromise. Democrats want a bill that can cover 30 million or more of the 50 million uninsured, and Republicans say that's too expensive to do that right now.
Dan Pfeiffer characterized the president's proposal as an "opening bid" for the health care summit on Thursday and said the White House would be happy to post a Republican plan alongside it on the White House website.
Pfeiffer said the president's proposal contained many of the agreements House and Senate leaders made in January, before Brown was elected, when they met extensively with the president to negotiate a final compromise.
The underlying Senate bill in many ways mirrors the system Massachusetts enacted in 2006, setting up state-based "exchanges" -- like the Massachusetts Health Insurance Connector Authority -- to help the uninsured purchase insurance. It provides federally subsidized assistance to people earning less than 400 percent of poverty, or $88,000 a year for a family of four, to help purchase insurance. And it prohibits insurers from dropping or denying coverage based on preexisting conditions or gender.
The White House plan tries to find a middle ground on some of the most controversial differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill. It requires individuals to obtain insurance or face a fine, unless they can't find a plan that costs less than 8 percent of income, in which case they would be allowed to purchase a basic catastrophic insurance plan. It requires employers with more than 50 employees to help offset the cost to the government if their uninsured workers apply for federally subsidized insurance.
It contains no provision to establish a government-run insurance plan.
Because parliamentary rules strictly limit the content of reconciliation bills to provisions affecting revenue, the White House plan includes no changes to the Senate bill's rules on abortion coverage or to the state-based exchanges it would set up. The abortion issue in particular could be a sticking point, since a contingent of House Democrats say they will not vote for a bill that does not contain the House's more restrictive abortion language.
Instead of a special Medicaid deal for Nebraska only, the White House proposal would provide even more help to states to expand Medicaid. It also contains additional money for states like Massachusetts that already have generous Medicaid programs and so would not otherwise qualify for expansion help.
White House officials said today the new plan costs about $75 billion more than the Senate bill; the total cost would be $950 billion over 10 years. But they said that cost would be more than offset by a combination of reductions in Medicare spending, cuts to the Medicare Advantage program, industry fees, taxes on high-cost health insurance and penalties for individuals who do not purchase insurance and employers whose uninsured employees enroll in government-subsidized insurance programs.
The tougher regulatory powers contained in the legislation are designed to add a new populist appeal at a time when Anthem Blue Cross of California has said it is raising rates by 39 percent.
Read the full proposal here.
Obama: economic plan starts with small business
NASHUA -- Promising jobs and asking for patience, President Obama pitched his economic plan to a receptive New Hampshire audience, defending his plan to cut deficits and ease unemployment even as lawmakers back in Washington picked apart his budget blueprint.
“Because there’s no magic wand that will make economic problems that were years in the making disappear overnight, it’s easy for politicians to exploit the anger and anguish folks are feeling right now,'' Obama told a crowd of about 1,600 at a Nashua high school, acknowledging that “folks here in New Hampshire have been tested by the last two years.''
But things could have been much worse, Obama said, if his administration had not gone ahead with the financial bailouts and $787 billion stimulus program so reviled by his Republican opponents. “Because of the steps we took, the markets have stabilized. No one’s worrying about another Great Depression like they were a year ago. The worst of the storm has passed,'' Obama said.
FULL ENTRYLiberal groups, advocates call for action on health care in advance of SOTU
By Lisa Wangsness, Globe Staff
Indications so far are that President Obama is not going to map out a detailed strategy for passing the health care bill in his State of the Union address tonight.
But with the president's erstwhile top domestic priority foundering since Massachusetts voters elected Republican Scott Brown to the Senate last week, denying Democrats the 60th vote they need to pass a final compromise, health care advocates and liberal groups are using the hours before Obama's speech to demand action.
"While many of the provisions of the House bill are preferable to those in the Senate version, we believe that the House of Representatives should step forward and pass the Senate bill," said Mary G. Wilson, president of the League of Women Voters, in a statement issued this afternoon.
The American Cancer Society said cancer patients would gather around the country to watch the State of the Union address: "Cancer patients, survivors and their loved ones are calling on the President to continue to make meaningful health care reform a top national priority," the group said in a release.
The Main Street Alliance, a group of business owners who support the health care legislation, wrote in a letter to the president and Congressional leaders: "This is no time to consider scaling back a reform bill that must make health insurance affordable for businesses and our employees, share the responsibility of improving coverage fairly among individuals, employers, and the government, and reform the health insurance market to keep insurance companies honest."
The liberal activist group MoveOn Political Action, meanwhile, said a survey of its members found that three-quarters won't donate to Democratic candidates in this year's midterm elections if Democrats fail to pass comprehensive health care reform. The group says its members contributed $125 million to Democratic candidates in 2008.
"These surveys are consistent with sentiment we saw coming out of Massachusetts last week—that people are looking for Democrats to fight for real change," said executive director Justin Ruben in a statement. "Right now, that starts with comprehensive health care reform. We’re at a crossroads and if Democrats want to maintain the enthusiasm among donors and volunteers they need to win in 2010, they need to get health care done."
Congressional leaders have been floundering over the last week for a strategy on health care. Every day it seems the message changes -- yesterday Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid declared that there was "no rush," today House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Congress should not retreat from the issue.
Repeal of Pentagon gay ban on Obama's 2010 agenda?
By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON _ While most political observers are anxious to hear what President Obama will say Wednesday night about health care reform and the economy, Washington is also abuzz today about what the State of the Union address might contain about gays in the military.
Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, set off the guessing game Monday when he told reporters that the White House asked him to postone an announcement about an upcoming hearing on the so-called 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy because the president plans to address the issue.
The Michigan Democrat said he didn't know what Obama plans to say, but speculation is mounting that he will call on Congress to repeal the 1993 law that established the policy that bars gays from serving openly in the ranks -- either by proposing his own legislation or backing a draft bill in the House sponsored by Democratic Rep. Patrick Murphy, an Iraq War veteran who represents suburban Philadelphia.
Such a move is bound to be controversial but could also be an effort by Democrats to bait Republicans into a debate over a social issue -- one that polling shows has the support of many independent voters -- while couching it in national security terms.
Obama, who made repeal of the ban a campaign pledge, has long said that in a time of war the military can't afford to lose a single qualified soldier.
Obama sells benefits of health overhaul
Returning to domestic concerns, President Obama focuses on health care today after talking about jobs on Friday.
In his weekly Internet and radio address, the president says that as the economy recovers, his administration will build a new strong foundation for economic growth.
And besides education reform and investments in clean energy, a key element is fixing the nation's health care system, Obama says. Democrats in Congress are pushing to agree on a final bill that can go to Obama's desk before he delivers his first State of the Union speech next month.
"After a long and thorough debate, we are on the verge of passing health insurance reform that will finally offer Americans the security of knowing they’ll have quality, affordable health care whether they lose their job, change jobs, move, or get sick. The worst practices of the insurance industry will be banned forever. And costs will finally come down for families, businesses, and our government.
He addresses critics who point out that while some higher taxes and fees would start almost immediately after the bill becomes law while many benefits would not. "It’ll take a few years to fully implement these reforms in a responsible way. But what every American should know is that once I sign health insurance reform into law, there are dozens of protections and benefits that will take effect this year," Obama declares.
He goes on to list some of them: no more discrimination against uninsured Americans with a pre-existing illness or condition, young adults will be able to stay on their parents’ policy until they’re 26 or 27 years old, small business owners will get tax credits to help cover their employees, and seniors hit by the so-called donut hole in coverage will receive discounts on their prescriptions.
"In short," Obama says, "once I sign health insurance reform into law, doctors and patients will have more control over their health care decisions, and insurance company bureaucrats will have less. All told, these changes represent the most sweeping reforms and toughest restrictions on insurance companies that this country has ever known. That’s how we’ll make 2010 a healthier and more secure year for every American – for those who have health insurance, and those who don’t."
His full address is below and can be viewed here.
Giuliani praises Obama, raises eyebrows
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani offered praise of a sort to President Obama today, saying that by forcefully declaring that "we are at war," the president had "turned the corner" on tackling terrorism.
But in the interview broadcast this morning on ABC's "Good Morning America," the 2008 GOP presidential candidate said Obama still must do better.
He said the administration should treat terrorism suspects as enemy combatants and not try them in the civilian criminal courts, as it is doing for the alleged attempted bomber on the Detroit-bound Christmas flight. Giuliani also questioned how government prosecutors have handled the investigation of that case.
"Why in God's name would you stop questioning a terrorist?" he asked. "Why would you put an artificial time limit on how much time you would spend questioning a terrorist."
But it's another comment he made that is raising some eyebrows: "We had no domestic attacks under Bush. We've had one under Obama."
Bush was president and Giuliani was mayor when terrorists struck on Sept. 11, 2001, as well as for shoe-bomber Richard Reid in late 2001.
UPDATE: Asked about the omission this afternoon, Giuliani called the controversy "silly," but acknowledged that he misspoke.
"I usually say we had no domestic attacks, no major domestic attack under President Bush since September 11th. And the reason I say it is on September 11th and the days after September 11th, I received many briefings, many warnings, as the mayor of New York, that we were going to be attacked again, that we were going to be attacked frequently," he said on CNN's "Situation Room."
"I did omit the words 'since September 11th.' I apologize for that. I should have put it in. I do remember September 11th. In fact, Wolf, I remember it every single day and usually frequently during the day."
Markey prods Obama on screening cargo
In the aftermath of the nearly successful bombing of the Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day, the Obama administration has focused on beefing up the screening of airline passengers and stopping suspected terrorists from getting on board.
But Representative Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts reminded President Obama today that there's a deadline in August to screen all air cargo on passenger aircraft as well.
Markey, who authored a mandate to carry through the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission on cargo, sent a letter to Obama, urging him to intensify efforts to screen all inbound air cargo.
“As we have seen all too clearly with the attempted Christmas Day attack, dangerous holes remain in our security system that a terrorist can exploit,” Markey said in a statement. “While President Obama is working quickly to close these gaps, we must focus not only on the safety of passengers in airline seats, but of the cargo just beneath their feet. We must fully implement the 100 percent air cargo screening mandate and we must do it quickly.”
The Transportation Security Administration has indicated that it expects to meet the August deadline for screening all domestic air cargo carried on passenger planes, but agency officials have told Congress that they will not meet the deadline for inbound air cargo coming from overseas, and only plans to screen so-called "high-risk" cargo from overseas.
“The Christmas Day attempt is the must recent example of the shortcomings of this approach,” said Markey. “Just as international passengers entering the U.S. from abroad will be screened more thoroughly under the new guidelines, so too should the air cargo from overseas.”
Obama returns to job one -- jobs
President Obama hoped to put the Christmas Day terror scare behind him -- at least temporarily -- by saying Thursday that the "buck stops with me" and setting in motion a streamlining of intelligence efforts and a ramping up of passenger screening.
Related
The Labor Department reported this morning that employers cut 85,000 jobs last month, more than most analysts expected. For all of 2009, employers slashed 4.2 million jobs, and the jobless rate averaged 9.3 percent -- compared to an average of 5.8 percent in 2008 and 4.6 percent in 2007. The economy has lost more than 8 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007.
Obama has warned repeatedly that job growth will lag the economic recovery, in part because many companies have figured out how to get by with fewer employees, often by making workers do more.
UPDATE: "The jobs numbers that were released by the Labor Department this morning are a reminder that the road to recovery is never straight and that we have to continue to work every single day to get our economy moving again," Obama said this afternoon.
"For most Americans, and for me, that means jobs. It means whether we are putting people back to work. Job losses for the last quarter of 2009 were one-tenth of what we were experiencing in the first quarter. In fact, in November we saw the first gain in jobs in nearly two years.
"Last month, however, we slipped back, losing more jobs than we gained, though the overall trend of job loss is still pointing in the right direction. What this underscores, though, is that we have to continue to explore every avenue to accelerate the return to hiring, which brings me to my announcement today." (His full remarks are below.)
He announced that the administration is awarding $2.3 billion in Recovery Act tax credits, for 183 "clean energy manufacturing projects" in 43 states that are supposed to create tens of thousands of jobs in areas including solar, wind, and efficiency and energy management technologies.
“Building a robust clean energy sector is how we will create the jobs of the future,” Obama said in a statement. “The Recovery Act awards I am announcing today will help close the clean energy gap that has grown between America and other nations while creating good jobs, reducing our carbon emissions and increasing our energy security.”
In advance of Obama's remarks, the White House sent out a statement from the chairwoman of his Council of Economic Advisers, Christina Romer, that reinforced his message that the recovery will not "be a straight line" and that cautioned against reading too much into any monthly unemployment report.
"Today’s employment report, though a setback from November, is consistent with the gradual labor market stabilization we have been seeing over the last several months," she said.
"Payroll employment declined 85,000 in December. To put this number in perspective, employment declined 139,000 in September and 127,000 in October. So, in a broad sense the trend toward moderating job loss is continuing. This trend is particularly obvious in the quarterly pattern: average monthly job loss was 691,000 in the first quarter of 2009, 428,000 in the second quarter, 199,000 in the third quarter, and 69,000 in the fourth quarter.
"Revised data now show that employment increased 4,000 in November. This is obviously welcome news and the first employment increase in 23 months. Compared with the unexpectedly good report for November, December’s job loss is a slight setback. Two industries where employment declined significantly were construction (-53,000) and wholesale and retail trade (-28,400). One continuing sign of labor market healing was that temporary help services, which is often a leading indicator of labor demand, added 46,500 jobs in December. Both the work week and aggregate hours remained stable, maintaining the significant improvement that occurred in November.
"The unemployment rate remained at 10.0 percent in December. This level reflected a proportional decline in the number of people unemployed and the number of people in the labor force. The unemployment rate remains unacceptably high, which underscores the need for responsible actions to jumpstart private-sector job creation.
"As the President has said for a year, the road to recovery will not be a straight line. The monthly employment and unemployment numbers are volatile and subject to substantial revision. Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative. It is essential that we continue our efforts to move in the right direction and replace job losses with robust job gains."
But the Republican National Committee got in the first shot.
“For close to a full year the American people have been forced to watch and in many cases bear the burden of our ever increasing national unemployment rate which unfortunately remained in the double digits throughout the month of December," Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said in a statement.
"More than 85,000 Americans lost their jobs in the month of December, meaning more than 2.8 million Americans have lost their jobs since the stimulus passed, and the national unemployment rate remains at 10 percent. The American economy is a powerful and amazingly resilient system that will always naturally return to balance because of the determination and unique ingenuity of the American worker," Steele added. "But President Obama’s singular focus on enacting his government-run liberal policies are single handily preventing this return. It’s time for President Obama to heed the recent words of Democrat Senator Ben Nelson and finally do what he should have been doing over the past year – put his full and undivided attention on fixing our economy.”
House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio piled on, warning of a "jobless recovery."
"Today’s disappointing report paints a picture of an economy in which employers and workers are stuck in the muck of higher taxes, job-killing policies and wasteful Washington spending. Republicans have repeatedly presented President Obama with better solutions to help small businesses create jobs, only to be rebuffed in favor of more of the same ‘stimulus’ programs that just grow government and pile debt on our kids and grandkids," Boehner said in a statement.
"A jobless recovery is a far cry from what the American people were promised last winter when Washington Democrats jammed through a trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’ that they said would create jobs ‘immediately.’ Instead, roughly three million Americans have lost their jobs since then, and joblessness remains in the double-digits.
“Instead of wildly pivoting from one issue to the next, the Obama Administration needs to listen to American families asking ‘where are the jobs?’ and employers calling on Washington to scrap these policies that are already costing jobs, starting with a government takeover of health care. The hard work and entrepreneurship of the American people will ultimately get us out of this mess, but unless Washington gets out of the way, that day will be longer in coming.”
A change in schedule, twice
Read into it what you will, but President Obama has pushed back his report today to the American people on the attempted Christmas Day airliner bombing so that he can squeeze in two more one-on-one meetings.
The original schedule had his remarks at 1 p.m. EST, but the White House just said that Obama is now set to speak at 3 p.m.
UPDATE: Obama's remarks on the attempted bombing have been delayed a second time. The new schedule: 4:30 p.m.
Instead at 1 p.m., he will meet with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, then at 1:30 with former President Bill Clinton -- their first alone time in the Oval Office since Obama became president.
Obama is to detail what has been discovered so far about what went wrong that allowed a Nigerian man with suspected terrorist ties to board a Detroit-bound plane with explosives secreted on his body. Only a defective device and quick-acting passengers apparently foiled the attack.
While the Northwest flight was in the air, the suspect had been flagged for further screening once the airliner landed in Detroit, the Associated Press is reporting.
A declassified version of the preliminary report will be released today. Girding Americans, national security adviser General James Jones told USA Today that "the man on the street" will feel "a certain shock" that the connections weren't made to prevent the attack.
Obama promises action on terror scare
President Obama declared this afternoon that "the bottom line" is that the government had enough information to stop the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a US airliner, but failed to connect the dots.
"We have to do better and we will do better," he said at the White House, after meeting with 20 top national security officials he summoned to the situation room for a detailed briefing on the investigation and the status of the reviews he ordered on terrorist watch lists and on passenger screening.
Obama said he wants recommendations this week on how to improve both and wants them implemented immediately. "We face a challenge of the utmost urgency," he added.
Since he took office, Obama said, US forces have "taken the fight to Al Qaeda," disrupting plots and protecting Americans.
But, he conceded, when a suspected terrorist is able to board a US bound plane and nearly ignite an explosive, the "system has failed in a potentially disastrous way."
He also announced that the administration will stop repatriating detainees to Yemen from the prison at the US Navy base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, saying that the situation in Yemen was too unsettled.
An Al Qaeda affiliate based Yemen has claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was in retaliation for US-supported airstrikes on its hideouts. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian who claims ties to Al Qaeda, has also reportedly said he received instruction from operatives in Yemen.
The Guantanamo decision drew immediate fire from civil rights groups pushing Obama to close Guantanamo, as he pledged to do by this month -- a deadline he almost certainly will not meet. About half the remaining 198 detainees at Guantanamo are from Yemen, after six were sent there just before the plane incident.
"Dozens of men from Yemen who have been cleared for release after extensive scrutiny by the government?s Guantŕnamo Review Task Force are about to be left in limbo once more due to politics, not facts. Many are about to begin their ninth year in indefinite detention," the Center for Constitutional Rights said in a statement. "Halting the repatriation of Yemeni men cleared by the Task Force after months of careful review is unconscionable. It will also effectively prevent any meaningful progress towards closing Guantánamo, which President Obama has repeatedly argued will make our nation safer."
On the other side, Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican, said Obama should completely abandon his plans to close the Guantanamo facility.
"Unless the administration abandons its ill-conceived and politically motivated plans to close Gitmo, most Americans won't find much solace in transferring detainees that would have gone to Yemen and housing them on American soil," Issa said in a statement. "Hopefully, recent events will have awakened the President to the reality that our national and homeland security must supersede the politics of the moment."
But Obama rejected that advice. "Make no mistake," he said, "we will close Guantanamo prison," which he repeated has become a recruiting tool for Al Qaeda.
In his brief remarks, the president confirmed that hundreds of names have been added to terrorist watch and no-fly lists.
Obama also confirmed the Monday directive from the Transportation Security Administration to airlines to give full-body, pat-down searches to US-bound travelers from Yemen, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and 11 other countries with suspected terrorist ties.
Republicans, meanwhile, are all over Obama for his administration's reported plans to try the bombing suspect in civilian court, saying he is an "enemy combatant" who should go before a military tribunal.
"The administration?s treatment could afford a murderous terrorist the opportunity to negotiate a plea bargain and a lesser punishment -- and that is not acceptable," the second-ranking House Republican, Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, said in a statement.
"Terrorists who come to our country to kill men, women, and children should not be given options when they fail. These murderers are war-time combatants, and are not equivalent to drug dealers, or thieves whom the government can choose to negotiate with for additional information on other criminals," Cantor added. "Instead, we should develop a no-nonsense policy that the United States will not presume that foreign nationals caught attempting to execute or carry out terrorist acts on U.S. soil are automatically entitled to a trial in civilian courts. For 10 months, the administration and many on Capitol Hill have been unwilling to call a terrorist a terrorist. Instead of blame games, we need to strengthen what works in our system, fix what does not, and do what makes sense to ensure that we are always steps ahead of terrorists trying to kill Americans."
C-SPAN complains about private health talks
Democrats' apparent decision to come up with a final health care bill not only behind closed doors but within a very select group of negotiators is drawing criticism not only from expected quarters, but from the media.
Both C-SPAN and House Republicans are reminding President Obama that he once pledged to have the health care negotiations carried on the gavel-to-gavel cable network.
"As your respective chambers work to reconcile the differences between the House and Senate health care bills, C-SPAN requests that you open all important negotiations, including any conference committee meetings, to electronic media coverage," C-SPAN CEO Brian Lamb wrote in a letter to Obama and congressional leaders that the network released this morning.
"President Obama, Senate and House leaders, many of your rank-and-file members, and the nation’s editorial pages have all talked about the value of transparent discussions on reforming the nation’s health care system. Now that the process moves to the critical stage of reconciliation between the Chambers, we respectfully request that you allow the public full access, through television, to legislation that will affect the lives of every single American," Lamb added in the Dec. 30 letter.
"We hope you will give serious consideration to this request. We are most willing to employ the latest digital technology to make the cameras, lights and microphones as unobtrusive as possible."
The plan is not to appoint a conference committee of key members of the House and Senate, but to have House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, top White House officials, and a few others try to craft a compromise. That would be a more expeditious route, in hopes of getting a bill to Obama's desk before his first State of the Union speech.
The first of those private meetings is scheduled later today in the Oval Office as Obama huddles with Democratic leaders.
UPDATE: Asked this afternoon about the C-SPAN criticism, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said he had not seen the letter. He didn't answer further.
Obama grassroots army seeks marching orders
President Obama's grassroots group is taking the pulse of its members to decide its priorities for the new year.
Organizing for America, Obama's presidential campaign vehicle now housed within the Democratic National Committee, sent out an online survey today.
David Plouffe, Obama's former campaign manager, told supporters part of the agenda is set, including the crucial mid-term congressional elections in November: "2010 will be a year of new, exciting challenges. We'll be working hard with President Obama to finish the fight for health insurance reform, put more Americans back to work, and get our economy running strong. We'll fight to protect consumers and our economy from Wall Street abuses, improve transparency in Washington to elevate the voices of the American people, and create a vibrant, clean energy economy. And we'll stand up for the President's allies at the ballot box."
The survey, itself, asks how interested people are in health care, jobs, clean energy, financial regulation, and education. It also asks about immigration reform -- an issue that Obama put on the back burner during 2009 but has promised Latino and other groups he will tackle in 2010.
Haves and have-nots
On the first workday of the new year, a liberal-labor group notes that by lunchtime, the average CEO has already made what a minimum-wage worker will earn in all of 2010.
The average total compensation for a CEO in the Standard & Poor's 500 index was $10.9 million in 2008, which translates to about $5,240 an hour, compared to the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, says Americans United for Change, which is pushing for labor-friendly policies as well as the health care overhaul.
While President Obama has railed against exorbitant executive pay and those firms receiving federal bailouts were under some limits, many of those companies paid back the government so they could pay top executives what they wanted, arguing that they were at a disadvantage for brainpower against companies that didn't need federal aid.
“At a time when hourly workers -- those who are still lucky enough to be employed -- are barely scraping by and having their hours cut back, CEOs continue to make millions across every industry," Tom McMahon, the group's acting executive director said in a statement.
"These same CEOs are, meanwhile, using their cash and influence to fight real change for working families. The bankers who crashed our economy and put us out of work are fight any attempts to reign in their influence. The health insurance companies who bankrupt millions are trying to block any change. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has dug in its feet to protect their pay and their posh way of life. We wish for many things in 2010 but first and foremost we’re hoping that the average worker will have a better shot of a fair deal this year.”
Libertarians say Obama same as Bush
President Obama has brought more of the same -- not change you can believe in.
At least according to the Libertarian Party, which said this evening that its "top 10 disasters" of the Obama administration's first year have a striking similarity to the Bush administration.
"Republicans and Democrats keep expanding government and creating more and more problems. We're encouraging as many Libertarians as possible to run for Congress in 2010," Wes Benedict, the Libertarian Party executive director, said in a statement.
He said that in Texas, the state with the earliest candidate filing deadline, Libertarians have already filed for 31 of 32 congressional seats.
In no particular order, the Libertarians said, the 10 "disasters" of Obama's watch:
1. Cash for clunkers
2. War escalation in Afghanistan
3. Giant government health care expansion bill
4. Post office loses money hand over fist
5. Stimulus package
6. Expansion of "state secrets" doctrine
7. Big increase in unemployment
8. "Bailout" [Tim] Geithner as treasury secretary
9. Skyrocketing federal spending
0. Huge federal deficits
The top 10 disasters of the Bush administration:
1. Cash for car companies
2. War in Iraq
3. Giant Medicare expansion bill
4. Post office loses money hand over fist
5. Stimulus "rebate" checks
6. Patriot Act
7. Big increase in unemployment
8. "Bailout" [Henry] Paulson as Treasury Secretary
9. Skyrocketing federal spending
10. Huge federal deficits
Obama gives little information on terror review
President Obama has little to say publicly today about the preliminary reviews he ordered of what went wrong to allow the near bombing of a US airliner on Christmas Day.
He said this week that a "systemic failure" occurred, as well as human error, and told his administration to look at how terrorist watch lists are compiled and shared and at screening of pasengers.
Obama offered little in the way of conclusions or recommendations, but said he'll meet with key agency heads on Tuesday when he's back in Washington.
His full statement:
"This morning, I spoke with John Brennan about preliminary assessments from the ongoing consultations I have ordered into the human and systemic failures that occurred leading up to the attempted act of terrorism on Christmas Day and about our government-wide efforts at continued vigilance on homeland security and counterterrorism efforts. In a separate call, I spoke with Sec. Napolitano to receive an update on both the Department of Homeland Security review of detection capabilities and the enhanced security measures in place since the Christmas Day incident.
"I anticipate receiving assessments from several agencies this evening and will review those tonight and over the course of the weekend. On Tuesday, in Washington, I will meet personally with relevant agency heads to discuss our ongoing reviews as well as security enhancements and intelligence-sharing improvements in our homeland security and counterterrorism operations."
Obama honors CIA staffers slain in Afghanistan
President Obama today sent his own message to CIA staffers after the spy agency's director confirmed that seven employees were killed and six others wounded in a suicide bombing at a base in Afghanistan..
It's unusual for official confirmation to come so quickly, but it was one of the bloodiest incidents in CIA history.
In his message, Obama called the fallen part of a "long line of patriots" and said that the CIA had been tested like never before since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "Because of your service, plots have been disrupted, American lives have been saved, and our allies and partners have been more secure," he said.
His full message:
To the men and women of the CIA:
I write to mark a sad occasion in the history of the CIA and our country. Yesterday, seven Americans in Afghanistan gave their lives in service to their country. Michelle and I have their families, friends and colleagues in our thoughts and prayers.
These brave Americans were part of a long line of patriots who have made great sacrifices for their fellow citizens, and for our way of life. The United States would not be able to maintain the freedom and security that we cherish without decades of service from the dedicated men and women of the CIA. You have helped us understand the world as it is, and taken great risks to protect our country. You have served in the shadows, and your sacrifices have sometimes been unknown to your fellow citizens, your friends, and even your families.
In recent years, the CIA has been tested as never before. Since our country was attacked on September 11, 2001, you have served on the frontlines in directly confronting the dangers of the 21st century. Because of your service, plots have been disrupted, American lives have been saved, and our Allies and partners have been more secure. Your triumphs and even your names may be unknown to your fellow Americans, but your service is deeply appreciated. Indeed, I know firsthand the excellent quality of your work because I rely on it every day.
The men and women who gave their lives in Afghanistan did their duty with courage, honor and excellence, and we must draw strength from the example of their sacrifice. They will take their place on the Memorial Wall at Langley alongside so many other heroes who gave their lives on behalf of their country. And they will live on in the hearts of those who loved them, and in the freedom that they gave their lives to defend.
May God bless the memory of those we lost, and may God bless the United States of America.
President Barack Obama
Cheney blasts Obama on Christmas Day plane scare
Former Vice President Dick Cheney is blasting President Obama again -- this time on his response to the nearly catastrophic attempted bombing of a US airliner on Christmas Eve.
Obama did not make his first public comments until Monday and they were rather muted. On Tuesday, the president acknowledged there had been a "systemic failure" of the security system that nearly allowed a Nigerian man with apparent ties with Al Qaeda to board a commercial jetliner and to try to detonate an explosive device just before it landed in Detroit.
Cheney accused Obama of pretending the US is not at war and that "makes us less safe."
"As I’ve watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war. He seems to think if he has a low-key response to an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gives terrorists the rights of Americans, lets them lawyer up and reads them their Miranda rights, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if we bring the mastermind of Sept. 11 to New York, give him a lawyer and trial in civilian court, we won’t be at war," the former vice president said in a statement to Politico that was posted early this morning.
"He seems to think if he closes Guantanamo and releases the hard-core Al Qaeda-trained terrorists still there, we won’t be at war," Cheney continued. "He seems to think if he gets rid of the words, ‘war on terror,’ we won’t be at war. But we are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren’t, it makes us less safe. Why doesn’t he want to admit we’re at war? It doesn’t fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office. It doesn’t fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidency — social transformation — the restructuring of American society. President Obama’s first object and his highest responsibility must be to defend us against an enemy that knows we are at war."
Cheney has been one of Obama's harshest critics during the president's first year. He and the president faced off on how the US should combat terrorism in a remarkable set of back-to-back speeches in May. Cheney then accused Obama of "dithering" and putting US troops in danger by taking several months to carefully review his options before announcing that he would send more troops to Afghanistan.
UPDATE: This afternoon, the White House responded directly to Cheney, via a posting on its website from communications director Dan Pfeiffer.
He accused Cheney of making "untrue" allegations against Obama and asserted that the Bush-Cheney administration allowed Al Qaeda to thrive while it diverted attention to Iraq. An Al Qaeda offshoot based in Yemen has claimed responsibility for the attempted bombing, saying it was retaliating for US-assisted strikes against its hideouts.
"Seven years of bellicose rhetoric failed to reduce the threat from Al Qaeda and succeeded in dividing this country,” Pfeiffer wrote. “And it seems strangely off-key now, at a time when our country is under attack, for the architect of those policies to be attacking the president.”
While Obama has avoided using the phrase “war on terror,” Pfeiffer also argued that the president has repeatedly said the nation is at war with Al Qaeda, even if he “doesn’t need to beat his chest to prove it.”
House Republican leader John Boehner jumped into the fray this afternoon, faulting Obama for supposedly treating the incident as a "law enforcement matter." Boehner, like Cheney, sought to tie the president's response to his approach to terrorism in general.
“The terrorist plot to bring down Northwest Airlines Flight 253 exposed a near-catastrophic failure at every level of our government. News reports suggest our government had intelligence in hand that this attack was coming, yet did not piece together all the information and take the necessary actions to prevent it. The system clearly did not work, and I’m glad the President finally acknowledged that yesterday," Boehner said in a statement.
“Just as troubling is the Administration’s treatment of this matter as a mere law enforcement issue. We’re fighting a war on terror, and this was a terrorist act. Our first priority should be gaining intelligence to help prevent the next attack. The threat we face is real, and we don't need to downplay it. We need to do a better job of connecting the dots and putting in place a homeland security and intelligence plan that helps prevent future attacks before they ever get off the ground. We know al Qaeda is plotting more attacks, and our security depends on gaining critical intelligence and connecting those dots," the Ohio Republican added.
“The Administration’s response following this attempted attack is consistent with its dangerous decision to close the terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay and bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other 9/11 terrorists to trial in the United States through civilian courts, rather than the military commissions already in place. We know the decision to close this prison has not stopped al Qaeda from plotting attacks on Americans, turning these terrorists over to other countries is not working, and we shouldn’t import them into the United States. It’s time for the President to halt terrorist transfers to other countries, including Yemen, and to reevaluate his decision to close the prison at Guantanamo.
“All year long, Republicans have asked the question: what is this Administration’s overarching strategy to confront the terrorist threat and keep America safe? The American people deserve answers to this question, and Republicans will push for the type of aggressive oversight to give them confidence that their government is doing everything it can to detect and stop future attacks, rather than just responding to them after they happen.”
Obama lifts veil of secrecy on some documents
President Obama late today announced he had signed an executive order to expand access to classified government documents.
"I expect that the order will produce measurable progress towards greater openness and transparency in the government’s classification and declassification programs while protecting the government’s legitimate interests," Obama said in a statement.
The order expands public access to declassified records and limits the ability of government officials to classify information "Top Secret" or "Confidential." The full order is below.
The Justice Department on Sept. 23 announced steps to make it more difficult for the government to claim it must withhold state secrets to protect national security.
Despite the order, Obama will still keep under wraps millions of pages of military and intelligence documents that were scheduled to be declassified by the end of the year until the end of 2013.
As the Globe reported in late November: "The missed deadline spells trouble for the White House’s promises to introduce an era of government openness, say advocates, who believe that releasing historical information enforces a key check on government behavior. They cite as an example the abuses by the Central Intelligence Agency during the Cold War, including domestic spying and assassinations of foreign officials, that were publicly outlined in a set of agency documents known as the 'family jewels.'
"The documents in question -- all more than 25 years old - were scheduled to be declassified on Dec. 31 under an order originally signed by President Bill Clinton and amended by President George W. Bush. But now Obama finds himself in the awkward position of extending the secrecy, despite his repeated pledges of greater transparency, because his administration has been unable to prod spy agencies into conformance."
FULL ENTRY
Terror scare reveals another labor battle
The running battle between Big Labor and congressional Republicans now has a new front -- the attempted airliner bombing on Christmas Day.
That's because President Obama's nominee to lead the Transportation Security Agency -- which is in charge of airline safety -- has been put on hold by Senator Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican, who is concerned that the nominee would allow TSA screeners join a union.
DeMint's spokesman, Wes Denton, told Politico that the agency is better off without a permanent leader than with unions running the nation’s airports.
“This is an important debate because many Americans don't want someone running the TSA who stands ready to give union bosses the power to veto or delay future security measures at our airports,” Denton said.
That brought this reaction from Eddie Vale, a spokesman for the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest labor federation:
"Now that this issue has been brought to the forefront the past few days you're going to hear a lot more of this slime and slander from DeMint against hard working Americans who are fighting every day to keep our country safe.... DeMint has no legitimate security concerns, he only cares about advancing a political and ideological agenda -- no matter what the risk or cost to our country."
Part of the delay is Obama's own fault -- it took him eight months to nominate former FBI agent and police detective Erroll Southers. But the hold means that an interim director is in charge of TSA as it takes part in the sweeping review of security policies Obama has ordered.
A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid now tells CNN that he will seek to force a confirmation vote when the Senate returns in January. It would take 60 votes to cut off debate, which Reid hopes to have with 58 Democrats and two independents who usually vote with Democrats.
UPDATE: DeMint hit back today at Democratic critics accusing him of obstructionism.
"The president has downplayed the threat of terror since he took office, and he waited eight months to even nominate Mr. Southers for this position. And then he wanted him approved in secret with no debate and no recorded vote in the Senate," DeMint said on Fox News Channel.
"And this is all in the context of the president promising the unions that he will submit our airport security to collective bargaining with union bosses. This is the last thing we need to do right now. Our airport security needs to have massive flexibility, the ability to move people around and change protocols. And it makes absolutely no sense to submit the security of our airports and the passengers here in this country to collective bargaining with unions."
Obama acknowledges flaws in security, vows fixes
In his second statement in two days on the Christmas Day terrorism scare, President Obama said today that he wants preliminary findings from reviews of terrorist watch lists and passenger screening by Thursday, and said that it's clear that the current security system is "not sufficiently up to date."
"A systemic failure has occurred and I consider that completely unacceptable," he told reporters who are with him in Hawaii for his family holiday.
The president said early findings have already made clear that there are "deficiencies" in the security system built since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that could have led to a "catastrophic" incident.
Specifically, Obama said the suspect's father warned US officials of his son's radical tendencies, but that information was "not effectively distributed" so that he would be barred from boarding the plane.
"It's essential that we diagnose the problems quickly," he said. (His full remarks are below.)
After a weekend of relative silence on the incident, Obama on Monday vowed to track down all who were involved in plotting the attempted bombing of the Detroit-bound airliner, and announced he had ordered reviews of airline security to keep travelers safe.
Critics have raised questions of why the 23-year-old Nigerian suspect was not flagged for the no-fly list, and how the man was able to board the plane with explosives sewn into his underwear.
The device did not detonate properly, and passengers and crew subdued the suspect, who has reportedly told officials that he was trained and equipped by an Al Qaeda group based in Yemen. That group claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was in retaliation for US-assisted air strikes on Al Qaeda hideouts in Yemen.
FULL ENTRY
Obama pledges action on terrorism scare
After three days of virtual silence on the Christmas Day terrorist scare, President Obama emerged in public today, seeking to reassure Americans that his administration is doing all it can to prevent an attack and to learn lessons from the attempted downing of the airliner.
"We will not rest until we find all who were involved and hold them accountable," said Obama, who is on holiday in Hawaii with his family.
While the incident was a "serious reminder" of terrorism's dangers and could have led to the deaths of hundreds of innocent civilians, the American people should rest assured that the federal government is "doing all in our power" to keep the travelers safe during the busy holiday season, he said. He was dressed in a serious suit and spoke from behind an official lectern in front of a presidential blue curtain, instead of less formal setting.
The Obama administration has ordered far stricter and more intrusive screening of airline passengers, especially those on international flights headed to the US. It has also ordered investigations into how travelers are placed on watch lists and how passengers are screened.
Obama said he has talked to top administration officials, who are monitoring the situation and informing members of Congress and the American public.
The president said he has instructed his national security team to keep up the pressure on terrorist groups targeting the US and vowed to "use every element of our national power" to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat terrorist networks -- whether they are based in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, or elsewhere. (His full statement is below.)
He spoke just after Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a collection of militants based in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, claimed responsibility for the attempted bombing. In a statement posted on the Internet, the group said it was retaliating against recent US-coordinated strikes against it in Yemen.
The 23-year-old Nigerian suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, coordinated with Al Qadea members and used explosives they manufactured, the group said.
As the Globe reported earlier this month, as the US steps up the hunt for Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, some of the terrorist network’s veteran operatives are flocking to Yemen, where an escalating civil war is turning the nearly lawless Arab nation into an attractive alternative base. Last week, Yemeni forces, backed by the US, launched attacks on suspected Al Qaeda hideouts, including a meeting of top leaders that might have included a Yemeni-American cleric linked to the suspect in the Fort Hood massacre.
FULL ENTRY
US criticizes Israel on Jerusalem construction
The White House lodged its objection today to Israel's announcement that it plans to build nearly 700 new apartments in east Jerusalem.
"The United States opposes new Israeli construction in East Jerusalem. The status of Jerusalem is a permanent status issue that must be resolved by the parties through negotiations and supported by the international community," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement.
"Neither party should engage in efforts or take actions that could unilaterally pre-empt, or appear to pre-empt, negotiations. Rather, both parties should return to negotiations without preconditions as soon as possible. The United States recognizes that Jerusalem is a deeply important issue for Israelis and Palestinians, and for Jews, Muslims, and Christians. We believe that through good faith negotiations the parties can mutually agree on an outcome that realizes the aspirations of both parties for Jerusalem, and safeguards its status for people around the world."
Palestinians, who claim east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state, strongly denounced the move. Israel, however, considers east Jerusalem as its traditional capital. It is home to Jewish, Muslim, and Christian holy sites.
The issue of expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank has also been a point of contention between the US and Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a slowdown in West Bank settlement construction several weeks ago, but the order did not cover east Jerusalem,
President pays tribute to the troops
In his first Christmas message as commander in chief, President Obama pays tribute to the men and women fighting two wars, all those serving overseas, those wounded in battle, and the loved ones of those who fell on the battlefield.
"To all our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, I have no greater honor than serving as your Commander in Chief. I've been awed by your selfless spirit, your eagerness to serve -- at the Naval Academy and West Point. I've been energized by your dedication to duty -- from Baghdad to the Korean Peninsula. Michelle and I have been moved by your determination -- wounded warriors at Walter Reed and Bethesda, fighting to recover, to get back to your units," he said in his weekly Internet and radio address, released by the White House this evening.
"And I've been humbled, profoundly, by patriots who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. In flag-draped caskets coming home at Dover. In the quiet solitude of Arlington. And after years of multiple tours of duty, as you carry on with our missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, your service, your readiness to make that same sacrifice, is an inspiration to us and to every American," said Obama, who also called selected service members from the White House before he left for Hawaii for the holidays.
In a rare feature of the weekly address, First Lady Michelle Obama joins in. She has made helping military families one of her primary causes as first lady, and she and the president ask all Americans to find a way to assist them.
"I've met military spouses doing the parenting of two -- keeping the household together, juggling play dates and soccer games, helping with homework, doing everything they can to make the kids feel OK even as they try to hide their own fears and worries," she says. "I've met kids who wonder when mom or dad is coming home; grandparents and relatives who step in to care for our wounded warriors; and folks trying to carry on after losing the person they loved most in the world.
"And through it all, these families somehow still find the time and energy to serve their communities as well -- coaching Little League, running the PTA, raising money to help those less fortunate than they are, and more. But even these strong military families can use a hand, especially during the holidays. If you live near a military base, you can reach out through your workplaces, your schools, your churches. There are so many ways to help -- with child care, with errands, or by just bringing over a home-cooked meal. Even if you don't know a military family nearby, your family can still help by donating or volunteering at organizations that support military families."
The full address is below and can be viewed here.
In the weekly Republican address, Representative Duncan Hunter of California also urges Americans to think about service members.
"Thoughts of home remind us of why we serve: because we're proud to be Americans, because we want to pass on to our children the blessings of liberty that we inherited from our forefathers, and because nothing matters more to us than protecting our homes and our families," said Hunter, a combat veteran.
He also noted this country's 10 percent unemployment rate. "I hope we also take a moment this year to reflect on those suffering here at home," he said. "For too many families, this will be a difficult Christmas."
Obama calls Senate vote 'historic'
His full statement, delivered at the White House:
"Good morning, everybody. In a historic vote that took place this morning members of the Senate joined their colleagues in the House of Representatives to pass a landmark health insurance reform package -- legislation that brings us toward the end of a nearly century-long struggle to reform America’s health care system.
"Ever since Teddy Roosevelt first called for reform in 1912, seven Presidents -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- have taken up the cause of reform. Time and time again, such efforts have been blocked by special interest lobbyists who’ve perpetuated a status quo that works better for the insurance industry than it does for the American people. But with passage of reform bills in both the House and the Senate, we are now finally poised to deliver on the promise of real, meaningful health insurance reform that will bring additional security and stability to the American people.
"The reform bill that passed the Senate this morning, like the House bill, includes the toughest measures ever taken to hold the insurance industry accountable. Insurance companies will no longer be able to deny you coverage on the basis of a preexisting condition. They will no longer be able to drop your coverage when you get sick. No longer will you have to pay unlimited amounts out of your own pocket for the treatments you need. And you’ll be able to appeal unfair decisions by insurance companies to an independent party.
"If this legislation becomes law, workers won’t have to worry about losing coverage if they lose or change jobs. Families will save on their premiums. Businesses that would see their costs rise if we do not act will save money now, and they will save money in the future. This bill will strengthen Medicare, and extend the life of the program. It will make coverage affordable for over 30 million Americans who do not have it -- 30 million Americans. And because it is paid for and curbs the waste and inefficiency in our health care system, this bill will help reduce our deficit by as much as $1.3 trillion in the coming decades, making it the largest deficit reduction plan in over a decade.
"As I’ve said before, these are not small reforms; these are big reforms. If passed, this will be the most important piece of social policy since the Social Security Act in the 1930s, and the most important reform of our health care system since Medicare passed in the 1960s. And what makes it so important is not just its cost savings or its deficit reductions. It’s the impact reform will have on Americans who no longer have to go without a checkup or prescriptions that they need because they can’t afford them; on families who no longer have to worry that a single illness will send them into financial ruin; and on businesses that will no longer face exorbitant insurance rates that hamper their competitiveness. It’s the difference reform will make in the lives of the American people.
"I want to commend Senator Harry Reid, extraordinary work that he did; Speaker Pelosi for her extraordinary leadership and dedication. Having passed reform bills in both the House and the Senate, we now have to take up the last and most important step and reach an agreement on a final reform bill that I can sign into law. And I look forward to working with members of Congress in both chambers over the coming weeks to do exactly that.
"With today’s vote, we are now incredibly close to making health insurance reform a reality in this country. Our challenge, then, is to finish the job. We can't doom another generation of Americans to soaring costs and eroding coverage and exploding deficits. Instead we need to do what we were sent here to do and improve the lives of the people we serve. For the sake of our citizens, our economy, and our future, let’s make 2010 the year we finally reform health care in the United States of America.
"Everybody, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year."
UPDATE: Obama also called Vicki Kennedy, the widow of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, after the bill's passage, the White House said.
He also called key senators and David Turner of Little Rock, Ark. Turner, who had his health insurance rescinded in January 2008, was the First Lady’s guest at Obama's health care address to the joint session of Congress in September.
"The president told Mr. Turner that stories like his motivate him every day to keep working on health insurance reform, and he assured Mr. Turner that he will continue to work to pass health legislation to ban rescission and other abusive practices," the White House said.
UPDATE: Obama also sent a message this afternoon to share "some exciting news" to his grassroots army, now under Organizing for America at the Democratic National Committee. He also asked for their help getting the bill over the finish line.
"Although it's Christmas Eve, I wanted to share some exciting news: The Senate just passed a historic health reform bill," he said in an email.
"In all the back and forth, it's easy to lose sight of what this incredible breakthrough really means. But consider this: This Christmas, there are millions of Americans without health insurance who risk losing everything if they get sick. There are mothers and fathers who wonder how they'll provide for their children because an illness has wiped out their savings. There are small business owners who worry that they'll have to lay off a long-time employee because the cost of insurance is rapidly rising.
"If we finish the job, all this can change. We will have beaten back the special interests who have for so long perpetuated the status quo. We will have enacted the most important piece of social policy since the Social Security Act in the 1930s, and the most important health reform since Medicare in the 1960s.
"In Decembers to come, millions more will have access to affordable coverage. Parents will have the security and stability of knowing their insurance can't be revoked at a moment's notice. And the skyrocketing costs plaguing our small businesses will be brought under control. When you make calls, write letters, organize, this is the change you're making -- a better life for your family and for men and women in every state.
"There is still more to do before I can sign reform into law -- a last round of negotiations and final votes in the Senate and the House -- and I'm counting on your help every step of the way. But for now, I hope that as you celebrate this holiday season, you remember that the work you are doing is making our union more perfect, one step at a time. For that, I am grateful to you."
Reaction from across political spectrum to health vote
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List, said that the bill does not include enough limits on abortion coverage:
"On Christmas Eve, the U.S. Senate gave Americans a gift no one wants: abortion for all, at taxpayer-expense. Even more tragic, they can thank self-described ‘pro-life’ senators like Ben Nelson, Bob Casey, Jr., and Harry Reid for paving the way for legislation that will open the floodgates for the greatest expansion of government-backed abortion since Roe v. Wade.
"Today’s vote was a career-affecting vote. The senators who voted to advance this legislation should consider themselves on notice. Votes have consequences, and the Susan B. Anthony List will use all the resources at our disposal to educate their constituents about today’s result. As this debate moves forward, pro-life House members would do well to consider the impact of their own votes. Abortion is never good for women, and it should never be a legitimate aspect of any ‘health care’ debate.
"If this bill is signed into law, for the first time, federally funded and managed health care plans will cover elective abortions. Pro-life Americans in states that choose to ‘opt-out’ of abortion coverage will still be forced to foot the bill for abortions in California and New York.
"This is not ‘compromise’ or ‘middle ground.’ The only ones who support the senate abortion language are a handful of senators so far-removed from the consciences of their own constituents that it’s laughable. Discussions of ‘different accounts’ and ‘separate checks’ are just a smokescreen.
"This bill is a betrayal of conscience for millions of Americans. And it is a betrayal of the principles proclaimed by Reid, Nelson, and Casey. Today’s vote is exactly the type of ‘leadership’ that repels the American electorate. Americans are hungry for authenticity. They are hungry for leaders whose actions follow their principles, for stalwart representatives who will never abandon their convictions for a sweet deal. Unfortunately, on Christmas Eve 2009, as a result of that lack of real leadership, Americans received the gift of abortion in the name of ‘health care reform.’
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said he preferred the House bill, largely because the Senate bill would tax the most generous health plans -- ones that union members have bargained for in place of pay hikes.
"In the face of inexcusable partisanship, obstruction and gamesmanship, it is remarkable that Majority Leader Reid was able to move a health care bill through the United States Senate. Not since the passage of Medicare 44 years ago have we seen Republican scare tactics so blatantly contrary to the interests of the American people.
"At this historic moment, it is so important to the future of working Americans—and to our country—to get health care reform right. Despite doing some good things, the Senate bill remains inadequate. Substantial changes must be made in the final bill. Genuine reform must bring down health costs, hold insurance companies accountable, assure that all Americans can get the health care they need and be financed fairly. That’s why we have been steadfast in support of a public health insurance option. It is the way to break the stranglehold of the insurance industry that has led to skyrocketing health care costs that have especially penalized small business.
"Employers must pay their fair share. It makes no sense to tax the benefits of hard-working Americans to pay for health reform. The House bill curbs insurance companies and taxes the wealthy who benefited so richly from the Bush tax cuts. The Senate bill instead includes exorbitant new taxes on middle class health benefits that would affect one in five workers with employer-provided health coverage—or about 31 million people—in 2016. That’s the wrong way to pay for health care reform and it’s political suicide."
"The House bill is the right model for reform. It covers more people, takes effect more quickly and is financed more fairly. The AFL-CIO is ready to fight on behalf of all working families to produce a final bill that can be called genuine reform. Working people cannot accept anything less."
Tom McMahon, acting executive director of the liberal-labor coalition Americans United for Change, said that improvements are needed to the bill in the House-Senate negotiations:
“Today we are one another step closer to guaranteeing quality, affordable health care for all Americans. There is still a great deal of work to be done to ensure the best possible bill reaches President Obama’s desk. But when historians look back on this moment – and they will – it will mark a turning point in our long struggle to build a health care system Americans deserve. It may also leave a remarkable and indelible imprint on the Republican Party, whose decision to put political posturing before the needs of millions of Americans will tarnish the reputation of the GOP for years to come.
“Under the Senate bill, more than 30 million people will gain health coverage. The Medicare program will be stronger and the federal deficit smaller. People with pre-existing health conditions won’t be rejected or charged higher premiums by insurers, and women will no longer have to pay more than men for the same coverage. Seniors will have expanded prescription drug coverage and young adults will have easy access to health insurance. Americans from every corner of the country will have a reason to be thankful for the Senate’s action today.”
James Rohack, president of the American Medical Association, continued to offer his group's significant support:
“Today, the Senate took an historic vote to improve our nation’s health care system by expanding coverage to millions of Americans and strengthening the private insurance market to better serve the patients who rely on it. The AMA supported passage of the bill because it contains a number of key improvements for our health care system, which currently is not working for far too many patients or the physicians who dedicate their lives to patient care.
“The Senate bill will improve choice and access to affordable health insurance coverage and eliminate denials based on pre-existing conditions. It will increase coverage for preventive and wellness care that can lead to better disease prevention and management, and further the development of comparative effectiveness research that can help patients and physicians make informed treatment decisions. Patients will no longer face lifetime limits on health coverage or higher premiums based on medical conditions or gender.
“While this vote closes one chapter of the legislative process, the hard work is not yet done. The AMA will stay constructively engaged throughout the House and Senate conference process to continue to improve the final bill and assure the best outcome for patients and physicians. Important issues that need to be resolved in the House-Senate conference committee include the scope, authority, accountability and transparency of a payment advisory board. The details of several cost control and quality improvement initiatives also need to be refined so that they do not have unintended consequences for patients and physicians.
“Separate action is needed early next year to permanently repeal the current Medicare physician payment formula to preserve access to care for America’s seniors, baby boomers and military families by creating a stable physician payment system. We commend Senators Reid and Baucus for keeping the focus on a permanent solution to this problem, and we will continue to work closely with them to fix the flawed Medicare physician payment formula once and for all early in the new year.”
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele continued his assault on the bill:
“This morning, as millions of Americans prepared to gather with their families in celebration of Christmas, President Obama and Harry Reid gathered with their liberal allies in celebration of government. Mr. Reid and company honored President Obama’s Christmas wish for increased federal control and passed their government-run health care experiment out of the Senate.
"Immediately following this vote, in a telling and strangely ironic legislative move, the Democrats voted to increase America’s credit card limit because even they know their deficit reduction claims are false. If they were truly proud of this so-called ‘historic’ legislation then they should have stood by their pledge and allowed Senators and the American people 72 hours to read the full legislative text prior to voting instead of secretly rushing it through on Christmas Eve. In fact, most Democrats aren’t proud of this legislation and only voted for it after months of closed door meetings, back room deal making, and political compromise with Harry Reid and the White House. The Democrats have put a $2.5 trillion lump of coal in the stocking of every American knowing that their risky health care experiment still increases premiums, still cuts Medicare, and still enacts hundreds of billions of new taxes to pay for it. Scrooge would be proud. I know a majority of Americans are not. As we move forward, America can look forward to watching Nancy Pelosi conduct the arm-twisting needed to convince her most liberal colleagues that the Senate version is the best Trojan horse possible to hide a true single payer system, which is what this debate has always been about. This Christmas, the Democrats and President Obama have given America the one gift that keeps on taking.”
AARP CEO A. Barry Rand and Massachusetts State Director Deborah Banda praised the vote, but said the final bill needs to do more to close the so-called doughnut hole in Medicare drug coverage:
“This morning the Senate brought us closer to meaningful health care reform than we have ever been before. Passage of the Senate health care reform bill clears the way for Congress to enact legislation in the coming weeks that will protect and strengthen Medicare, ensure millions more Americans can get affordable health coverage and sharply curtail discriminatory insurance company practices that keep those most in need out of the system," Rand said in a statement.
“The bill passed by the Senate makes needed progress to prevent coverage denials due to health status and limit insurance companies from charging older Americans much more for coverage because of their age. It also begins to close the dangerous gap in Medicare drug coverage known as the doughnut hole, and Senate leaders have committed that a final bill will close the gap entirely by 2019, in keeping with the President’s pledge. In addition, the Senate bill adds important new Medicare benefits, like free preventive care, and encourages states to provide more home and community-based long-term care services and supports instead of costlier institutional care.
Banda added:
“AARP thanks the Senate for passing health care reform that protects guaranteed Medicare benefits and helps ensure older Americans can afford quality health services. The legislation is needed to lower drug costs, limit age discrimination by health insurance companies and strengthen long-term care.
“We believe this legislation can be improved even further, especially when it comes to the Medicare prescription drug coverage gap, called the doughnut hole. More then 300,000 Bay State seniors will likely fall into the Medicare doughnut hole next year, costing each up to $3,610 in added health care costs. Both the House and Senate versions of the health reform bill will bring them some immediate relief by narrowing the coverage gap. But some relief isn't enough. We urge the members of the Massachusetts Congressional Delegation to pass a final health reform bill that closes the dreaded doughnut hole completely over time – so seniors can afford to take the medicine that keeps them healthy and out of more expensive care.”
Obama taps university police chief as US marshal in Maine
Obama praised Noel March's "long and stellar" track record in public safety and said March "will continue to show unwavering courage and commitment" in protecting the public.
March's mini-biography from the White House:
Noel March has served as the Chief of Police and Director of the University of Maine, Department of Public Safety and Transportation since 2002. From 1998 to 2002, he was Director of the Maine Regional Community Policing Institute. March was Assistant Vice President of the MBNA America Bank/MBNA New England from 1993 to 1998. He also served as Chief Deputy Sheriff of Cumberland County, Maine, from 1991 to 1993. March graduated cum laude with a B.S. from the University of New England in 1998.
President says he'll wait for health care passage
He had planned to go to Hawaii for the holidays, but said today that he'll stay until the Senate finishes its votes on health care.
"I will not leave until my friends in the Senate have completed their work. My attitude is if they are making these sacrifices to provide health care to all Americans, the least I can do is be around and provide them any encouragement and last-minute help," Obama told reporters.
UPDATE: After Majority Leader Harry Reid and GOP Leader Mitch McConnell announced that the final vote would be at 8 a.m. Thursday instead of as late as Christmas Eve night, the White House said Obama would leave Thursday morning.
With Republicans so far insisting on the every detail of the parliamentary procedures, the Senate took another key vote early this morning and has another today, and two more on Wednesday before final passage Thursday night.
Obama marks passing of woman in victory speech
In his Chicago speech, Obama called Ann Nixon Cooper an example of "the heartbreak and the hope" of the past century, noting that she'd been born when women and blacks couldn't vote and lived to cast her ballot for the country's first black president.
Cooper, who would have turned 108 on Jan. 9, died on Monday in Atlanta.
"Michelle and I wish to express our deepest condolences on the passing of Mrs. Ann Nixon Cooper. From her beginnings in Shelbyville and Nashville, Tennessee to her many years as a pillar of the Atlanta community, Ann lived a life of service. Whether it was helping to found the Girls Club for African American Youth, serving on the board of directors for the Gate City Nursery, working as a tutor at Ebenezer Baptist Church or registering voters, Ann had a broad and lasting impact on her community. I also understand that as a wife, mother and grandmother, Ann was a source of strength for her entire family, and that she always put them first," Obama said in a statement released by the White House.
"Over the course of her extraordinary 107 years, Ann saw both the brightest lights of our nation's history and some of its darkest hours as well. It is especially meaningful for me that she lived to cast a vote on Election Day 2008, and it was a deep honor for me to mark her life in the speech I delivered that night. It was a life that captured the spirit of community and change and progress that is at the heart of the American experience; a life that inspired – and will continue to inspire – me in the years to come. During this time of sadness, Michelle and I offer our deepest condolences to all who loved Ann Nixon Cooper. But even as we mourn her loss, we will also be rejoicing in all that she meant for her family, her community, and so many Americans."
Uptick in support for health bill, Obama
In the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey, 42 percent now back the Senate bill, up from 36 percent two weeks ago, though 56 percent of Americans still oppose the measure.
Meantime, Obama's job approval rating is back above 50 percent, at 54 percent, up from 48 percent two weeks ago.
But the poll also found disenchantment with the president. While 39 percent said he had met and 11 percent said he had exceeded their expectations, that's down from 52 percent and 17 percent, respectively, in mid-May. Also, only 52 percent said they believe Obama's policies will succeed, down from 64 percent in March.
The new survey, conducted Wednesday through Sunday, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
President promotes cost-saving measures
“After years of irresponsibility, we are once again taking responsibility for every dollar we spend, the same way families do," said Obama, who also announced that the White House will hold a conference with private sector leaders next month on how government can better use technology to be more efficient.
Earlier this year, the administration ordered agencies to eventually save $40 billion a year through better contracting practices and management, starting with 3.5 percent in savings in the current fiscal year and another 3.5 percent reduction in FY 2011.
As part of the efficiency push, the administration also held a contest among federal employees, who submitted more than 38,000 money-saving ideas.
Nancy Fichtner, a clerk at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Grand Junction, Colo., for almost six years, was the first winner for suggesting that veterans leaving VA hospitals be able to take home the medication they have been using instead of having it thrown away when they're discharged.
Obama praises latest Senate health vote
With exactly the 60 votes required, the Senate voted at 1 a.m. today to stop a threatened Republican filibuster, the latest in a series of procedural votes leading up to a final Senate vote scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday.
As Vicki Kennedy, the late senator's widow, watched from the gallery, Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa declared that "today we are closer than we've ever been to making Senator Ted Kennedy's dream of universal health insurance coverage a reality."
In brief remarks, Obama this morning said the bill would give families more health care security by guaranteeing that pre-existing conditions will be covered and limiting out-of-pocket costs. The bill, he argued, encompasses a so-called "Patient's bill of rights" that never passed Congress.
Small businesses will also benefit, the president said. And critics' arguments that the bill represents a huge increase in government spending do not "hold water," he said, citing projections from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that the bill, while costing $871 billion over the next decade, would eventually bring down federal deficits.
(His full remarks are below.)
Republicans, however, call that CBO report a "fig leaf" for a dangerous government expansion in health care. "While they claim victory, the American people will be faced with higher taxes, increased premiums, and cuts to Medicare," Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said in a statement. "They are ramming this government-run health care program through Congress - when Americans don't want it, and our country can't afford it."
FULL ENTRY
Steele demands apology, delay on health care
The Republican Party's national chairman repeated his demand today that the top Senate Democrat apologize for comparing those obstructing health care reform to those who counseled a go-slow approach on freeing the slaves and giving women the right to vote.
But then again, GOP Chairman Michael Steele also sent a letter directly to President Obama urging him to put off the health care overhaul and focus on jobs and the economy.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid chided Republicans in a Senate floor speech on Monday. "Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all Republicans have come up with is this slow down, stop everything, let's start over," he said, then citing those who advised patience on emancipation and women's suffrage.
On CBS's "The Early Show" today, Steele called the remarks "an ignorant moment for Harry Reid" and said that when Democrats get in trouble, "they play that race card, that slavery card, that civil rights card."
UPDATE: Reid stood by his comments, telling reporters today, "Anyone who willingly distorts my comments is only proving my point."
Steele, the Republican National Committee's first black chairman, has been among the loudest voices calling for a go-slow approach on health care, which Reid is trying to push through the Senate before the holiday break.
Steele echoed his call in the letter today to the president.
"Whether you are a Democrat or Republican, all of us can agree on this: In this uncertain economy, growth and jobs have to be our priorities," Steele wrote. "The American people think of little else. Common sense tells us this is the worst possible moment for Congress to risk spending another trillion dollars we don't have.
"This is not the time to gamble a trillion dollars on a 2,000 page health care experiment Congress is stitching together by the seat of its pants," he added. "Washington's rescue efforts have already burdened our economy with the costs of huge bailouts and government takeovers. When Americans look for relief, they see record debt and deficits. If Americans are still looking for full-time work and employers are still shutting their doors next spring, Democrats and Republicans are going to wish they had that trillion dollars back to create jobs."
(The full letter is below.)
UPDATE: Brad Woodhouse, Democratic National Committee communications director, slapped back at Steele.
"Michael Steele and the GOP know full well that health care delayed is health care denied for the millions of Americans who lack insurance and live every day in fear of accident or illness. But, it’s also jobs denied for the millions of Americans who work for businesses, small and large, who have been forced to make cut backs or who have collapsed altogether under the burden of sky-rocketing insurance costs. It’s lost wages for the millions of American workers whose employers have to choose between providing health care or offering a raise. And, it’s money out of the pocket of every American family faced with rising co-pays and prescription drug costs," Woodhouse said in a statement.
"It doesn’t take an economics degree to understand that reforming our broken health insurance system is inextricability linked to our nation’s fiscal health and jobs - though most economists have said just that. Michael Steele and the Party of NO have been rooting for health reform to fail for months now. By ignoring all that American businesses stand to gain from health insurance reform, the Republicans are now rooting for our economy to fail. What will they do next?"
FULL ENTRYObama offers more jobs ideas
In a move as much as about the politics of the issue as the policy, President Obama this morning outlined a new plan to pump up hiring and avert a jobless economic recovery.
"There are more than seven million fewer Americans with jobs today than when this recession began. That’s a staggering figure and one that reflects not only the depths of the hole from which we must ascend, but also a continuing human tragedy," he said at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
Obama said the administration would focus on giving tax cuts to small businesses to encourage them to add workers; on promoting labor-intensive transportation projects; and on giving homeowners incentives to make houses more energy efficient.
The president also said he supports congressional efforts to extend unemployment benefits and federal health care subsidies for the jobless, and also proposed another $250 stimulus payment to seniors and veterans.
And he officially backed paying for the new plan by using money left over and repaid from the bank and Wall Street bailout -- known as TARP -- though he did not specify an amount. Republicans vehemently oppose the move, saying it runs counter to the purpose of the program and arguing that any savings should go to bring down the federal deficit.
"Launched hastily under the last administration, the TARP program was flawed, and we have worked hard to correct those flaws and manage it properly. And today, TARP has served its original purpose and at a much lower cost than we expected," Obama said. "This gives us a chance to pay down the deficit faster than we thought possible and to shift funds that would have gone to help the banks on Wall Street to help create jobs on Main Street," he added.
GOP Representative Darrell Issa of California responded in a statement: “The Obama administration apparently thinks TARP stands for the Taxpayer Asset Redirection Program. The use of taxpayer money for this purpose is clearly not what Congress intended. This development confirms the fears for those of us who opposed TARP – that taxpayer money would be used as $700 billion of walking around money. It now looks like that is exactly what the President is planning to do.”
Obama also reminded Americans how precarious the economy was, saying that a year ago his economic team briefed him on what he was about to inherit, an "unforgettable series of presentations" complete with "a chilling set of charts and graphs, predicting where we might end up."
He cited all the actions the administration has already taken to avert a "second Great Depression," including the $787 billion economic stimulus package that he championed, and chided Republicans for not helping fix a problem they helped create. "We can safely say that we are no longer facing the potential collapse of our financial system and we've avoided the depression many feared," he proclaimed.
While there are signs of economic recovery, unemployment -- even with a slight dip last month to 10 percent -- remains stubbornly high despite the economic stimulus package. During the recession, the president notes, many employers learned how to make do with fewer workers and are in no hurry to pad their payrolls again.
To boost hiring by small businesses, Obama called for a one-year moratorium on the tax on capital gains from new investments in small business stock. The earlier stimulus bill included a 75 percent exclusion from capital gains taxes on small business investments. He also called for an unspecified "short-term tax incentive" for small firms to add workers, the details to be worked out with Congress.
He also wants to extend through next year a recovery bill provision that eliminates fees and increases federal guarantees for Small Business Administration loans, and another that allows businesses to immediately expense up to $250,000 of qualified investment.
"Over the past 15 years, small businesses have created roughly 65 percent of all new jobs in America," Obama said. "These are companies formed around kitchen tables in family meetings, formed when an entrepreneur takes a chance on a dream, formed when a worker decides its time she became her own boss. These are also companies that drive innovation, producing 13 times more patents per employee than large companies. And, it’s worth remembering, every once in a while a small business becomes a big business -- and changes the world. That’s why it is so important that we help small businesses struggling to open, or struggling to open in the first place, during these difficult times."
Obama closed his speech with a reprise of his broader critique of business as usual in Washington and of his call for change that captured the imagination of so many voters.
"In the end, the economic crisis of the past year was not just the result of weaknesses in our economy. It was also the result of weaknesses in our political system. For decades, too many in Washington put off hard decisions. For decades, we’ve watched as efforts to solve tough problems have fallen prey to the bitterness of partisanship, to the prosaic concerns of politics, to ever-quickening news cycles, and to endless campaigns focused on scoring points instead of meeting our common challenges," he said.
"We have seen the consequences of this failure of responsibility. The American people have paid a heavy price. And the question we’ll have to answer now is if we are going to learn from our past, or if – even in the aftermath of disaster – we are going to repeat it. As the alarm bells fade, and the din of Washington rises, as the forces of the status quo marshal their resources, we can be sure that answering this question will be a fight to the finish. But I have every hope and expectation that we can rise to this moment, that we can transcend the failures of the past, that we can once again take responsibility for our future."
UPDATE: Representative Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who co-authored the climate change bill passed by the House, praised Obama's focus on home energy efficiency and renewable energy.
“By embracing the vast clean energy jobs potential here in America, the president’s jobs plan will get people out of unemployment lines and back on assembly lines making wind turbines and solar panels,” Markey said in a statement. “By giving American families the opportunity to permanently reduce their energy bills through energy efficiency, we can ensure that new jobs and energy savings will literally start in the home.”
Senator Paul G. Kirk Jr. of Massachusetts also lauded Obama's initiative.
“I commend President Obama for his continuing leadership in lifting our country out of the worst recession since the Great Depression. I look forward to working in Congress to implement his proposals to give tax breaks to small businesses, invest in much-needed and shovel-ready projects to improve infrastructure, and fund rebates for consumers who upgrade their homes to make them more energy efficient," Kirk said in a statement.
“These proposals will have far-reaching effects that will get more people back to work, make our environment cleaner, and strengthen the role of small businesses as an engine driving our modern economy. Although much still needs to be done, I’m confident that President Obama, Congress, and the American people are up to the challenge of accelerating job creation as an essential part of our economic recovery.”
The AFL-CIO blessed Obama's move to use the TARP cash to help create jobs.
"President Obama is right: We must take urgent steps to create jobs. And we must fundamentally rebuild our economy so we never again face the unnerving financial meltdown that confronted Pres. Obama and all of America when he took office in January. While Wall Street is busy cashing their bonus checks, now is the time for immediate action to stabilize the economy for struggling working Americans on Main Street," the labor federation's president, Richard Trumka, said in a statement.
"I am encouraged that President Obama and his team are proposing many of the same steps that we see as the most promising, efficient routes to job creation. The AFL-CIO has proposed a 5-point plan that includes putting TARP funds to work for Main Street by making it available to provide credit to small business; extending the lifeline of unemployment benefits, food assistance and COBRA benefits for jobless workers; rebuilding America’s schools, roads and energy systems; increasing aid to state and local governments to maintain vital services and prevent the layoffs of teachers, firefighters and police and putting people to work doing work that needs to be done."
But House Republicans bashed Obama, particularly for saying that the country needed to continue spending its way out of the recession. "Families cannot spend money that they do not have, and the Administration and the Democrat Congress need to be held to the same standard. The runaway spending and permanent bailout culture are dangerous and irresponsible," said the office of House Republican Whip Eric Cantor.
Obama's full remarks are below, followed by the White House summary of the plan:
FULL ENTRYPoll: Most Americans believe stalemate in Afghanistan
While nearly two-thirds of Americans agree with President Obama that the nation's security is at stake in Afghanistan, a clear majority also believe that stalemate -- not victory -- is the most likely outcome, according to a new poll.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey found that 64 percent of respondents believe that the "safety and security" of the United States are at stake in Afghanistan, where Obama announced last week he plans to dispatch 30,000 more troops.
But asked about the most likely outcome, only 29 percent picked victory, compared to 57 percent for a stalemate and 12 percent outright defeat.
While Obama was criticized by Republicans in particular for taking too long to make his decision, 57 percent said that amount of time was necessary for the president to make a thorough review. Also, 44 percent said they most trusted Obama to make the right decisions on Afghanistan, while 31 percent picked congressional Democrats (including many who oppose the increased troop presence), and 20 percent do not have confidence in either.
The poll, conducted Dec. 2-3, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Boston firm pushes to get Uighurs out of Gitmo
By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- In the first Supreme Court brief of its kind naming President Obama as a defendant, a team of lawyers from Bingham McCutchen, one of Boston's most prestigious law firms, today asked for the release of Uighur clients now in their eighth year of detention at the US military facility at Guantanamo Bay.
The case, originally filed in federal district court in 2005, was originally called Kiyemba v. Bush. But this year, it changed to Kiyemba v. Obama. Obama initially ordered that the prison at Guantanamo Bay be closed by January, but now officials acknowledge they will not make the deadline.
A year ago, Bingham won a release order from a lower court for its clients it is representing pro bono, who are Chinese Muslims not classified by the US military as enemy combatants and who say they would be in jeopardy if sent back to China. But in February, the US Court of Appeals reversed that decision, stalling their release into the US. Through diplomatic negotiations, the firm helped place four men in Bermuda in June and another client in Palau in early November.
But seven remain in the Guantanamo prison, and so the firm asked the Supreme Court to take up the matter. In October, the court agreed to hear details of the case.
"The courts and the Defense Department agree that they are neither enemies nor criminals," Bingham partner Sabin Willett said. "They fled from communism, and were taken in error....To the founders of this republic, freedom was a national conviction. Today neither the president nor the Congress has the courage of that conviction. So we have urged the court to remind us all of our ancient trust, and at last set these men free."
To read a copy of the brief filed today, click here. Oral arguments in the case is expected in the spring.
Labor lobbies against Senate health tax
The nation's largest labor federation announced this afternoon that it will start airing TV ads this weekend urging the Senate to jettison the current bill's main way to finance a huge expansion in coverage: a tax on the insurance plans with the most generous benefits.
While supporters say that the excise tax on insurers would not only pay for covering the uninsured but would also help drive down health care costs, labor leaders say it would be unfair to workers, who have given up pay raises in recent years in return for better health care benefits.
“Pass health care. Don’t tax benefits,” workers say in the ad, which will run in Washington starting Sunday then in key states to be announced on Monday.
The AFL-CIO, a powerful ally of President Obama and Democrats, also point to a study that says a tax on health benefits like the one included in the Senate health care bill would cause two-thirds of employers to shift the costs to workers by raising premiums and co-pays.
Jobless rate falls slightly as Obama starts jobs tour
As President Obama kicked off a "listening tour" today to reassure Americans he feels their economic pain, new numbers demonstrated how much pain still remains.
The Labor Department reported this morning that the national unemployment rate dropped slightly to 10 percent in November from 10.2 in October as employers slashed the smallest number of jobs since the recession began in December 2007.
But that still means 15.4 million Americans are out of work -- and millions more are working only part-time or have given up looking for now -- and many economists expect the jobless rate to rise next year.
Obama is starting his tour in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley, where he won nearly 60 percent of the vote in November 2008 and where the unemployment rate was 9.3 percent in October.
He said the lower unemployment is reason for optimism, though of the guarded variety, since it's rare good news and since "too many members of our American family have felt the gut punch of a pink slip" -- 8 million since the recession began.
"This is good news, just in time for the season of hope.... But I do want to keep this in perspective. We've still got a long way to go. I still consider one job lost one job too many. As I said yesterday at a jobs conference in Washington, good trends don't pay the rent. We've got to actually grow jobs and get America back to work as quickly as we can," Obama said at Lehigh Carbon Community College, after touring Allentown Metal Works.
"But Americans who have been desperately looking for work for months -- maybe even longer -- can't wait. And we won’t wait. We need to do everything we can, right now, to get our businesses hiring again so that our friends and neighbors can go back to work," he added.
He said that on Tuesday in a major speech in Washington, he will give more detail about the jobs ideas he'll send to Congress.
(His full remarks and question-and-answer session are below.)
He then invited questions from the audience, and before returning to Washington, the president plans to make several stops in Allentown to meet real people.
In advance of the president's trip, the White House posted a statement from Christina Romer, chairwoman of his Council of Economic Advisers, that saw hope in the new numbers.
"Today's employment report was the most hopeful sign yet that the stabilization of financial markets and the recovery in economic growth may be leading to improvements in the labor market. Payroll employment declined 11,000 in November. This is a dramatic improvement from the decline of 597,000 in November 2008 and 741,000 in January 2009. It is by far the closest we have been to stable employment since the recession began almost two years ago," Romer said in the statement. "Furthermore, the employment loss in both September and October was revised down substantially, with the result that employment as of October is nearly 160,000 higher than was reported last month. As was true in October, the largest employment gains in November were in temporary help services, which is often a leading indicator of labor demand. 21,000 jobs were also added in state and local public education. Both the work week and aggregate hours increased, another early sign of labor market healing.
"The unemployment rate, which had risen to 10.2% in October, declined to 10.0% in November. This decline primarily reflects an increase in the number employed, as measured by the household survey. Despite the welcome decline, the unemployment rate remains unacceptably high. This underscores the need for the responsible actions to jumpstart private-sector job creation that the President highlighted at yesterday’s Forum on Jobs and Economic Growth at the White House. There are many bumps in the road ahead. The monthly employment and unemployment numbers are volatile and subject to substantial revision. Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative. But, it is clear we are moving in the right direction."
On Thursday, Obama hosted a brainstorming session at the White House with CEOs, labor leaders, small business owners, academics, and others, looking for any good idea to create jobs.
But he's under sustained assault from Republicans.
“Yesterday, President Obama hosted a ‘jobs summit’ at the White House in an attempt to convince the media and the American public that his administration is concerned with unemployment. Unfortunately this so-called ‘jobs summit’ was not about creating jobs – it was about creating a distraction to hide the fact that President Obama has managed to create more bureaucracy in Washington than jobs for American families," Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said in a statement today. "More than 11,000 Americans lost their jobs in the month of November, meaning more than 2.8 million Americans have lost their jobs since the stimulus passed, and the national unemployment rate remains in double digits. If President Obama is truly interested in job creation, then he should stop campaigning for reelection, stop pushing ‘Stimulus II,’ and start working with Republicans on common-sense conservative solutions.”
House GOP leader John Boehner of Ohio is greeting Obama in Allentown with an opinion piece in the local newspaper, the Morning Call, that slams the president and his Democratic allies in Congress for their economic policies -- and warns that the health care overhaul and sweeping climate change legislation would only do more harm.
"Having been promised much more than a 'jobless recovery,' the American people are right to wonder whether Washington Democrats can be trusted to turn things around, especially when their costly policies are only making matters worse," Boehner writes.
The Morning Call also has an opposing opinion piece from Representative Steny Hoyer, the second-ranking Democrat in the House.
He defends the $787 billion economic stimulus that Obama championed and Democrats pushed through, but concedes that Washington needs to do more, and welcomes ideas from Allentown.
"Though an honest look at the evidence shows that Democrats' recovery efforts are helping to put the country back on track, families in Pennsylvania and across the country continue to struggle. For their sake, we must do more," he writes.
"Democrats have worked to make unemployment benefits last longer for families facing long-term unemployment. That's important, especially because those benefits are quickly spent, boosting local economies. But there's no substitute for creating new jobs. That's why President Obama is in Allentown. And every idea -- from workers, business leaders, economists and from both parties -- is on the table," Hoyer continues. "Congress is working to shape the best ideas into a jobs bill, which might include incentives for small businesses to invest and create jobs, aid to states that will keep teachers and police officers on the job, and new infrastructure projects to make our country stronger. Ideas like those are still up for refinement and debate, and we're eager to hear Pennsylvanians' feedback."
Obama job approval plummets
President Obama's job approval rating has dropped below the symbolic 50 percent in another poll.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released this afternoon put his approval among Americans at 48 percent, with 50 percent disapproving. That's a huge shift just from mid-November, when his approval rating was at 55 percent in the same poll.
His high came in February just after his inauguration, at 76 percent.
Of those respondents now disapproving of Obama's handling of the presidency, 40 percent said he was too liberal while 8 percent he was not liberal enough.
But on his plan to send 30,000 more US troops to Afghanistan, 62 percent approve, and 66 percent support his plan to start pulling out US forces by July 2011.
But Americans remain divided on the broader question of the war, and only one-third believe that conditions in Afghanistan will be good enough by the summer of 2011 to actually withdraw. Nearly two-thirds of respondents still blame former President George W. Bush for the US predicament in Afghanistan, while only 17 percent blame Obama.
The new poll, conducted Wednesday and Thursday -- after Obama's primetime speech on Tuesday -- has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Obama, Russian leader vow to renew nuclear weapons deal
President Obama and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev issued a joint statement today vowing to continue observing the spirit of a treaty, which expires Saturday, to reduce nuclear weapons stockpiles, as the countries continue to negotiate a replacement.
"Recognizing our mutual determination to support strategic stability between the United States of America and the Russian Federation, we express our commitment, as a matter of principle, to continue to work together in the spirit of the START Treaty following its expiration, as well as our firm intention to ensure that a new treaty on strategic arms enter into force at the earliest possible date," the leaders said.
As the Globe reported in October, the START treaty is expected to be the first of a series that Obama will ask the US Senate to ratify. "President Obama’s vision of global cooperation - symbolized by his surprise Nobel Peace Prize - is in for a crucial test in the months ahead when he begins sending a series of treaties to the US Senate, where skepticism among Republicans and some Democrats will make approval exceedingly difficult, according to government officials and specialists," the Globe reported.
The new nuclear weapons deal with Russia, designed to replace START II ratified in 1991, could reduce the number of warheads on each side to 1,500 and the number of missiles to carry them to 500, including those launched from underground silos, ships, or aircraft.
Poll: Support for Obama's Afghan plan, but not in details
Americans support President Obama's new Afghanistan strategy -- but just barely, according to the first poll since Obama outlined his plan in a nationally televised speech.
The USA Today/Gallup survey released late today found that 51 percent favor the plan, while 40 percent opposed it.
But on the details, there is deep division. While 38 percent said 30,000 more US troops was "about the right number," 36 percent said that is too many and 18 percent said it's too few.
And only one in five agree with Obama's plan to begin withdrawing US troops by July 2011, while 46 percent agree with Republicans who say it's too early to set a timetable, and another one in four say troops should start coming home sooner.
An overwhelming 73 percent, however, say they are worried that the cost of the war -- the troop surge is estimated at $30 billion next year -- will make it more difficult to deal with domestic issues.
The survey was conducted on Wednesday, the day after the president's primetime speech from West Point, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Obama gets back to jobs
Under fire from both Democrats and Republicans for the sluggish economic recovery, President Obama returns his focus to jobs today with a forum at the White House.
With more than 100 CEOs, labor leaders, academics, community activists, and others, the forum is meant to be an ideas generator. Administration officials have already downplayed the possibility of new policies actually being announced today, but say they are talking to Democratic allies about further extending unemployment benefits and COBRA health coverage subsidies for the jobless. (The run-down of the forum sessions and participants is below.)
In opening the forum this afternoon, Obama said the economy and Wall Street had been saved from ruin. But he didn't try to sugar-coat the remaining pain, noting that one in 10 Americans are unemployed and millions more are underemployed
"This is a struggle that cuts deep," Obama said.
The unemployed have not only lost a paycheck, but their "sense of identity and dignity."
In the Great Recession, cash-strapped businesses understandably have slashed jobs and made remaining workers increase their productivity. But that means that they are not adding employees.
"How do we get businesses hiring again?" he asked.
Obama said "we do not have enough public dollars" and cannot increase public hiring enough to boost a real recovery. Only the private sector can do that, he said. (His full remarks and preceding remarks from Vice President Joe Biden.)
UPDATE: At the close of the forum, Obama said he'd heard many "exciting ideas and proposals" and said he hoped some could be put into action quickly to help put millions of Americans back to work.
The president said there were some ideas that could be put to work almost immediately and other ideas that will become part of legislation for Congress to consider. He listed "energy efficiency and weatherization" as a prime candidate for moving quickly.
The White House also announced that he will give another speech on the economy Tuesday at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
"There is no bottom in sight for working families who are struggling to keep their jobs, health care and homes and they know that our leaders must take immediate action to create and save jobs," AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a statement. "Our leaders must take immediate action to create and save jobs. Jobs -- good jobs -- are what it's all about. Now it's time for leaders in Washington to understand that too -- and thankfully many do. Today's jobs forum is an important opportunity to gather the best ideas for job creation. But it can't substitute for action. The summit will only mean something if it triggers an urgent round of actions to create American jobs. It's simply wrong that people who worked hard are paying for the sins of Wall Street with their jobs, and we can't sit back and hope it takes care of itself."
The Center for Community Change, an activist group, was in Washington today to demand a large-scale new jobs program.
"Government can no longer sit on its hands during this jobs crisis, nor expect a solution will come by putting all its eggs in the Wall Street basket. Main Street's unemployment levels have reached epic proportions and are far deeper than anyone could have imagined," Deepak Bhargava, the center's executive director, said in a statement.
"Our neighborhoods are economically distressed, and people need hope. Any conversation about fixing our nation's unemployment problem must include unemployed people at the table with business and labor interests. The need for jobs is immediate and urgent. America needs paychecks, not pink slips," he added. "A large-scale community investment jobs program would reduce unemployment faster than any other mechanism available to the government. The White House and Congress can immediately put 2.5 million Americans back to work revitalizing our communities, providing critical services and cleaning the environment. These jobs would be real jobs with living wages and have a long term impact on America's future."
Republicans, meanwhile, are holding a counter-summit and already warning against a second stimulus package, saying that the $787 billion plan that Obama championed has been a failure.
"This White House 'jobs summit' is just another example of President Obama’s PR presidency, where he stages photo-ops and events to distract citizens and the media from his administration’s failures," Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele wrote in an opinion piece in Politico today. "If this 'jobs summit' is anything like the previous 'fiscal responsibility summit' then Americans should expect nothing but vague political overtures and empty promises. The 'fiscal responsibility summit' didn’t decrease our national debt and this 'jobs summit' won’t bring back the jobs Americans desperately need. However, it might create the political cover needed to pass another government-growing and unnecessary stimulus package."
Obama follows up the forum on Friday with a visit to Allentown, Pa., as he kicks off a "White House to Main Street Tour" to hear first hand from struggling Americans.
The choice of location seems rather appropriate as a symbol of economic decline and pain. Billy Joel wrote a song about Allentown, released in 1982 -- the last time unemployment was this high.
The national rate was 10.2 percent in October, and the November number will also be released Friday.
In advance of Obama's visit to the Lehigh Valley, the GOP is running a radio ad in Pennsylvania mocking the first stimulus and warning of a second.
The ad is an imagined conversation between a man and a woman:
"Obama’s gonna have another stimulus plan," the woman says.
"Wait a minute," the man says. "I’m looking it up….The definition of the word stimulus."
"The Obama-Pelosi stimulus plan didn’t stimulate the economy," he adds.
"Nope. Unemployment has actually gone up 25 percent since then," the woman says.
"Nearly a trillion dollars and still we’re going in the wrong direction," the man chimes in.
"A lot of money. But half a million people in Pennsylvania still out of work," the woman says.
"Hey, if you see President Obama around town," the man concludes. "Let’s tell him one stimulus plan was too many," the woman adds.
Romney blasts Obama on jobs
Just before today's White House jobs summit, Mitt Romney minces no words in blasting President Obama's economic policies.
"Like other presidents before him, Barack Obama inherited a recession. But unlike them, he has made it worse, not better," Romney writes in an opinion piece published this morning in USA Today.
The former Massachusetts governor -- who made his name and fortune at Bain Capital, who ran for the GOP presidential nomination last year, and who could very well run again in 2012 -- derides Obama's economic know-how
"His failure to stem the unemployment tide should not have been a surprise. With no experience whatsoever in the world of employment and business formation, he had no compass to guide his path," Romney writes. "Instead, he turned over much of his economic recovery agenda to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, themselves nearly as inexperienced in the private sector as he. Congress gave him and them everything they asked for, including a history-making three-quarters of a trillion dollar stimulus. But it did little to stimulate the real economy -- where jobs are created."
Romney also joins in the GOP criticism of the White House claims of success for the $787 billion economic stimulus. "In an attempt to disguise the truth, the administration has touted inflated figures of jobs "created."But every month, in good times and bad, jobs are created and jobs are lost. What matters is the net difference between the two numbers. Focusing solely on jobs created while ignoring the far greater numbers of jobs lost is Harry Houdini economics," he writes.
Romney then lays out his own 10-point plan, including freezing stimulus money that hasn't been spent yet and redirecting it to the private sector, granting more business tax breaks, not allowing President George W. Bush's tax cuts to expire at the end of 2010, ditching the "cap-and-trade" climate change legislation, and approving free trade agreements with Colombia and other countries.
UPDATE: Democratic National Committee spokesman Hari Sevugan responded in kind to Romney:
“For months, the American people have been waiting for the 'Party of No' to offer a plan -- any plan -- to help fix the economy and create jobs. And for months, Republicans have done nothing. Now, instead of acknowledging, as leading economists and the independent CBO have, that the president's recovery act rescued this country's economy from the brink of disaster and has already saved or created 1.6 million jobs, Republican leaders like Mitt Romney and Eric Cantor are now offering 'plans' that are nothing more than a laundry list of the failed Bush-era economic policies that nearly destroyed our economy in the first place. Mitt Romney's allegiance to Bush economics is one policy position he'd do well to flip-flop on.”
Young adults oppose troop surge
A national poll by the Harvard Institute of Politics found that two-thirds of young adults oppose President Obama's plan to send more troops to Afghanistan.
The online survey also found that although 58 percent of young adults approve of Obama's job performance in general, a majority disapprove of his handling of the economy and health care. The poll of 2,087 people aged 18 to 29 shows fissures in a key demographic that helped Obama capture the White House.
"We've been tracking this generation since they came of age nearly ten years ago and have seen young people become a political force," said John Della Volpe, director of polling for the institute. "Our government and our political parties need to continually challenge and inspire young adults, whose support should not and cannot be taken for granted."
The poll, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points, was conducted from Nov. 4 to Nov. 16.
It found that the economy is unquestionably young people's leading concern, with 48 percent of respondents saying it was their top national priority. That was more than twice the second rated issue of health care, which garnered 21 percent. Only 10 percent identified the war as their top national priority.
The survey found that 52 percent of young people disapprove of the president's handling of both the economy and health care, while 55 disapprove of how he has handled the war in Afghanistan.
When Obama was elected in November 2008, he won two-thirds of young people's vote, beating Republican Senator John McCain by 34 percentage points. That margin was five times greater than Obama's next best age group, which a 6-point victory among 30 to 44 year olds.
The survey released today by the Institute of Politics found that young people are now in line with what polls have found in the general population, that people approve of Obama in general but disapprove of his handling of some major issues.
Kerry issues warnings on troop surge
Senator John F. Kerry, a key ally for President Obama on his Afghanistan plan, offered guarded praise for the president's speech as he opened a hearing this morning on the troop surge plan.
"I believe the President appropriately narrowed the mission in Afghanistan. What he presented to the American people is not an open-ended nation-building exercise or a nationwide counterinsurgency campaign. Nor should it be," Kerry said as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, which is hearing today from Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Michael Mullen.
"The President was right to frame our commitment to Afghanistan in the context of all our national priorities, from the drawdown in Iraq to our urgent challenges at home. And he was correct to consider our mission there in terms of our enduring interest in Pakistan," he added.
But Kerry questioned the argument that US forces should continue fighting in Afghanistan because that's where the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack was plotted.
"Eight years later, that’s simply not good enough. We have largely expelled Al Qaeda from Afghanistan. Today it is the presence of Al Qaeda in Pakistan, its direct ties to and support from the Taliban in Afghanistan and the perils of an unstable, nuclear-armed Pakistan that drive our mission," Kerry said. What happens in Pakistan, particularly near the Afghan border, will do more to determine the outcome in Afghanistan than any increase in troops or shift in strategy."
In fact, Kerry asserted, the planned withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan starting in July 2011 would help the US focus on Pakistan.
"I believe it is important for the Pakistanis to understand that our commitment to them and the region is long term even as troops are reduced in Afghanistan. In fact, the conditions that permit a reduction in American troops in Afghanistan are a benefit to Pakistan," he said.
To the arguments from Republicans -- notably Senator John McCain, the 2008 presidential candidate -- that the timing of any drawdown should only be based on conditions on the ground, Kerry posited this rebuttal about adding 30,000 troops: "I would hope that just as the exit strategy is based on conditions on the ground, so too should our strategy for escalation be based on conditions on the ground."
"I continue to believe that, absent an urgent security need, we should not send American troops in to clear places unless we are confident that we have the Afghan partners and resources in place to build on our victories and transfer both security and government functions to legitimate Afghan leaders," Kerry said. "Frankly, I am concerned that additional troops will tempt us beyond a narrow and focused mission. And, with 30,000 troops rushing into Afghanistan, I believe we will be challenged to have the civilian and governance capacity in place quickly enough to translate their sacrifice into lasting gains."
His full opening statement is below:
McGovern leads opposition to troop surge
Representative James McGovern is ramping up his leadership of members of Congress opposed to President Obama's troop surge in Afghanistan.
The Massachusetts Democrat joined Senator Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, and Representative Walter Jones, a North Carolina Republican, in writing Obama today to warn that the build-up could harm US efforts against Al Qaeda.
Sending more troops to Afghanistan is unlikely to help, and could hurt, our efforts to address Al Qaeda’s safe haven in Pakistan. Moreover, al Qaeda and its affiliates are located in Yemen, Somalia, North Africa and other places around the world. Rather than investing so many of our resources in Afghanistan, we should pursue a comprehensive, global counterterrorism strategy," the three lawmakers wrote.
"There is a serious danger that the ongoing, large-scale U.S. military presence will continue to provoke greater militancy in the region and further destabilize both Afghanistan and nuclear-armed Pakistan. The pursuit of unrealistic nation-building goals is making it harder to isolate members of al Qaeda from those who do not have an international terrorist agenda."
And they argue that the cost -- in casualties and taxpayers money -- is not worth it when the Afghan regime is not credible and not able to do its part so that US troops can start withdrawing by July 2011, as Obama envisions.
"While we support ongoing civilian engagement in Afghanistan and counterterrorism efforts in the region, we do not believe more American lives should be risked to support an illegitimate, corrupt government fighting what is largely a civil war," they say, adding, "At a time when our country faces record deficits, and many Americans are struggling to make ends meet, it simply does not make sense to spend tens of billions of dollars to escalate our military involvement in Afghanistan."
The full letter is below:
Kerry offers qualified support to Obama
Senator John F. Kerry, a key ally for President Obama on his new Afghanistan strategy, offered a qualified endorsement Tuesday night for the troop surge.
Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said in statement that he will support the 30,000 additional troops -- as long as responsibility for security is rapidly transferred to Afghan forces "because anything short of that will end in failure, no matter how many troops we send to Afghanistan."
He also praised Obama for laying out a narrower mission "not an open-ended nation-building exercise," and for focusing on Pakistan as the key battle against terrorists.
"I believe that the President defined a narrower mission tonight, not an open-ended nation-building exercise," Kerry said in his statement. "A key component of that mission is providing that the troops will only clear and hold in places where there is capacity to build and transfer beneath them and that there will be significant partnering with Afghans in all of these efforts. That includes finding reliable Afghan partners in governance. If these criteria are met, then there is a chance for success.
"The President is correct to say the essential focus must be on Pakistan. What happens in Pakistan, particularly in the west, will be more critical to the outcome in Afghanistan than the increase in troops or shift in strategy there. I will support additional troops, providing their deployment stays within the strict understanding of the need to transfer and build as well as partner with Afghans. The only way to be successful is to rapidly transfer responsibility to the Afghans and anything short of that will end in failure, no matter how many troops we send to Afghanistan. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will continue to examine our Afghan policy in public hearings in the coming days and beyond."
UPDATE: This afternoon, Kerry's office formally announced that the Foreign Relations Committee will hold its hearing Thursday morning on the Afghan plan.
Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Rear Admiral Michael G. Mullen are scheduled to testify. They spoke today to the Senate Armed Services Committee.
White House under fire on jobs
The White House is getting the business from both sides of the aisle today on the nation's rising unemployment -- and what some fellow Democrats and Republicans alike say is an inadequate response from the Obama administration.
Republicans have been railing against the $787 billion stimulus bill that Obama championed. In what his office is billing as a major speech, Representative Eric Cantor, the second-ranking House Republican, plans to outline before the conservative Heritage Foundation proposals "to remove what he will term government-imposed obstacles to economic growth, including targeting some proposed regulations that could have an economic cost.
“Let’s begin with a simple premise: An overactive government did not make America the land of promise, prosperity and opportunity," Cantor will say, according to advance excerpts released by his office.
He then will call for blocking any federal tax increases until unemployment drops below 5 percent. "Americans of all political stripes can agree that the government should never raise taxes during periods of high unemployment," says Cantor. He and other Republicans argue that the health care overhaul and the climate change legislation are full of tax hikes.
The Virginia Republican also plans to call on Congress to approve "three promising free trade agreements with Colombia, South Korea, and Panama that have stalled under the new administration."
Cantor also plans to repeat other GOP tenets, including stopping the "deluge of detrimental rules and regulations," and reducing regulatory and tax barriers, controlling record federal deficits and debts, reforming the unemployment system to help people out of work find jobs, and giving bank regulators incentives to deal responsibly with banks and their borrowers. (His full prepared remarks are below.)
On the eve of a White House jobs summit on Thursday, the Congressional Black Caucus is continuing to register its disappointment with the administration's efforts so far to help minority communities, where unemployment is significantly higher than the overall rate.
The House Financial Services Committee today approved a financial regulation overhaul bill that puts new limits on Wall Street firms and demands greater openness from the Federal Reserve, the Associated Press reports.
But the 31-27 party-line vote was far closer than it would have otherwise been because 10 black caucus members did not vote.
"The president's top priority is economic recovery and we understand the profound impact that the recession is having on the African-American community," White House spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki said in a statement. "We welcome a continuing dialogue with the CBC on how we can collaborate to implement the president's agenda to support economic growth and opportunity for all Americans."
UPDATE: The White House this afternoon released more details about the jobs forum, which it called "an opportunity for the president and the economic team to hear from some of the leading CEOs, small business owners, labor leaders, nonprofit heads and thinkers about ideas for continuing to grow the economy and put Americans back to work."
The schedule is below:
Kirk skeptical of Obama's Afghan plan
The junior senator from Massachusetts, Paul G. Kirk Jr., is more wary of President Obama's troop build-up in Afghanistan than his colleague John F. Kerry.
While Kerry has offered his qualified support and is a key ally for the president in building congressional support, Kirk today asked how adding 30,000 more troops.
"We have been at war in Afghanistan for eight years. 849 men and women in our Armed Forces have paid the ultimate price and over 4,500 more have been wounded. October was the deadliest month yet, with 59 troops killed, including 4 from Massachusetts. Today, 68,000 brave U.S. men and women are fighting there, the highest number so far in the eight-year conflict, and as of last night, we will be sending 30,000 more in the coming months," Kirk said in his opening statement at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is hearing today from Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Rear Admiral Michael G. Mullen.
"All of us listened carefully to the President last evening, but I’m eager to hear more from each of you on what precisely the mission of these troops will be, how you see our path to success, the obstacles we will face along the way, and when and how that path will lead our troops home," Kirk added.
"As one general said, we have been fighting the war there 'for one year, eight times in a row' and some have said the war is a 'quagmire.' I’m interested to hear how 30,000 more troops in Afghanistan will accomplish our goal."
In a statement Tuesday night immediately after Obama's speech, Kirk said, “I’m encouraged by the President’s plans to ultimately disengage us from Afghanistan in a responsible and timely fashion. I remain skeptical, however, about a significant troop build-up when the legitimacy of our Afghan partner is in serious question."
An echo on Afghanistan
President Obama's latest war plan for Afghanistan is billed as a new and improved approach designed to finish the job and bring US troops home.
But, perhaps unavoidably, his speech Tuesday night announcing 30,000 more US troops -- and a hoped-for drawdown starting in July 2011 -- echoed the address he delivered in March on what he called "a comprehensive, new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan" after he had dispatched 21,000 more troops. (Obama, himself, briefly referenced his March speech.)
In both speeches, he reminded Americans why US forces went into Afghanistan in the first place in 2001.
In March: "Al Qaeda and its allies -- the terrorists who planned and supported the 9/11 attacks -- are in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Multiple intelligence estimates have warned that Al Qaeda is actively planning attacks on the US homeland from its safe-haven in Pakistan. And if the Afghan government falls to the Taliban -- or allows Al Qaeda to go unchallenged -- that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can."
Tuesday night: "I am convinced that our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is the epicenter of violent extremism practiced by Al Qaeda. It is from here that we were attacked on 9/11, and it is from here that new attacks are being plotted as I speak. This is no idle danger; no hypothetical threat. In the last few months alone, we have apprehended extremists within our borders who were sent here from the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan to commit new acts of terror. And this danger will only grow if the region slides backwards, and Al Qaeda can operate with impunity."
Without naming his predecessor, he criticized President George W. Bush for focusing on Iraq at the expense of Afghanistan.
March: "For six years, Afghanistan has been denied the resources that it demands because of the war in Iraq. Now, we must make a commitment that can accomplish our goals."
Tuesday night: "The Iraq war drew the dominant share of our troops, our resources, our diplomacy, and our national attention -- and that the decision to go into Iraq caused substantial rifts between America and much of the world."
Obama warned the American public that the war is not going well enough and that more tough fighting lies ahead.
March: "The situation is increasingly perilous. It has been more than seven years since the Taliban was removed from power, yet war rages on, and insurgents control parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Attacks against our troops, our NATO allies, and the Afghan government have risen steadily. Most painfully, 2008 was the deadliest year of the war for American forces."
Tuesday night: "Afghanistan is not lost, but for several years it has moved backwards. There's no imminent threat of the government being overthrown, but the Taliban has gained momentum. Al Qaeda has not reemerged in Afghanistan in the same numbers as before 9/11, but they retain their safe havens along the border. And our forces lack the full support they need to effectively train and partner with Afghan security forces and better secure the population."
The president described the goal of the war as simply as possible.
March: "We have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future. That is the goal that must be achieved. That is a cause that could not be more just."
Tuesday night: "Our overarching goal remains the same: to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to prevent its capacity to threaten America and our allies in the future."
While telling the Afghan people that the US only wants to help give them peace and security, he cautioned the Afghan government that it must root out corruption.
March: "As we provide these resources, the days of unaccountable spending, no-bid contracts, and wasteful reconstruction must end....And I want to be clear: we cannot turn a blind eye to the corruption that causes Afghans to lose faith in their own leaders. Instead, we will seek a new compact with the Afghan government that cracks down on corrupt behavior, and sets clear benchmarks for international assistance so that it is used to provide for the needs of the Afghan people."
Tuesday night: "The days of providing a blank check are over....We'll support Afghan ministries, governors, and local leaders that combat corruption and deliver for the people. We expect those who are ineffective or corrupt to be held accountable."
Obama stressed the need to train up the Afghan military and security forces so they can take over.
March: "We will shift the emphasis of our mission to training and increasing the size of Afghan Security Forces, so that they can eventually take the lead in securing their country. That is how we will prepare Afghans to take responsibility for their security, and how we will ultimately be able to bring our troops home.
Tuesday night: The additional troops "will increase our ability to train competent Afghan security forces, and to partner with them so that more Afghans can get into the fight. And they will help create the conditions for the United States to transfer responsibility to the Afghans."
And the president emphasized the need for US allies to step up because their security is at stake, as well as the credibility of NATO.
March: "We have a shared responsibility to act -- not because we seek to project power for its own sake, but because our own peace and security depends upon it. And what’s at stake now is not just our own security – it is the very idea that free nations can come together on behalf of our common security. That was the founding cause of NATO six decades ago. That must be our common purpose today.
Tuesday night: "Our friends have fought and bled and died alongside us in Afghanistan. And now, we must come together to end this war successfully. For what's at stake is not simply a test of NATO's credibility -- what's at stake is the security of our allies, and the common security of the world."
Obama: In sooner, out sooner in Afghanistan
President Obama tried to reassure Americans tonight that by getting thousands more US troops into Afghanistan sooner, he'll be able to wind down the war sooner as well.
In a nationally televised speech before cadets of the US Military Academy at West Point, Obama announced that he is deploying 30,000 more troops, who will be in place by next summer and bring the US force to nearly 100,000 in a war that has already dragged on for more than eight years.
But Obama also said that if all goes as planned, he hopes to start withdrawing troops by July 2011 -- 18 months before his term as president ends.
"Afghanistan is not lost, but for several years it has moved backwards. There is no imminent threat of the government being overthrown, but the Taliban has gained momentum. Al Qaeda has not reemerged in Afghanistan in the same numbers as before 9/11, but they retain their safe havens along the border. And our forces lack the full support they need to effectively train and partner with Afghan security forces and better secure the population," the president said.
"As commander-in-chief, I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 US troops to Afghanistan. After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home," Obama added. "I make this decision because I am convinced that our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is the epicenter of violent extremism practiced by Al Qaeda. It is from here that we were attacked on 9/11, and it is from here that new attacks are being plotted as I speak."
In his speech, Obama addressed US allies, who he said had "bled and died alongside us in Afghanistan." "Now, we must come together to end this war successfully. For what’s at stake is not simply a test of NATO’s credibility -- what’s at stake is the security of our Allies, and the common security of the world," he said.
He also addressed the Afghan people: "America seeks an end to this era of war and suffering. We have no interest in occupying your country. We will support efforts by the Afghan government to open the door to those Taliban who abandon violence and respect the human rights of their fellow citizens. And we will seek a partnership with Afghanistan grounded in mutual respect – to isolate those who destroy; to strengthen those who build; to hasten the day when our troops will leave; and to forge a lasting friendship in which America is your partner, and never your patron."
And he spent a significant part of his speech addressing critics of his approach.
"[T]here are those who suggest that Afghanistan is another Vietnam. They argue that it cannot be stabilized, and we are better off cutting our losses and rapidly withdrawing. I believe this argument depends upon a false reading of history. Unlike Vietnam, we are joined by a broad coalition of 43 nations that recognizes the legitimacy of our action. Unlike Vietnam, we are not facing a broad-based popular insurgency. And most importantly, unlike Vietnam, the American people were viciously attacked from Afghanistan, and remain a target for those same extremists who are plotting along its border," he said.
"[T]here are those who acknowledge that we can't leave Afghanistan in its current state, but suggest that we go forward with the troops that we already have. But this would simply maintain a status quo in which we muddle through, and permit a slow deterioration of conditions there."
"Finally," Obama said, "there are those who oppose identifying a timeframe for our transition to Afghan responsibility. Indeed, some call for a more dramatic and open-ended escalation of our war effort -- one that would commit us to a nation-building project of up to a decade. I reject this course because it sets goals that are beyond what we can achieve at a reasonable cost, and what we need to achieve to secure our interests. Furthermore, the absence of a timeframe for transition would deny us any sense of urgency in working with the Afghan government. It must be clear that Afghans will have to take responsibility for their security, and that America has no interest in fighting an endless war in Afghanistan."
Biden touts stimulus report
The Obama administration has some new numbers to defend its economic stimulus package, under fire after a barrage of reports of inflated job creation statistics.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reports that the $787 billion stimulus created or saved between 600,000 and 1.6 million jobs through the end of September.
The report, released Monday, said that the total economic output was 1.2 percent to 3.2 percent higher than it would have been without the stimulus and the unemployment was between 0.3 percentage points and 0.9 percentage points lower.
The range is so wide because the numbers are so squishy -- it is difficult to show that a job was "saved" by the stimulus spending.
But Vice President Joe Biden, in charge of the recovery package, made the most of the CBO report.
“This new report from the Congressional Budget Office is further evidence of what private forecasters and government economists have been saying: the Recovery Act is already responsible for more than 1 million jobs nationwide," he said in a statement today.
"From independent economists to Congress’s own nonpartisan research body, the experts have spoken and the debate is no longer whether the Recovery Act is creating and saving jobs, but how we provide even more opportunities to drive growth and support American workers. This early progress less than halfway through the program is encouraging, but we’re just getting started. In the coming months, we’ll break ground on thousands of infrastructure projects, launch multi-billion dollar broadband and high speed rail initiatives and make critical investments in our nation’s schools and businesses through the Recovery Act that will help put America back to work and lay a foundation for long-term economic growth.”
Representative Darrell Issa, the ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, questioned the "multiplier effect" that the CBO report used.
“The CBO report provides very little comfort to the 15.7 million Americans currently unemployed,” Issa said in a statement. “We know that the economy has lost more than four million jobs since passage of the stimulus. The CBO report does not account for how many of those jobs were lost as a result of $787 billion in deficit spending that takes money out of the private sector. What we have is a stimulus that is paying for government jobs with private sector jobs and has failed to lower unemployment.”
Issa also chided Biden, asserting that he was continuing the Obama administration's propaganda on the stimulus.
"Vice President Biden claims ‘more than 1 million jobs’ were created by the stimulus, yet nowhere in the CBO report does it state that ‘more than 1 million jobs were created.’ ” Issa said in his statement. “And where do the dollars spent come from? They come from borrowing against the future, running up record deficits, which Americans and their children and grandchildren will have to pay for in the future through confiscatory taxes and a weakened dollar. It’s time for the Obama Administration to stop using wasteful government spending programs and misleading statistics to substantiate their mythical jobs ‘created or saved’ numbers. Instead, they should work on a bipartisan basis with Congress to implement pro-growth policies that will reduce the tax burden, lower the deficit, improve Americans’ long-term economic well-being and put the economy back on a sustainable footing.”
Also today, the White House released a letter (read it here) from Ed DeSeve, senior adviser to the president for the stimulus plan, replying to House GOP leader John Boehner.
Boehner had blasted the administration's jobs "saved or created" numbers as entirely made up, but DeSeve said there is "nothing mysterious, ephemeral, or uncertain" about the role the recovery package has played in saving the jobs of teachers, firefighters, police officers, and others who would have been laid off by cash-strapped state and local governments.
Boehner was unconvinced.
"The Obama administration is trying to scam the American people by continuing to repeat their phony 'stimulus' claims, including the number of jobs 'saved or created' -- a metric it seems to have made up out of thin air," Boehner said in a statement. "As the CBO states on page one of their report, 'it is impossible to determine how many of the reported jobs would have existed in the absence of the stimulus package.' "
UPDATE: Americans United for Change, a labor-liberal group, capitalized on the CBO report to say that Republicans should now be eating crow.
“After enabling eight years of disastrous economic policies that left our nation on the brink of depression, Congressional Republicans not only shrugged off any responsibility but stood shoulder to shoulder in opposition to the president’s plan to get the economy moving again. And they have cynically rooted for the president’s jobs and economic plan to fail every day since," Tom McMahon, the group's acting executive director, said in a statement. "It’s now clear that if the Party of NO would have had their way, up to 1.6 million American people would be out of work today. When will Congressional Republicans stop rooting for failure and start working with the President and the Democratic Leadership in Congress to continue moving the economy in the right direction?”
Cheney hits Obama on Afghanistan
Former Vice President Dick Cheney isn't waiting for President Obama to lay out his new Afghanistan strategy tonight to get in the first shot.
Cheney, who accused Obama of "dithering" by taking so long to make a decision, told Politico that the president is projecting "weakness" to America's adversaries.
Obama is expected to announce at West Point tonight that he is sending 30,000 to 35,000 more US troops, but also to explain how and when they will leave because, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said today, "we can't be there forever."
Gibbs told MSNBC that Obama also will lay out a faster deployment than proposed by General Stanley McChrystal, though the top US commander in Afghanistan asked for more troops, about 44,000. Gibbs said the troop build up "will be accelerated. We're going to get in there quickly" and transfer responsibility for security to the Afghans quickly.
But Cheney warned that Afghans will ally with the Taliban if they believe the US is trying to leave.
"I begin to get nervous when I see the commander in chief making decisions apparently for what I would describe as small ‘p’ political reasons, where he’s trying to balance off different competing groups in society,” Cheney said in the interview with Politico, posted online this morning. “Every time he delays, defers, debates, changes his position, it begins to raise questions: Is the commander in chief really behind what they’ve been asked to do?"
Of Bush administration officials, Cheney by far has been the most combative toward Obama, particularly in questioning his policies on terrorism and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Obama administration officials have hit back at Cheney by asserting that Bush focused too much on Iraq, leaving the Taliban and Al Qaeda to regain strength in Afghanistan and that Obama is now having to clean up the mess.
But Cheney disputed that in the Politico interview. Asked if he thinks the Bush administration bears any responsibility for the disintegration of Afghanistan, he replied, “I basically don’t,” without elaborating.
UPDATE: Representative Steny Hoyer, the No. 2 Democrat in the House, hit back hard at Cheney this afternoon.
"We are clearly not making the same mistake the Bush administration made," Hoyer told reporters on Capitol Hill. "They started something and didn't finish it, and they left it to this administration to clean up."
"When Mr. Cheney talks about President Obama's giving the thoughtful consideration [about war policy] that he is somehow dissembling, frankly they turned tail. That is pretty tough language, but I get angry when I hear Vice President Cheney talk about a job that they started but didn't finish and was worse in 2008 in December than it was six years previous."
In the interview, Politico says Cheney launched a broader critique of Obama’s foreign and national security policy, saying that the president is looking “far more radical than I expected.”
"Here’s a guy without much experience, who campaigned against much of what we put in place ... and who now travels around the world apologizing,” Cheney said. “I think our adversaries -- especially when that’s preceded by a deep bow -- see that as a sign of weakness."
The former vice president also squashed speculation about a "draft Cheney" movement for the 2012 presidential race. Why would I want to do that?” he replied. “It’s been a hell of a tour. I’ve loved it. I have no aspirations for further office.”
Kerry pushes for more climate change aid
Senator John F. Kerry today urged the State Department to consider increasing the US financial commitment to support international climate change priorities as officials prepare for the Copenhagen summit starting next week.
President Obama's 2009-10 budget includes about $1.2 billion, but Kerry wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that $3 billion in 2010-11 is needed.
A Senate bill, like the bill passed by the House in June, sets aside about 7 percent of proceeds from selling pollution credits "to international efforts to promote clean energy technologies, reduce emissions from deforestation, and address adaptation needs," Kerry wrote in a letter released by his office.
"The global community has agreed that $10 billion is required annually in fast-start financing to support immediate international climate change priorities. The United States must be prepared to contribute its fair share of this obligation," he added.
The Massachusetts Democrat is a lead author of the climate change bill he is trying to shepherd through the Senate and as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee has emphasized global warming as a national security issue.
His full letter is below:
FULL ENTRYAmericans against health bill
Americans remain inclined against the health care overhaul in Congress as debate began on the Senate floor today.
The USA Today/Gallup poll released today found 49 percent saying they would tell their representative to vote against the bill and 44 percent saying they would urge a yes vote. That's about the same split as in the survey earlier this month, but a change from 51 percent support and 41 percent disapproval in October.
While Republicans are predictably opposed and Democrats in favor, the big change is among political independents.
Gallup says: "Republicans are overwhelmingly opposed to new healthcare legislation -- 86% would advise their member of Congress to vote against it, while 12% would want their member to support it. Democrats, on the other hand, favor it by a 76% to 17% margin. Independents oppose passage of a bill by 53% to 37%. Support among all three party groups has declined since the early October high -- falling by 6 points among Democrats, 8 among independents, and 12 among Republicans."
Since then, the House narrowly passed its version of the legislation, with only one Republican in support, and the Senate barely mustered enough votes to advance debate. It's unclear whether Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid can cobble together 60 votes again to pass a bill -- and it appears very doubtful that Congress will accede to President Obama's goal to have a bill on his desk by the end of the year.
Not that the White House is giving up. It posted a new video today in which Vice President Joe Biden urges Americans to back the plan.
"Do you trust the defenders of the status quo -- the people who say you’d be better off if you left things the way they are? Or would you rather hear from the folks who actually know something about what’s happening in the health care system, because they work in it every day?" Biden asks.
UPDATE: On the other side, Conservatives for Patients Rights launched a new ad against the public insurance option, aiming at 14 moderate senators, including Republican Olympia Snowe of Maine and Independent Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut.
"These individual senators hold the key to the fate of the public option," Rick Scott, chairman of Conservatives for Patients' Rights and a former health insurance executive, said in a statement. "They will decide whether America follows in the footsteps of Britain and Canada with government-run health care, or whether we reject those failed systems and focus on what Americans really want - lower health care costs. Given the news out of Britain, it's clear that government-run health care is doomed to fail."
Republican blasts ACORN reprieve
A top House Republican today blasted a ruling by the Justice Department that allows the Obama administration to pay ACORN for services provided under contracts signed before Congress passed a law banning the community advocacy group from receiving taxpayers money.
Republicans have been on the warpath against ACORN since its voter registration efforts came under scrutiny during the 2008 presidential campaign. After conservative activists, who posed as a prostitute and pimp, released videos appearing to show ACORN staffers advising them how to skirt the law, Democrats joined in the outrage, leading to the congressional funding ban that Obama signed on Oct. 1.
Since 1994, ACORN, which stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has received about $53 million in federal aid, much of it in grants to help poor people obtain affordable housing. The Justice Department asked whether the funding ban applied to prior contracts. In a ruling first reported by the New York Times, a department lawyer said the payments under prior contracts should continue because the language of the law did not expressly wipe them out.
But Representative Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said "the bipartisan intent of Congress was clear -- no more federal dollars should flow to ACORN."
"It is telling that this administration continues to look for every excuse possible to circumvent the intent of Congress," Issa said in a statement. "Taxpayers should not have to continue subsidizing a criminal enterprise that helped Barack Obama get elected president. The politicization of the Justice Department to payback one of the president’s political allies is shameful and amounts to nothing more than old-fashioned cronyism."
Australian P.M. comes calling
On the eve of his big speech on Afghanistan, President Obama will huddle with the leader of a coalition partner in that war-torn country.
The White House announced today that Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will be at the White House on Monday, the day before Obama addresses the nation from West Point.
"Australia is an important ally of and partner with the United States in addressing the many common regional and global challenges we face. During their meeting the two leaders will confer on a range of issues including Afghanistan and climate change in the run-up to Copenhagen," the White House said.
Australia increased its troop presence in Afghanistan by about one-third to 1,550 this year (compared to about 68,000 US troops).
Obama is seeking more troops from the international coalition, but in September, Rudd said his country's contingent was "about right." His foreign minister said then that Australia would be willing to send more civilian assistance.
Rudd is less hawkish than his predecessor, John Howard, the conservative he ousted two years ago, who was one of President George W. Bush's most steadfast allies on Iraq.
White House applauds Iran censure
The White House said today that a censure of Iran for its intransigence on its nuclear program shows that the international community is steadfast in stopping it from obtaining nuclear weapons.
More than two dozen nations on the United Nations nuclear watchdog's board approved a resolution demanding that Tehran immediately freeze construction of its newly revealed nuclear facility and comply with Security Council resolutions to stop uranium enrichment. But Iran's chief representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency declaring that his country would resist "pressure, resolutions, sanction(s) and threat of military attack," according to the Associated Press.
President Obama has offered to talk to Iranian leaders, but has made clear that they must first take steps to foreswear nuclear weapons.
"Today's overwhelming vote at the IAEA's Board of Governors demonstrates the resolve and unity of the international community with regard to Iran's nuclear program. It underscores broad consensus in calling upon Iran to live up to its international obligations and offer transparency in its nuclear program. It also underscores a commitment to strengthen the rules of the international system, and to support the ability of the IAEA and UN Security Council to enforce the rules of the road, and to hold Iran accountable to those rules. Indeed, the fact that 25 countries from all parts of the world cast their votes in favor shows the urgent need for Iran to address the growing international deficit of confidence in its intentions," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a statement.
"The United States has strongly supported the Director General’s positive proposal to provide Iran fuel for its Tehran Research Reactor - a proposal intended to help meet the medical and humanitarian needs of the Iranian people while building confidence in Iran’s intentions. The United States has recognized Iran's right to peaceful nuclear energy and remains willing to engage Iran to work toward a diplomatic solution to the concerns about its nuclear program, if - and only if - Iran chooses such a course. To date, Iran has refused a follow-on meeting to the October 1 meeting with the P5+1 countries if its nuclear program is included on the agenda. Our patience and that of the international community is limited, and time is running out. If Iran refuses to meet its obligations, then it will be responsible for its own growing isolation and the consequences."
In Thanksgiving message, Obama promises jobs
President Obama, with a jobs refrain on the brain, uses the traditional Thanksgiving Day message to tell Americans that he feels their economic pain and is doing his best to make things better.
"As much as we all have to be thankful for, we also know that this year millions of Americans are facing very difficult economic times," he says in his weekly radio-Internet address, which usually arrives on Saturday. . Many have lost jobs in this recession – the worst in generations. Many more are struggling to afford health care premiums and house payments, let alone to save for an education or retirement.
"Too many are wondering if the dream of a middle class life – that American Dream – is slipping away. It’s the worry I hear from folks across the country; good, hard-working people doing the best they can for their families – but fearing that their best just isn’t good enough. These are not strangers. They are our family, our friends, and our neighbors. Their struggles must be our concern."
They are certainly the public's concern, helping drive down Obama's poll numbers. In a couple released this week, his job approval rating dropped below 50 percent for the first time in his presidency.
He touts the $787 billion economic stimulus, despite growing and gnawing doubts about the "saved or created" jobs figures put out by the White House, along with measures to stem home foreclosures and the proposed health care overhaul.
He also plugs the White House jobs summit next Thursday, when business and labor leaders, academics and economists, community activists and others will all put their heads together to come up with job-creating ideas.
"I will work with the Congress to enact them quickly," Obama vows. "And it is my fervent hope – and my heartfelt expectation – that next Thanksgiving we will be able to celebrate the fact that many of those who have lost their jobs are back at work, and that as a nation we will have come through these difficult storms stronger and wiser and grateful to have reached a brighter day."
The full address is below and can be viewed here.
GOP gives thanks, trashes Obama
Republicans say that Americans should be thankful for their blessings today -- but also very worried about the economy and the path that President Obama and Democrats are charting for the country.
"Millions of families have seen jobs and careers vanish in the midst of this recession," House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence of Indiana says in the weekly GOP radio-Internet address, timed this time for Thanksgiving.
“Many are asking, ‘When will things get better?’ Many more are asking, ‘Where are the jobs?’ " he adds. "In the city and on the farm, as millions of American families struggle to balance their checkbooks this holiday season, they watch in astonishment as Washington spends billions of dollars it doesn’t have."
After trashing Obama's $787 billion economic stimulus package, which he said has failed utterly given the national unemployment rate has risen to a "heartbreaking" 10.2 percent, he ridicules the president's plans for a jobs summit next Thursday.
The likely product, Pence says: “Another proposal to grow government, raise taxes and place more debt on the shoulders of our children and grandchildren. The American people know we can’t borrow and spend and bail our way back to a growing economy. The Obama administration and the Democratic majority in Congress have taken our economy from bad to worse with their failed economic agenda and big government plans."
And he says the proposed health care overhaul -- especially a government-run public insurance option -- would make the situation worse.
Pence, however, does not offer any specific solutions from Republicans, beyond the tried-and-true letting "Americans keep more of their hard-earned money."
"With many families hurting during this holiday season, now is the time for us to focus on what makes America great, to join hands and work together on common sense solutions to the problems ailing our nation," he concludes. “Let us resolve to help where we can help, let’s give where we can give, and let’s work together to get this economy moving on the time-honored principles of fiscal responsibility, equality of opportunity and growth."
The full address is below and can be viewed here.
Mitchell cautiously optimistic on settlements freeze
By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- George Mitchell, the former US senator from Maine who helped hammer out a peace agreement in Northern Ireland, did not look daunted when he took the podium today to announce that Israel had agreed to a partial settlement freeze that fell far short of what the Americans had been asking for.
Rumors have swirled around the State Department for months that Mitchell might quit his job as special envoy for the Middle East out of frustration at the lack of progress at getting Israelis to halt settlements on the West Bank, getting the Arabs to make conciliatory gestures towards Israel, and even getting the Palestinians back to the talks.
"So we all thought you were going to come down here and say you were frustrated and you were going to resign, but I guess that’s not the case," Matt Lee, an Associated Press reporter, called out to him. "You’re going to keep at it?"
Mitchell talked awhile about how the proposed 10-month freeze on settlements might transform into long-awaited peace negotiations, and then he vowed not to quit, reminding his listeners how many naysayers there were when he was trying to get backing for the 1998 "Good Friday" agreement in Northern Ireland.
"Although there are many differences between the Middle East and Northern Ireland, in this respect, my experience there is relevant," he said. "Over a period of five years, I chaired three separate sets of discussions. The main negotiation lasted for nearly two years. For most of that time, there was little or no progress and our effort was branded a failure. The question you asked me today I was asked hundreds of times there. But then after two years of saying no, both sides said yes. In a real sense, we had 700 days of failure and one day of success.
"I know that if anything, the Middle East is more difficult and more complex," Mitchell added. "But no matter where the conflict is or what it’s about, if you’re serious about peace, you can’t take as final the first no, the second no, or even the hundredth no. You can’t get discouraged by setbacks and you can’t be deterred by criticism. You have to be patient, persevering, and determined. Neither the president, the secretary of state, nor I have ever promised anything other than a total commitment to comprehensive peace in the Middle East. That remains our commitment and our goal."
Obama Afghan address set
There's now a time and place for President Obama's long-awaited announcement on Afghanistan.
He will address the nation at 8 p.m. Tuesday from the US Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., the training ground for many officers who have served -- and died -- in the eight-year war.
Obama said on Tuesday that he is confident the public will support him, once he explains his rationale for sending what is expected to be 25,000 to 30,000 more US troops into the conflict, and for when American forces can come home.
Obama held his ninth and final war council on Monday night, after having rejected all the options laid before him at the previous gathering. While he didn't disclose his decision to his senior advisers, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said on Tuesday that the president had all the information he needed to make a decision.
"I think that the review that we've gone through has been comprehensive and extremely useful, and has brought together my key military advisors, but also civilian advisors," Obama said Tuesday in his most recent remarks on the issue. "It is in our strategic interest, in our national security interest to make sure that al Qaeda and its extremist allies cannot operate effectively in those areas. We are going to dismantle and degrade their capabilities and ultimately dismantle and destroy their networks. And Afghanistan's stability is important to that process.
"I've also indicated that after eight years -- some of those years in which we did not have, I think, either the resources or the strategy to get the job done -- it is my intention to finish the job. And I feel very confident that when the American people hear a clear rationale for what we're doing there and how we intend to achieve our goals that they will be supportive."
Obama has been criticized for taking too long to make a decision, most notably by former Vice President Dick Cheney, who called it "dithering." Public support for the war has plummeted as US casualties have risen over the past few months.
Republicans tell Biden: Stop using jobs numbers
Keeping up their attack on the Obama administration's stimulus plan, top House Republicans today urged the man in charge to stop claiming jobs that haven't been confirmed.
House GOP leader John Boehner and Representative Darrell Issa, the senior Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sent a letter to Vice President Joe Biden telling him to stop using jobs "saved or created" figures. The administration claimed nearly 650,000 saved or claimed by last month, and said that figure put the stimulus on track to reach Obama's goal of 3.5 million by the end of next year. Read the letter here.
"Washington Democrats claimed the $787-billion ‘stimulus’ would keep unemployment below eight percent and create jobs ‘immediately.’ Instead, three million more Americans have lost their jobs, and unemployment is over ten percent. The American people are asking, ‘where are the jobs?’ but rather than work with Republicans on common-sense solutions to get our economy moving again, the White House is pressing ahead with a job-killing agenda, including a ‘cap-and-trade’ national energy tax and a trillion-dollar government takeover of health care." Boehner said in a statement.
"Worse, they are attempting to disguise the fact that the ‘stimulus’ isn’t working by releasing a stream of questionable - or outright inaccurate - statistics, including the number of jobs ‘saved or created’ – a metric the Obama Administration seems to have made up out of thin air. It’s time to bring facts back to this debate, and a good first step would be for Vice President Biden to stop citing these fictitious figures."
UPDATE: For their part, Democrats are pointing out that more than a few House Republicans -- 67 and counting, they say -- have tried to reap the political benefits of stimulus projects, though they all voted against the package.
"Given that House Republicans helped create the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and not a single one voted for the Recovery Package, it's hardly surprising that they root for failure while working to distract from the mess they created. We will continue going District by District to set the record straight and expose House Republicans and their Right Wing allies' shameless hypocrisy," Ryan Rudominer, a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman, said in a statement.
The administration's jobs count from the $787 billion stimulus has been widely questioned, with some numbers inflated and others impossible to verify and recipients of grants complaining that the forms are difficult to fill out.
Independent congressional watchdogs testified last week that while the stimulus has helped, they could not confirm any count. Many economists also agree that the stimulus has helped slow job losses, though it is exceedingly difficult to quantify.
Obama reportedly to announce Afghanistan decision next Tuesday
Several media organizations are reporting this morning that President Obama plans to announce his long-awaited decision on Afghanistan next Tuesday, probably in a prime-time speech.
Obama huddled with his war council Monday night for what was expected to be the ninth and final time before deciding how many additional US troops to put into the eight-year war. His top commander on the ground has requested 40,000 more as part of a beefed-up counterinsurgency campaign against the Taliban and al Qaeda.
But some expect Obama to settle on an option that would deploy 32,000 to 35,000 more US troops.
UPDATE: Asked at a joint press conference with India's prime minister about his Afghanistan decision, Obama said this afternoon he will make an "announcement to the American people" soon after Thanksgiving, but declined to divulge any specifics.
He said that the "comprehensive" review of Afghanistan strategy has been useful. When he offers a "clear rationale" to the public about what the US has at stake in the country, its goals, and how to get there, the public will be supportive.
The previous administration left the mission unaccomplished, he said, adding, "It is my intention to finish the job." (His full remarks are below.)
In a new poll released this morning, Americans were evenly divided -- 50 percent for and 49 percent against -- when asked about sending 34,000 more troops.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey found 56 percent opposed to sending a smaller number of additional troops.
Public support for the war has plummeted as casualties rose to record levels this fall. In the poll, 66 percent said they believed the war was going badly.
FULL ENTRYObama hosts India's leader in first state visit
President Obama welcomed India's prime minister to the White House this morning, kicking off the first official state visit of his presidency.
Obama called India a leader in Asia and around the world and an "indispensable partner" for the United States.
He declared that as the world's two largest democracies, the two nations have a responsibility to push for progress on global economic growth, nuclear weapons, climate change, poverty, and other issues. The president also said that as victims of terrorism -- the Sept. 11 attacks in the US, the Mumbai attacks and others in India -- the two countries must also tackle extremism.
The visit includes a series of meetings, a joint press conference, and a formal state dinner tonight. The visit also comes during a time some dissension in the relationship as the US focuses on Afghanistan and Pakistan -- to the exclusion, some say, of India.
But Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also accentuated the positive, saying the two countries are "bound together by democracy" and are significant strategic partners.
"This is a moment of great opportunity for our relationship," Singh said, concluding his remarks with, "God bless America, God bless India."
Their full remarks are below, followed by White House summaries of the agreements that were signed, and a joint statement:
FULL ENTRYWar council No. 9 on Afghanistan
President Obama isn't expected to announce his decision on Afghanistan until after Thanksgiving. But that doesn't mean the choice won't be weighing on him heavily during this holiday week.
The White House announced this morning that he will hold his ninth war council tonight to discuss the best way forward. At the previous meeting, Obama rejected all the options on the table, reported to include a range of 10,000 to 40,000 additional US troops.
UPDATE: As Obama weighs his troop decision, some key Democrats are more loudly sounding the alarm on the war's cost -- and floating the idea of a "war tax" to pay for any expansion.
"There ain't going to be no money for nothing if we pour it all into Afghanistan," House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey told ABC News today. "If they ask for an increased troop commitment in Afghanistan, I am going to ask them to pay for it."
"That's what happened with the Vietnam War, which wiped out the Great Society," Obey added. "That's what happened with the Korean War, which wiped out Harry Truman's Square Deal. That's what happened with the end of the progressive movement before the twenties when we went into World War I. In each case, the cost of those wars shut off our ability to pay for anything else."
Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, also said last week that higher-income Americans should be taxed to pay for a troop surge.
White House budget officials have estimated each additional soldier in Afghanistan could cost $1 million.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said today that while the idea of a so-called war tax hasn't come up, the president has told his military brain trust that "we have to take into account how much all of this is going to cost over a five-year, 10-year period."
Gibbs said the president will not announce his decision until next week at the earliest.
The meeting is scheduled to start at 8 p.m. EST and is expected to last at least an hour.
The attendees, either in person or via videconference: Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, United Nations ambassador Susan Rice, Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg, special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, Under Secretary of Defense Michele Flournoy, Joint Chiefs chairman Michael Mullen, Joint Chiefs vice chairman General James E. Cartwright, US Central Command chief David Petraeus, top US commander in Afghanistan Stanley McChrystal, US ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry, US ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson, National Security Adviser General James Jones, Deputy National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, counterterrorism adviser John Brennan, and special assistant to the president Douglas Lute.
Obama vows not to rest on jobs
After huddling today with his full Cabinet for the first time in weeks, President Obama made clear that of all the issues clamoring for attention on his crowded agenda, his eye is squarely on jobs.
"Our economy is growing for the first time in more than a year, and we know that economic growth is a prerequisite for job growth," he said after the meeting. "But, having said that, what I emphasize today is we cannot sit back and be satisfied, given the extraordinarily high unemployment levels that we've seen. We have only taken the first step in curing our economy and making sure that it is moving on the right track. And I will not rest until businesses are investing again and businesses are hiring again and people have work again."
Obama said he was soliciting ideas in advance of a Dec. 3 jobs summit at the White House, bringing together business and labor leaders, academics and economists, and others. In advance of the summit, fellow Democrats and friendly advocacy groups have been chiding the administration for not more aggressively trying to stem unemployment, especially among African Americans and Hispanics.
"Now, this is going to be a challenging task," Obama added. "It's challenging because of the extraordinary blow that the financial crisis delivered to the economy as a whole. It is particularly difficult because both the financial sector and the housing sector were the biggest drivers of economic growth prior to the financial crisis, and so the severity of their pullback means that things are moving slower than we would like them to move."
His full remarks are below:
GOP slams key Democrats
The partisan posturing continues apace from Saturday night, when Senate Democrats barely rounded up enough votes to open formal debate on the health care overhaul.
Three moderates -- Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, and Ben Nelson of Nebraska -- were the last holdouts to get Democrats to the magic 60 votes. And it took quite a bit of arm-twisting -- and even then all three made clear they're not on board to vote for the current legislation.
In Landrieu's case, she won provisions that would funnel millions of dollars to her state, a form of legislative extortion Capitol Hill wags are calling the "Louisiana Purchase."
To Republicans, the three Democrats and others violated their principles and sold out their constituents -- and the GOP tries to make the point in a new web video that assigns all sorts of nefarious motives.
“On Saturday night, a number of moderate Senate Democrats sacrificed their principles to bring America dangerously closer to government-run health care," Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele said in a statement. "Ben Nelson sold out his conscience and voted in favor of federally funded abortions. Blanche Lincoln sold out her principles by voting in favor of a government-run insurance plan, something she previously said she opposed. And Mary Landrieu simply sold her vote to the highest bidder after Harry Reid added a $300 million earmark just for Louisiana. Voters elected these Senators to represent their best interests. Instead they voted in the dead of night for a health care experiment that will increase taxes, raise premiums, cut Medicare, and use taxpayer dollars to fund abortion. This is not the representation Americans deserve. It’s time for these senators to take a long hard look in the mirror and ask themselves who they really work for – their constituents or liberal Democrats like Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.”
The video says that Democrats acted in the "dead of night," but that's not actually true. The vote came at about 8 p.m. Saturday. That accusation would have been more appropriate for the House vote on health care on Nov. 7, which came after 11 p.m.
Obama: Asia sojourn was about jobs
President Obama met with one foreign leader after another, ate at banquets in his honor, and even walked on the Great Wall of China.
But according to the president, his eight-day tour of Asia was, in large measure, all about jobs back home.
"As we emerge from the worst recession in generations, there is nothing more important than to do everything we can to get our economy moving again and put Americans back to work, and I will go anywhere to pursue that goal," Obama says in his weekly radio/Internet address, recorded in the South Korean capital of Seoul, his last stop.
"That’s one of the main reasons I took this trip. Asia is a region where we now buy more goods and do more trade with than any other place in the world -- commerce that supports millions of jobs back home."
While many independent analysts have questioned what substantive accomplishments he brought back, Obama also says he made progress on nuclear security, terrorism, and climate change.
"But above all, I spoke with leaders in every nation I visited about what we can do to sustain this economic recovery and bring back jobs and prosperity for our people -- a task I will continue to focus on relentlessly in the weeks and months ahead," says Obama, who is under criticism even from Democratic allies for the slow pace of the economic recovery and the continued rise in unemployment.
"If we can increase our exports to Asia Pacific nations by just 5 percent, we can increase the number of American jobs supported by these exports by hundreds of thousands," he argues.
And he cites a Massachusetts firm to make the point: "American Superconductor Corporation, an energy technology startup ... that’s been providing wind power and smart grid systems to countries like China, Korea, and India. By doing so, it’s added more than 100 jobs over the last few years."
"Increasing our exports is one way to create new jobs and new prosperity. But as we emerge from a recession that has left millions without work, we have an obligation to consider every additional, responsible step we can take to encourage and accelerate job creation in this country," Obama adds, touting a Dec. 3 White House jobs forum designed to breed new ideas for turning around unemployment.
"Still, there is no forum or policy that can bring all the jobs we’ve lost overnight," he concludes. "I wish there were, because so many Americans – friends, neighbors, family members – are desperately looking for work. But even though it will take time, I can promise you this: we are moving in the right direction; that the steps we are taking are helping; and I will not let up until businesses start hiring again, unemployed Americans start working again, and we rebuild this economy stronger and more prosperous than it was before."
Obama's full address is below and can be viewed here.
FULL ENTRYRepublicans tell Obama time to decide on Afghanistan
House Republicans are trying to ratchet up the pressure on President Obama to decide the new strategy -- including the number of troops -- for Afghanistan.
The commander he sent to turn around the eight-year war is asking for as many as 40,000 more US troops. Obama has held eight war councils -- at the most recent, he rejected all the plans on the table -- but is not expected to announce his decision until after Thanksgiving.
In a letter dated Thursday and released this afternoon, the Republicans back General Stanley McChrystal's counterinsurgency strategy that requires the additional forces.
They don't use the word "dithering" -- as did former Vice President Dick Cheney -- but they come awfully close, while at the same time tacitly acknowledging the criticism of Obama and Democrats that the Bush administration neglected Afghanistan.
"For over two months you have been engaged in a strategy review that has left the country, our military, and allies uncertain about your commitment to the war in Afghanistan and unsure about your will to do what it is necessary to win this conflict. Worse, we fear this process has emboldened our enemies," they write.
"We believe that it is long overdue for our military to be in the execution stage of the strategy instead of the evaluation phase. While no one disputes that a Commander-in-Chief should deliberate before making decisions, particularly in matters involving life and death, we believe this review is having a detrimental impact on our efforts in Afghanistan. While 68,000 U.S. forces are fighting on the battlefield, your strategy review in Washington has returned the country to the policy drift that undermined our efforts in Afghanistan for much of the war."
The full letter is below:
Democrats getting more blame for economy
A new poll out this morning suggests that Americans are starting to shift blame on the jobless economic recovery to Democrats from Republicans.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey found that 27 percent of respondents say Democrats are mostly responsible for the economic woes, while 38 percent say Republicans are mostly to blame. In May, by contrast, the same survey found only 21 percent blaming Democrats and 53 percent faulting Republicans.
The poll also found that the gap between those who believe that President Obama's policies have improved economic conditions and those who think his policies have worsened the economy has shrunk -- from 14 percentage points in May to only 8 percentage points this month.
Despite the rebounding stock market and other positive signs, the survey found unrelenting pessimism about the economy: 82 percent rated conditions as somewhat or very poor, while only 18 percent said they were somewhat or very good.
The new survey was conducted Nov. 13-15 and has an overall margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Some of the president's own Democratic allies have begun to turn against him on the economy, saying that the administration hasn't done enough, despite the $787 billion stimulus, to reverse rising unemployment.
UPDATE: Republicans are pouncing on the dissension in Democrats' ranks, the unemployment numbers, and growing doubts about the jobs supposedly saved or created by the stimulus spending.
“Continued double-digit unemployment is not what Ohioans were promised. The White House, with the support of Governor Strickland, pledged that the ‘stimulus’ would create jobs immediately and keep the national unemployment rate from going above 8 percent. Not only has the 'stimulus' not produced jobs the Administration promised, but now we continue to discover numerous cases of waste, fraud, and incompetence in Ohio and across the country,” the House GOP leader, Representative John Boehner of Ohio, said in a statement today after word that Ohio's unemployment rate had risen to 10.5 percent last month.
“Struggling families and small businesses in our great state deserve better. In all, over the past nine months since the ‘stimulus’ was enacted, nearly 150,000 Ohioans have lost their jobs. Immediate action is needed to create jobs and provide relief. House Republicans will continue to offer fiscally responsible solutions to create jobs by putting money back in the hands of the true drivers of economic growth: American families, small businesses and entrepreneurs.”
Obama group targets Palin on health care
President Obama's grassroots organization is targeting Sarah Palin by name, showing how large a public figure she has become and hinting perhaps that it sees her as a potential rival in 2012.
Organizing for America sent an email to supporters this morning seeking to raise $500,000 to counter Palin's criticisms of Obama's health care plan. The former Alaska governor and 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee has drawn huge audiences for her TV appearances on her media blitz accompanying the nationwide tour for her best-selling memoir.
Earlier this fall, she was the one who popularized the contention -- later debunked -- that the Democratic health care bills would create panels of bureaucrats who would decide end-of-life care.
"Right now, Sarah Palin is on a highly publicized, nationwide book tour, attacking President Obama and his plan for health reform at every turn," national director Mitch Stewart wrote.
"It's dangerous. Remember, this is the person who coined the term "Death Panels" -- and opened the flood gates for months of false attacks by special interests and partisan extremists. Whatever lie comes next will be widely covered by the media, then constantly echoed by right-wing attack groups and others who are trying to defeat reform."
Bundlers get plum diplomatic posts
President Obama, far from changing the ways of Washington, is perpetuating one of its most established -- rewarding big fund-raisers with plum ambassador posts around the world.
The nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics said today that fully one-fourth of his envoy picks so far --24 of 99 -- were bundlers who raised at least $10.9 million for his presidential campaign or his inauguration committee.
"Since the Obama campaign only released information about its bundlers in broad ranges, this figure could be thousands, even millions, of dollars higher," the center said.
On Monday, Obama nominated civic leader Beatrice Wilkinson Welters, who raised between $200,000 and $500,000 for his presidential bid, to serve as the US ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago. The list also includes Alan Solomont, a longtime Democratic money man in Massachusetts who raised at least $500,000 for Obama and was nominated to be the US ambassador to Spain.
UPDATE: This evening, Obama announced two more nominees for ambassador -- career Foreign Service member Harry K. Thomas for the Philippines, and David Adelman, a Georgia state senator who raised between $100,000 and $200,000 for Obama, for Singapore.
Abortion rights group wants fewer restrictions
A leading abortion rights group said today that the Senate health care bill, while less objectionable than the House version, would still unfairly burden women.
The House bill bans a proposed public insurance option from covering abortion, and also prevents private insurers that accept federal subsidies from offering plans that cover abortion.
The bill unveiled by Senate majority leader Harry Reid is less restrictive, allowing insurers to use money from employers or consumers -- but not federal subsidies -- to cover abortions.
But NARAL Pro-Choice America said the legislation "includes a compromise that continues existing laws that unfairly single out abortion care, including a ban on federal funding."
“America’s pro-choice majority is speaking up loudly and clearly,” the group's president, Nancy Keenan, said in a statement. “Our goal is to ensure that women do not lose ground in the new health-care system and that attempts to expand existing restrictions on abortion are defeated.
"Some anti-choice politicians, such as Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), will follow Rep. Bart Stupak’s example and inject anti-abortion politics into health reform. However, we believe that senators understand that the Stupak amendment in the House bill goes far beyond the status quo and prohibits women from using their own money to buy the insurance coverage they want in the new system. Our activists will continue to remind senators that we’re expecting cooler heads to prevail at this stage of the process and that means the Stupak language is not an option.”
Big labor happier with health bill
One of the most important interest groups in the health care debate -- Big Labor -- gave a qualified endorsement today to the bill finally unveiled by top Senate Democrat Harry Reid.
Union support is crucial to Democrats and President Obama to push through the bill, but AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said the nation's largest labor federation is still not happy with a tax on the most generous insurance plans, though it would hit fewer workers than the Senate Finance version. Labor argues that many employees bargained for such benefits to make up for lower or nonexistent pay increases.
Trumka did praise another financing method -- raising payroll taxes on the upper income to help pay for Medicare.
"We commend Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for bringing forward a health care bill that moves us closer to the historic goal of health care for America – high quality, affordable health care for all in our rich nation. The Senate leadership bill takes the strongest steps yet to bring down costs. But the bill is not perfect. It retains a version of the excise tax from the Senate Finance Committee bill. We continue to believe that a tax on working families’ benefits is the wrong way to finance health care and we will work hard to eliminate this provision as the bill heads to the floor," Trumka said in a statement.
"The bill’s inclusion of a public insurance plan option to hold private insurance companies accountable is a tremendous step. And the legislation should be praised for its other fair financing plans, including an increase in the Medicare tax on the wealthiest and an employer responsibility requirement, which we believe should be expanded to include more employers. The bill would expand access by covering 94 percent of Americans and reduce the deficit by $130 billion over 10 years. Today another hurdle is cleared and we are optimistic that good, affordable care for working families will soon be law."
Reid unveils health bill
By Lisa Wangsness, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- The health care overhaul bill that top Senate Democrat Harry Reid hopes to bring to the floor as soon as Saturday would cost $849 billion over 10 years and would reduce the ranks of the uninsured by 31 million Americans.
A senior leadership aide provided those figures as Reid unveiled his bill, which he has spent weeks working on, melding major elements of the versions passed by the Senate finance and health committees.
The preliminary price tag from the Congressional Budget Office would bring the bill in under the $900 billion that President Obama has set as a ceiling. According to the preliminary CBO analysis, the legislation would reduce the federal deficit by $127 billion over the first decade and by $650 billion over the second decade.
The bill would cover an estimated 94 percent of Americans. Reid bragged that the bill would save lives and protect Medicare, the government program for the elderly.
The bill would set up new insurance exchanges, where consumers could choose plans. It would include a public option that includes a provision for states to opt out of the system -- an exemption that is upsetting liberals who say that a strong government plan is needed to compete with private insurers to ensure affordable coverage.
Like the other bills, Reid's measure would require most Americans to buy insurance coverage with subsidies for those who can't afford it, and would require larger companies to provide coverage to their workers or face fees. It would ban insurance company practices such as denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions.
The bill would be financed by cuts in projected Medicare payments and by higher payroll taxes on upper income taxpayers. Under current law, the Medicare payroll tax is 1.45 percent of income. Under Reid's legislation, it would rise by half a percentage point on individuals' income above $200,000 a year and couples' income above $250,000.
The bill also includes a version of the tax on the most generous "Cadillac" insurance plans. The Senate Finance Committee bill proposed to tax health insurance plans costing more than $8,000 annually for individuals and $21,000 for families. Unions and others had strongly opposed that idea.
The bill the House passed earlier this month would be financed in large measure by a 5.4 percent income tax surcharge on individuals making more than $500,000 a year and households making more than $1 million.
The bill also includes a far less restrictive provision on abortion coverage than the House bill, which would ban the public plan from covering abortion and also ban private plans that accept federal subsidies from doing so. Republicans say the provision is needed to ensure that tax money does not fund abortions, but liberals and abortion rights say it would treat women unfairly and have threatened to vote against the final legislation if it includes it.
Reid's bill calls for the exchange to cover plans with and without abortion coverage, giving consumers a choice.
Reid had been waiting for the CBO numbers before unveiling his bill, for which he is still seeking to round up 60 votes to start floor debate. This afternoon, he met privately with three wavering moderate Democrats, Senators Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, and Ben Nelson of Nebraska.
UPDATE: President Obama this evening issued a statement praising Reid's bill, calling it "another critical milestone in the health reform effort."
"I was particularly pleased to see that the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the bill will reduce the deficit by $127 billion over the next ten years and as much as $650 billion in the decade following, saving hundreds of billions while extending coverage to 31 million more Americans," Obama said in a statement.
"From day one, our goal has been to enact legislation that offers stability and security to those who have insurance and affordable coverage to those who don’t, and that lowers costs for families, businesses and governments across the country. Majority Leader Reid, Chairmen Baucus and Dodd, and countless Senators have worked tirelessly to craft legislation that meets those principles," the president added.
"Just yesterday, a bipartisan group of more than 20 leading health economists released a letter urging passage of meaningful reform and praising four key provisions that are in the Senate legislation: a fee on insurance companies offering high-premium plans, the establishment of an independent Medicare commission, reforms to the health care delivery system, and overall deficit neutrality. The economists said that these provisions ‘will reduce long-term deficits, improve the quality of care, and put the nation on a firm fiscal footing.’ Those are precisely the goals we should be seeking to attain.
"The challenges facing our health care system aren’t new – but if we fail to act they’ll surely get even worse, meaning higher premiums, skyrocketing costs, and deeper instability for those with coverage. Today, thanks to the Senate’s hard work, we’re closer than ever to enacting solutions to these problems. I look forward to working with the Senate and House to get a finished bill to my desk as soon as possible.”
Senator Paul G. Kirk Jr. of Massachusetts, who replaced the late Edward M. Kennedy who had made universal health care his final cause, also praised Reid's bill.
“This is a bill that would make Ted Kennedy proud,” Kirk said in a statement. “We’re a giant step closer to his long-held dream that quality, affordable health care is available to Americans. I’m especially pleased that the bill includes Senator Kennedy’s CLASS Act, so that the elderly and people with disabilities can obtain the support and services they need to continue living at home and participate in their communities.
“I particularly commend Majority Leader Harry Reid, Senator Dodd and Senator Baucus for their extraordinary leadership on this historic legislation, and for doing so in a way that contains costs for families and reduces the deficit over the long run. I look forward to its passage by the Senate.”
Obama, Holder defend 9/11 trial
As Attorney General Eric Holder defended his decision to prosecute Sept. 11 plotters in civilian court in New York, President Obama backed him up in a series of TV interviews today.
Holder testifed this morning before the Senate Judiciary Committee about his call to put confessed mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four co-conspirators on trial in a federal courthouse in the shadow of Ground Zero. The decision has been slammed by Republicans, who have raised concerns about security and who have argued that terrorists should not be treated like criminals.
But Obama said that critics won't find the decision "offensive at all when he's convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him."
"I think this notion that we have to be fearful that these terrorists possess some special powers that prevent us from presenting evidence against them, locking them up and exacting swift justice, I think that has been a fundamental mistake," Obama said on CNN.
Asked whether he would take responsibility if the decision goes wrong, the president replied, "I always have to take responsibility. That's my job."
UPDATE: Republicans aren't giving up their fight on the issue. This afternoon, House GOP leader John Boehner announced he had signed a discharge petition filed by Pete Hoekstra, the senior Republican on the Intelligence Committee, to force a vote on a bill that would stop the transfer or release of terrorists held at the Guantanamo Bay prison into the United States.
“Despite Americans’ strong opposition to importing terrorists held at the Guantanamo Bay prison into the United States, the Obama Administration continues to move forward with their dangerous plans to do so anyway. The ‘Keep Terrorists Out of America Act’ does exactly what the American people want, and they deserve a vote on this common-sense bill," Boehner said in a statement.
“Despite repeated requests from Republicans in Congress, this Administration has refused to present the American people with its plan for what to do with the terrorists held at Guantanamo and for confronting and defeating the global terrorist threat. Right now, there is no evidence that this Administration has such a plan. The American people deserve better. I urge my colleagues, on both sides of the aisle, to listen to the American people and sign the discharge petition.”
Afghans speak out on war
By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff
As President Obama nears a decision on a strategy in Afghanistan, a survey released today by Oxfam America, a Boston-based aid advocacy group, sheds some light on how Afghans view the conflict.
The survey, which compiled interviews with more than 700 men and women across Afghanistan, shows that -- despite suicide attacks and unrelenting bloodshed -- most Afghans believe that previous periods of their country's history are far worse than what they are going through now. (Read the survey here.)
Thirty-eight percent of respondents said that the communist period, which lasted from 1979 to 1992, was the most harmful to the country, while 33 percent called the period under Taliban rule, from 1996 to 2001, the most harmful. Another 22 percent named the time of civil war, from 1992 to 1996, as the worst time, while just 3 percent named the current conflict as the worst time since Afghanistan descended into chaos in 1979.
The study presents a stark picture of the human tragedy that has unfolded in the country over the last 30 years, suggesting that a significant number of Afghans may have suffered from post traumatic stress at one point in time or another. One out of every five respondents reported that they had been tortured at some point by either the Taliban, the mujahadeen, or the communists, while a third said that someone in their family had been imprisoned.
But the report does offer some measure of hope, suggesting that effective aid could bring about lasting change in the country.
Seventy percent of all respondents said they believe that poverty and unemployment is a major factor in the continuing war in Afghanistan, while 48 percent saw corruption as a major factor. Also, 36 percent named the Taliban's actions as a chief cause for the continuing conflict, while only 18% listed the presence of international forces as a major reason that fighting continues.
Obama approval dips below 50 percent
A new poll out today is another red flag for President Obama -- it is the first national survey to put his overall approval rating below the symbolic 50 percent mark.
In the Quinnipiac University survey, 48 percent of registered voters approve of the job Obama is doing, while 42 percent disapprove. But on the economy, 52 percent disapprove of his handling of the issue and only 43 percent approve. And on the Afghanistan war, 49 percent disapprove of Obama's performance and only 38 percent approve.
As worrisome for the White House, those who support him on the economy are not the same respondents who support him on Afghanistan.
"Increasingly, the President finds himself with two different coalitions, one that backs him on domestic matters and a completely different one that backs him on Afghanistan. That could create a challenge to his considerable political skills," Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said in a statement.
Obama also faces gender and racial gaps in support. While 52 percent of women approve his job performance, the poll found, 47 of men do. And while 89 percent of black respondents and 62 percent of Hispanics approve, only 41 percent of whites do. His support also is lower with older and richer respondents.
The survey, conducted Nov. 9-16, has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
Obama, himself, doesn't seem to be worrying too much about his poll numbers.
In an interview with CNN today, he was asked whether he could envision a scenario where he didn't seek reelection in 2012.
"Here's how I think about it," Obama replied. "I said to myself very early on, even when I started running for office, that I don't want to be making decisions based on getting reelected, because I think the challenges that America faces right now are so significant. Obviously, if I make good decisions and I think that I'm moving the country on the right direction economically, in terms of our security interests, our foreign policy, I'd like to think that those policies are continued because they're not going to bear fruit just in four years.
"But, you know, if I feel like I've made the very best decisions for the American people and three years from now I look at it and, you know, my poll numbers are in the tank and, you know, because we've gone through these wrenching changes, you know, politically, I'm in a tough spot, I'll feel all right about myself," he added.
"I'd feel a lot worse if at a time of such urgency for the American people, I was spending a lot of time thinking how can I position myself to ensure reelection, because if I was doing that right now, I wouldn't have taken on health care. I wouldn't be taking on things that are unpopular. I wouldn't be closing Guantanamo. Tthere are a whole series of choices that I'm making that I know are going to create some political turbulence."
And the winner is..
President Obama's grassroots group late this afternoon announced the winner of its health care video contest -- a bunch of cute kids at a playground listing medical problems and saying that they deserve health care.
Organizing for America said it received more than 1,000 entries (some of which are mashed together at the beginning of the YouTube video with the winner) before narrowing them to 20 finalists and picking one.
"The winning video shows that our supporters' creativity and passion is more than a match for the slick ads and partisan spin doctors on the other side. In the next few days, we'll be using this video as the basis for a new television ad that will air across the country -- and you can help, by ensuring we have the resources to make the biggest impact," Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe says in an email to supporters soliciting contributions.
"With Congress wrapping up its last round of negotiations and closely gauging the public's mood in these crucial final weeks, now is the exact time to get this grassroots message out far and wide."
Republicans bash Obama on jobs
The White House and its Democratic allies in Congress are refocusing on jobs. To which Republicans say: It's about time.
"I say you gotta be kidding me. They have for months now been about more spending, leaving a wake of deficits in their trail, and now they want to focus on what’s important," Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the No. 2 Republican in the House, told reporters today.
"Sometimes it is difficult for us to take the other side seriously, but if they are serious we welcome this news. Republicans have been working for months now trying to forge solutions as to how to get Americans back to work. We urge Speaker Pelosi to take into consideration some of the Republican solutions for job creation and look forward to working together so that we can get this economy back on track,” he added.
UPDATE: WASHINGTON -- Continuing his focus on swine flu, Senator Paul G. Kirk Jr. today questioned why it's taking so long to get the vaccine to states.
At a hearing of the Senate homeland security committee, the Massachusetts Democrat noted that there have been about 22 million cases of H1N1 nationwide and 3,900 deaths, including more than 1,500 confirmed cases in the Bay State since April.
State officials said last month that vaccine deliveries were running three weeks behind and that shortages were being reported.
"Many of us are seriously concerned that far more individuals will come down with the virus, and far more lives will be lost, before sufficient quantities of the vaccine arrive," Kirk said in his opening remarks. (His full prepared opening statement is below.)
UPDATE: Representative John Boehner added his criticism, noting that the national debt has passed a mindboggling $12 trillion.
"A $12 trillion national debt is just the latest fallout from Washington Democrats’ unprecedented spending binge. The American people are asking ‘where are the jobs?’ but all they are getting from out-of-touch Washington Democrats is more unsustainable spending and debt to be paid by our kids and grandkids. Instead of taking immediate, bipartisan action to cut spending, Washington Democrats are preparing to double down on their trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’ with a $1.3 trillion government takeover of health care and a promise to address fiscal responsibility sometime next year," he said in a statement.
“The American people deserve better than a government that kicks the can down the road. It is past time for Congress to adopt strict budget caps that limit federal spending on an annual basis, which was a critical plank in the budget alternative Republicans proposed earlier this year.”
Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland, Cantor's Democratic counterpart, said Democrats will try to pass a job-creation plan this year that could include money for highway construction and tax credits for small businesses.
Hoyer told reporters today that it wouldn't be as sweeping as the $787 billion economic stimulus enacted in February, saying, “We need to act in a way that does get to the creation of job opportunities of people in the short term.”
Just before President Obama departed on his Asia trip, he announced a jobs forum to come up with any and all ideas to stem rising unemployment, at 10.2 percent nationally last month.
The White House announced Monday night that the forum will be Dec. 3. “During these difficult economic times, we have a responsibility to consider all good ideas to encourage and accelerate job creation in this country. At the forum next month, I am looking forward to hearing from the private sector, from CEOs and small business owners and from Americans struggling to make ends meet on how we can work together to create jobs and get this economy moving again,” Obama said in a statement.
The White House also announced that the following day, Obama will kick off a "Main Street Tour" in Allentown, Pa., "that will take him to cities and towns across the country over the course of the next few months" to "take the temperature on what Americans are experiencing during these challenging economic times."
Poll: Deep divisions on health bill
Americans remain divided about the health care overhaul and skeptical that it will make their lives better, according to new polling.
In the Washington Post/ABC News survey published today, 49 percent oppose and 48 percent support the proposed changes overall. But tellingly, 52 percent say they expect their own care to become more expensive, and 56 percent say the overall cost of health care in the country increasing. And among the majority of Americans who have insurance, 39 percent believe their coverage will worsen while only 13 percent said they expect it to improve.
On the contentious issue of abortion, 61 percent support banning coverage using public subsidies, but 56 percent say if private money were used to pay for abortions, even insurance for those receiving government aid should be allowed to include coverage.
Meanwhile, a poll conducted for the Associated Press found that Americans prefer taxing the high earners to taxing so-called Cadillac plans to pay for the overhaul bill.
Under the bill passed by the House, there would be a 5.4 percent income tax surcharge on individuals making more than $500,000 a year and couples earning more than $1 million. The poll found 57 percent support a surtax, even it hit individuals making more than $250,000 a year.
The bill passed by the Senate Finance Committee would tax insurance plans costing more than $8,000 annually for individuals and $21,000 for families. The survey found 56 percent opposed to that approach.
UPDATE: A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released this afternoon found 46 percent in favor and 49 percent opposed to the House-passed bill. Those opposed included 34 percent who said the bill was "too liberal" and 10 percent who said it wasn't liberal enough.
Of respondents, 30 percent said that the Senate should make relatively minor changes to the House bill before passing it, 22 percent said the Senate should make major changes, 28 percent said the Senate should start over with a new bill next year, and 18 percent said the Senate should stop working on any major changes to the health care system.
Americans are also divided on whether they believe a health care bill similar to the House version will be passed by Congress this year: 49 percent said it is very or somewhat likely, but 50 percent said it is very or somewhat unlikely.
Obama renews anti-fraud effort
Responding to public outrage, President Obama today announced a financial fraud task force to go after Wall Street crooks and others making illegal gains.
The aim is “to prevent another meltdown from happening,” Attorney General Eric Holder said at a news conference. “We will be relentless in our investigation of corporate and financial wrongdoing.”
The task force will be led by the Justice Department and also include agencies including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Treasury Department, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Obama's executive order can be viewed here.
Markey bullish on China talks
President Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao didn't agree today on much substantial on climate change.
But these days, even goodwill among the two biggest energy producers is apparently cause for hope.
“This agreement shows that economic competition and cooperation are not mutually exclusive, especially when solving the grave threat of climate change is at stake," Representative Edward Markey of Massachusetts said in a statement.
“This significant agreement offers a blueprint for international clean energy cooperation between the U.S. and China, and for the rest of the world. With crucial international climate negotiations in Copenhagen just weeks away, the U.S. and China have proven today that the international community can find common ground on key energy issues," added Markey, co-author of the climate change bill passed by the House in June.
“In just a month, the conventional wisdom on US-Chinese climate politics has been turned on its head, and not a moment too soon. With just days to go before nearly 200 countries meet in Copenhagen to forge a new way forward on climate and clean energy, this agreement shows that the last remaining roadblocks are being pushed aside.”
Poll: 9/11 mastermind should be tried in military court
Two-thirds of Americans disagree with the Obama administration's decision to put the reputed mastermind of the Sept. 11 terror attacks on trial in a civilian court, a new poll says.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released late this afternoon found that 64 percent want Khalid Sheikh Mohammed tried in a military court, while only 34 percent favored a civilian court.
But 64 percent of respondents also said that he can receive a fair trial in civilian court. If he is found guilty, most believe he should receive the death penalty: 59 percent said they generally support capital punishment and want Mohammed executed, another 19 percent said they generally oppose the death penalty but favor it in this case, and 19 percent are generally against capital punishment and also oppose it in this case.
The poll was conducted Friday through Sunday and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Obama worries on hunger report
President Obama reacted with concern about a new report today that suggests hunger in America is at record levels -- and a vow to do something about it.
The US Department of Agriculture reported that in 2008 -- during the start of the worst recession in decades -- nearly 15 percent of US households, about 49 million people, struggled to put enough food on the table, the highest number since the agency began tracking food "insecurity" in 1995.
The number jumped significantly from 11 percent in 2007, and was likely higher this year as the jobless rate rose.
"It is particularly troubling that there were more than 500,000 families in which a child experienced hunger multiple times over the course of the year," Obama said in a statement. "Our children’s ability to grow, learn, and meet their full potential – and therefore our future competitiveness as a nation – depends on regular access to healthy meals.
"My administration is committed to reversing the trend of rising hunger. The first task is to restore job growth, which will help relieve the economic pressures that make it difficult for parents to put a square meal on the table each day. But we are also taking targeted steps to prevent Americans from experiencing hunger.
Among the steps, he said, is increasing benefits and expanding summer feeding programs for children.
His full statement is below:
Measuring, influencing public opinion on health care
There are two interesting developments today in the health care debate as top Senate Democrat Harry Reid tries to get his ducks in a row to start floor debate this week.
First, the Washington Post reports that the US Chamber of Commerce, a leading business group that is trying to build support against the Democratic bills, is soliciting money for a study that could be used to cast the legislation as a threat to the nation's economy. In an e-mail obtained by the Post, the Chamber's senior health policy manager proposes spending $50,000 to hire a "respected economist" to study the bill.
Also, a new poll released by the Associated Press found Americans split almost right down the middle about the health care bill and worried about the fine print.
According to the survey, 43 percent of respondents oppose the health care bill being debated by Congress, while 41 percent support it, and 15 percent remain neutral or undecided.
The poll, conducted by Stanford University with the nonprofit Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, found broad support for President Obama's goals, but concerns about the details to reach those goals. For example, while Americans support a ban on insurers denying coverage because of pre-existing medical problems, when told that such a prohibition would probably increase costs for many, 43 percent said they would still support the ban, but 31 percent said they would oppose it.
GOP still on warpath against health bill
It has been a week since the House passed the sweeping health care bill, but Republicans remain on the warpath against it.
Representative Mark Kirk of Illinois, an Afghanistan war vet, rails against the legislation in the weekly GOP radio-Internet address today.
He says the bill -- approved with only one Republican "aye" -- would increase taxes, would worsen the record federal deficits, would put government in control of health care, and would threaten Medicare.
"In the teeth of the Great Recession, the Pelosi bill would impose ten new taxes on the American economy. The top combined tax rate for my state of Illinois would be four percentage points higher than France," he says. "The Democrat bill levies new taxes on health insurance, income and even pace makers. The bill also cuts health care for seniors – my parents and many of yours – with $500 billion in cuts for Medicare doctors, hospitals and advantage patients. The bill even cuts Medicare for skilled nursing, wheelchairs and hospices.
“In sum, the bill opens a new trillion-dollar entitlement just as our national debt tops $12 trillion. Ignoring the future needs of Social Security and Medicare, the bill creates a new massive spending program, supported by heavy taxes and cuts to senior health care," Kirk adds.
The House Democratic bill does not trim Medicare, itself. But more than 10 million seniors enrolled in an enhanced, private version known as Medicare Advantage -- including 175,000 in Massachusetts -- could see their plans shrink or be replaced with traditional coverage under the health care overhaul plans proposed by Democrats in Congress.
Kirk also outlines the Republican alternative, with a heavy weight on curbing medical malpractice lawsuits, allowing people to take their coverage across state lines, and encouraging states to experiment. That plan, however, would come nowhere close to extending coverage to the millions of Americans without health insurance.
His full address is below, and can be viewed here.
Top White House lawyer exits
The White House this morning announced its most significant staff change to date -- counsel Greg Craig is leaving and Bob Bauer, President Obama's personal lawyer, is replacing him.
Obama issued a statement praising Craig: “Greg Craig is a close friend and trusted advisor who tackled many tough challenges as White House Counsel. Because of Greg’s leadership, we have confirmed the first Latina justice on the Supreme Court, set the toughest ethics standards for any administration in history, and ensured that we are keeping the nation secure in a manner that is consistent with our laws and our values. I’m indebted to Greg not only for leading the Counsel’s office but for his many decades of service to this country as well. He has been a huge asset in the White House, and he will be missed. I will continue to call on him for advice in the years ahead.”
But there have been widespread reports of disenchantment with Craig's handling of issues, most notably Obama's pledge to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center by early next year.
Craig's departure, which follows the announcement earlier this week that White House communications director Anita Dunn is stepping down, appears timed with the declaration this morning by Attorney General Eric Holder that self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Guantanamo detainees will face trial in a civilian federal court in New York, and five other suspects will be tried by military commissions.
That is a key step in plans to close the prison, but Obama is not expected to meet his self-imposed deadline of Jan. 22.
Bauer, a prominent Democratic attorney, will begin serving as White House counsel by the end of this year. He, it turns out, is married to Dunn.
“Bob has served as a trusted counselor for many years to many elected officials and is known as a tough and widely respected advocate,” Obama said in a statement. “Bob is well-positioned to lead the Counsel’s office as it addresses a wide variety of responsibilities, including managing the large amount of litigation the administration inherited, identifying judicial nominees for the federal courts, and assuring that White House officials continue to be held to the highest legal and ethical standards.”
Michelle Obama back on health care
With President Obama abroad, first lady Michelle Obama will take up the health care mantle on Friday with a speech focused on the difficulties older women face getting insurance.
Her office announced today that she will be joined by Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Health Reform Office, and three women who will share their stories. "The event will highlight the important need for health insurance reform to help women access the care they need as they age, and to provide aging adults with affordable, reliable, quality health care," her office said.
The first lady jumped into the fray in a big way for the first time in mid-September, giving a speech on the importance of fixing health care for women.
“If we want to achieve true equality for women, if that is our goal . . . we have to reform the system. The status quo is unacceptable. It is holding women and families back, and we know it,’’ she said at an event sponsored by the six-month-old White House Council on Women and Girls.
Headed abroad, Obama says his eye still on jobs
Before embarking on a week-long tour of Asia, President Obama tried this morning to reassure Americans at home that the economy is recovering -- and that more jobs will soon come with it.
He said that his administration has taken "bold steps to break the back of this recession" and that the economy is "now growing again for the first time in a year," but that there is "not yet the job growth that we desperately need."
"This is one of the great challenges that remains in our economy," he said in a brief statement at the White House.
While there are limits to what government can do or should do, he said, his team will look at "every responsible step."
In the only new wrinkle, Obama announced a December "forum on jobs" to gather those ideas.
(His full remarks are below.)
While unemployment is at 10.2 percent nationally, a quarter-century high, there was a glimmer of hope today. The Labor Department reported that first-time jobless claims dropped to 502,000 last week, the fewest since the first week of 2009.
While foreign policy challenges such as North Korea will be on his agenda, Obama will also be talking about the global economic recovery on his stops in Japan, Singapore, China, and South Korea.
He said he will be pushing for a balanced world economy that is not as dependent on US consumption and borrowing.
The Republican National Committee put it in another light: "Mr. President, meet your creditors," it said in a missive, noting that Asian countries, especially China, are buying US government bonds that enable the federal government to borrow. Obama, the RNC said, is traveling to nations "he plans to borrow billions from in order to finance his reckless big-government experiments, historic deficits."
In this morning's appearance, Obama did not address the other major item on his agenda -- sending more troops to Afghanistan.
He held another war council on Wednesday, but presented with four options, he rejected all of them until he gets more assurances of when US troops would be able to leave Afghanistan. Obama's stance came as word leaked of cables from the US ambassador in Kabul who argued that a US troop surge would only prop up a weak, corrupt central government.
Pro-business group urges rethink on health care
A business-friendly group said this afternoon that on Thursday it will launch a $10 million nationwide TV ad blitz warning against doing too much, too fast on the health care overhaul.
The Employment Policies Institute joins the US Chamber of Commerce and others weighing in against the legislation that Democrats are trying to push through Congress and to President Obama's desk.
The ad -- to air before likely like-minded viewers on Fox News Channel as well as CNN and CNBC -- features June O’Neill, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, arguing that the bill would deepen the national debt and hurt job creation.
"Our country is facing an enormous debt crisis. Many of the plans to reform health care will make this crisis worse. As an economist and former director of the Congressional Budget Office, I’m deeply concerned about these health care reforms," she says in the ad.
"They will add hundreds of billions of dollars to the already $12 trillion national debt. We are paying $500 million a day in interest alone. This growing debt is unsustainable. It will have huge negative effects on jobs, taxes and our economy. Unfortunately, some politicians are using accounting gimmicks to hide the cost of these changes. And many seniors on Medicare will pay the price. Changes are necessary. But I fear these reforms are definitely not the answer."
Americans divided whether Obama 'dithering' on Afghan troop decision
Americans are divided over whether President Obama is taking too long -- "dithering" in the dismissive description of former Vice President Dick Cheney -- to decide whether to send more US troops to Afghanistan, a new poll suggests.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released this morning found that 49 percent believe the president has taken too much time, while 50 percent do not say so.
A slim majority -- 52 percent -- also say that Obama should listen to his top generals, rather than take other matters into account.
If he does follow the recommendation of General Stanley McChrystal, Obama would send another 40,000 troops, on top of the 21,000 he dispatched this year.
But the poll also found that 56 percent of respondents oppose sending more troops, and 58 percent oppose the war in Afghanistan. The survey, conducted Oct. 30-Nov. 1, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
UPDATE: Another poll out today, this one from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, found that a majority, 57 percent, now says the US military effort in Afghanistan is going not too well or not at all well, up from 45 percent in January. And while most continue to support the initial decision to use force in Afghanistan, that percentage has slipped to 56 percent now from 64 percent at the beginning of the year.
The poll also found the public divided over what to do now -- 40 percent say the number of US troops in Afghanistan should be decreased, 32 percent support increasing the number, and 19 percent favor keeping troop levels as they are now.
This afternoon, hours after observing Veterans Day by laying a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery, Obama convened his eighth -- and possibly last -- war council before making his decision.'
His remarks at Arlington are below:
Obama's nuclear tightrope
President Obama leaves Thursday on an extensive diplomatic tour of Asia with a busy schedule of meetings during nine days in Japan, Singapore, China, and South Korea.
But not on his itinerary is a stop in either Hiroshima or Nagasaki, where the US dropped atomic bombs at the end of World War II.
The mayors of the two Japanese cities had invited him, noting that Obama has pledged to pursue a world free of nuclear weapons and was awarded the Nobel Peace Price. But such a visit -- the first by an American president in office -- would be highly controversial and would inflame Obama's critics who accuse him of apologizing too much for the sins of US foreign policy.
Obama, however, did tell Japanese TV network NHK on Tuesday that he would like to eventually go to Hiroshima and Nagasaki sometime during his presidency -- he just couldn't fit it into his schedule this time.
"The memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are etched in the minds of the world and I would be honored to have the opportunity to visit those cities at some point during my presidency," Obama said in the interview.
Obama leads mourning at Fort Hood
President Obama turned today to his role as mourner-in-chief, traveling to Fort Hood in Texas to console victims and their families and to lead a nationally televised memorial service.
The solemn duty -- honoring the 13 people killed and 29 wounded last week, allegedly by a fellow soldier -- is Obama's first such observance since taking office in January.
"We come together filled with sorrow for the 13 Americans that we have lost, with gratitude for the lives that they led, and with a determination to honor them through the work we carry on. This is a time of war. And yet these Americans did not die on a foreign field of battle. They were killed here, on American soil, in the heart of this great state, in the heart of this great American community. It is this fact that makes the tragedy even more painful, even more incomprehensible," Obama told the assembled Army soldiers in uniform, civilians, and dignitaries, after he and first lady Michelle Obama met privately with the families of the dead, then with wounded soldiers and their families.
To honor them, he mentioned each of the dead by name and said a little about them and their stories, speaking on an outdoor stage behind the traditional display of each victim's Army boots, rifle, and helmet, with a framed photo in front.
"These men and women came from all parts of the country. Some had long careers in the military. Some had signed up to serve in the shadow of 9/11. Some had known intense combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, and some cared for those did. Their lives speak to the strength, the dignity, and the decency of those who serve, and that is how they will be remembered," the president said.
"It may be hard to comprehend the twisted logic that led to this tragedy. But this much we do know -- no faith justifies these murderous and craven acts, no just and loving God looks upon them with favor. And for what he has done, we know that the killer will be met with justice -- in this world, and the next," Obama added.
"These are trying times for our country. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, the same extremists who killed nearly 3,000 Americans continue to endanger America, our allies, and innocent Afghans and Pakistanis. In Iraq, we are working to bring a war to a successful end, as there are still those who would deny the Iraqi people the future that Americans and Iraqis have sacrificed so much for," he said on the eve of Veterans Day on Wednesday.
"As we face these challenges, the stories of those at Fort Hood reaffirm the core values that we are fighting for, and the strength that we must draw upon. Theirs are the tales of American men and women answering an extraordinary call -- the call to serve their comrades, their communities, and their country. In an age of selfishness, they embody responsibility. In an era of division, they call upon us to come together. In a time of cynicism, they remind us of who we are as Americans."
Obama used the ceremony to pay tribute to all those in the military, saying they are as valiant and performing as important a duty as the Greatest Generations and others who served before them.
"We need not look to the past for greatness, because it is before our very eyes," he told the soldiers.
"This generation of soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen have volunteered in a time of certain danger. They are part of the finest fighting force that the world has ever known. They have served tour after tour of duty in distant, different and difficult places. They have stood watch in blinding deserts and on snowy mountains. They have extended the opportunity of self-government to peoples that have suffered tyranny and war. They are man and woman; white, black, and brown; of all faiths and stations – all Americans, serving together to protect our people, while giving others half a world away the chance to lead a better life.
"In today’s wars, there is not always a simple ceremony that signals our troops’ success – no surrender papers to be signed, or capital to be claimed," he added. "But the measure of their impact is no less great – in a world of threats that no know borders, it will be marked in the safety of our cities and towns, and the security and opportunity that is extended abroad. And it will serve as testimony to the character of those who serve, and the example that you set for America and for the world."
(His full remarks are below.)
The president's only similar duty was two weeks ago, paying tribute to 18 troops killed in Afghanistan, but that was far less public -- in the middle of the night at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware and witnessed by only a few reporters.
Vice President Joe Biden also had memorial duty today, speaking t Fort Lewis in Washington state at a memorial service for seven soldiers killed on Oct. 27 in Afghanistan. His full remarks are below.
Obama taps foreign aid chief
In a long-awaited decision, President Obama today announced he is nominating the chief scientist at the US Department of Agriculture and a former top official at the Gates Foundation as the nation's top foreign aid official.
If confirmed, Rajiv Shah will be administrator of the United States Agency for International Development.
Paul Farmer, the renowned public health pioneer at Harvard, had also been believed to be under consideration.
“The mission of USAID is to advance America’s interests by strengthening our relationships abroad. Rajiv brings fresh ideas and the dedication and impressive background necessary to help guide USAID as it works to achieve this important goal," Obama said in a statement. "I am grateful for all that USAID has accomplished under the leadership of Acting Administrator Alonzo Fulgham, and the thousands of career men and women who fulfill USAID’s mission day in and day out – particularly their hard work in jumpstarting a landmark initiative to bring more than $20 billion for agriculture development to the world's most food-insecure countries. I look forward to working with Rajiv in the months and years ahead.”
Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John F. Kerry and the committee's senior Republican, Richard Lugar, welcomed the nomination.
“I have been very concerned about the lack of political leadership at USAID, especially in the face of critical foreign policy, humanitarian and development priorities in places like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Sudan," Kerry said in a statement. "I also believe having an Administrator will bring significant momentum to foreign aid reform. I look forward to a thorough nomination process.”
“For development to play its full role in our national security structure, USAID must be a strong agency with the resources to accomplish the missions we give it,” Lugar added. “The issues that we face today – from chronic poverty and hunger to violent acts of terrorism – require that we work seamlessly toward identifiable goals. I look forward to discussing ways to improve and support the development mission that benefits our long-term security as we proceed with the confirmation process.”
Clinton gives pep talk on health care
By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- Former President Bill Clinton, who has painful personal experience with failure on health care reform, urged Senate Democrats this afternoon to get a bill passed.
"It's not important to be perfect. It's important to move. The worst is to do nothing,'' he said after a private luncheon.
The former president didn't specifically discuss his failed effort in 1993-94, senators in the lunch said afterwards. It was more of a pep talk, he said.
"He was upbeat. Positive with every chromosome in his body,'' said Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat.
Kerry warns against revisionist Vietnam history
Senator John F. Kerry, who came to national prominence when he testified before Congress as a Vietnam war hero turned anti-war activist, is now warning against those pushing for a troop surge in Afghanistan by asserting that the same could have turned the tide in Vietnam.
"Let me be clear: more than 58,000 American troops died because they were sent into battle based on false assumptions, flawed goals, and faulty strategies. Yes, we adopted smarter tactics near the end, but by then the die was cast. History has definitively branded Vietnam for the mistake it was—no one should believe that the deaths of nearly 60,000 Americans and at least 1.5 million Vietnamese were somehow not quite enough," Kerry, who is now chairman of the same committee he addressed in 1971, writes in the Nov. 16 issue of Newsweek magazine.
The Massachusetts Democrat, who is among those cautioning President Obama against sending the full allotment of 40,000 additional US troops sought by the top commander in Afghanistan, says there are some similarities with Vietnam.
"We are once again fighting an insurgency in a rural country with a weak central government," he writes. "Once again, our enemy blends in with the local population and finds sanctuary in a neighboring country. Once again, the danger of being perceived as an occupying force by a war-weary population remains perilous."
But he says it is dangerous to draw too many parallels with Afghanistan -- a "very different country -- vastly different history, culture, and geography—in a different era."
"The main lesson that Obama must absorb from Vietnam is the necessity to explain our goals in Afghanistan, and to choose clear and realistic strategies to meet them," Kerry adds.
"I pledged to myself long ago to be informed by Vietnam, not imprisoned by it," he concludes. "The easiest way to make a mistake is to tolerate a debate that sells our country short. In the case of Afghanistan, politics has reduced a difficult mission in a complex country to a simple, headline-ready 'yes or no' on troop numbers. What we need is a realistic assessment of our strategy, military and civilian combined. One of the architects of the Vietnam War, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, confessed decades later that he knew victory was no longer possible well before the American death toll had reached half its eventual total. He offers a horrific lesson that the time to voice concerns is now."
The full piece is available here.
Biden touts job efforts, GOP scoffs
Vice President Joe Biden heads to Michigan today to talk up the Obama administration's efforts to boost the economy.
He will meet with Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm to discuss jobs, which are in short supply in a state where the recession started earlier than much of the country and where the unemployment rate is still the nation's highest.
UPDATE: According to the press pool report, Biden told a Democratic fund-raiser that the stimulus package and other economic programs are "working," but "we've got a long way to go."
But Biden said at least Democrats "get it" and want to make investments in energy and infrastructure that will grow the economy in the long term, while Republicans are "betting on us to fail."
Echoing the president, Biden also said it's easy to forget "just how horrible things were back in January," according to the pool report.
"This was an economy built on a bubble. The rules were being made by the cowboys on Wall Street."
Biden is being greeted by a radio ad from the Republican National Committee. (Listen to it here.)
“Back in February the Obama administration promised the so-called stimulus would bring much-needed jobs to Michigan. Nine months later, 178,000 more Michiganders have lost their jobs bringing unemployment to 15.3 percent – the highest in the entire country, and our nation’s employment rate now exceeds 10 percent," RNC Chairman Michael Steele said in a statement. "More than anything the people of Michigan need jobs, yet Vice President Biden and Michigan Democrats Mark Schauer and Gary Peters are spending their time fundraising. It’s time for the Democrats to make their constituents a priority and start working to bring jobs back to Michigan.”
Lone GOP vote for health bill draws attention
While the 39 Democrats who voted against the health care bill have received quite a bit of notoriety, the lone Republican who supported it is getting his share of attention.
Representative Anh Cao, a freshman from New Orleans, is a Vietnamese-American who represents a largely African-American district that had been the fiefdom of Democrat William Jefferson, was under indictment when Cao ousted him last November.
Cao said he decided vote aye after a call from President Obama on Saturday, a conversation during which he sought assurances of more federal aid for Hurricane Katrina recovery. A devout Catholic, Cao also wanted the language that was added further restricting abortion services from the bill.
"I felt last night's decision was the proper decision for my district even though it was not the popular decision for my party," Cao told CNN on Sunday. "A lot of my constituents are uninsured, a lot of them are poor. It was the right decision for the people of my district."
Cao also responded to Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, who after last week's election threatened to "come after" lawmakers who didn't toe the party line.
"He has the right to come after those members who do not conform to party lines, but I would hope that he would work with us in order to adjust to the needs of the district and to hold a seat that the Republican party would need," Cao said.
Obama goes to Walter Reed, postpones Capitol Hill stop
President Obama's schedule puts him squarely in the middle of the two biggest stories in Washington.
One stop on his itinerary, the White House insists, had been previously scheduled, though it is quite appropriate. This afternoon, he makes his first visit as commander-in-chief to Walter Reed Army Medical Center to talk to the war wounded -- a day after an Army psychologist reportedly upset about being deployed to the war zone killed 13 and injured 31 at Fort Hood in Texas.
Speaking in the Rose Garden, Obama said he has been briefed on the ongoing investigation.
"We don't have all the answers yet, and I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts," he said.
But what is known is that families are grieving for the victims, he said. So Obama issued a proclamation ordering flags flown at half-staff until sunset on Tuesday, with Veterans Day following the next day. (Read the proclamation here.)
"We honor their service and stand in awe of their sacrifice," the president said. (His full remarks are below.)
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said later that Obama will attend a memorial service for those killed at Fort Hood.
The service will be scheduled at the convenience of victims' families and the president's attendance could delay a 10-day trip to Asia that is scheduled to start Wednesday, Gibbs said.
UPDATE: According to the press pool report, Obama spent about 1 hour, 45 minutes at Walter Reed, about 40 minutes more than scheduled, but did not say anything to reporters afterwards.
During the private visit, a White House spokesman says, Obama visited 19 soldiers, three families of soldiers in intensive care, and hospital staff. He also awarded two Purple Hearts for combat injuries.
The Walter Reed visit follows by a week his middle-of-the-night trip to Dover Air Force Base to honor 18 Americans killed in Afghanistan in one of the bloodiest days for US forces in that eight-year conflict.
Obama had also been scheduled to sweep onto Capitol Hill today to buck up his House allies on the eve of a major vote Saturday on the health care overhaul.
But the White House announced late Thursday night that he has postponed his trip until Saturday -- right before the vote -- which suggests how thin the margin might be as Democratic leaders try to round up 218 votes.
Obama skipping Berlin Wall ceremony
President Obama announced this afternoon that he is dispatching Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to represent the US at the 20th anniversary Monday of the fall of the Berlin Wall -- the symbolic end of Soviet dominance over Eastern Europe and the Cold War.
But his absence is not sitting well with some conservatives.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich wrote today that while some consider Obama's decision "an outrage, I consider it a tragedy.
"To commemorate, after all, is to remember," the Georgia Republican said in an op-ed published in the Washington Examiner. "And Americans need to remember, not just that the Wall fell, but why it fell. We need to remember that the Berlin Wall was the symbol of more than just the Cold War, more than just the division of Europe. It was the symbol of an evil ideology that denied human dignity, denied truth, and respected only power. When the Wall fell, truth and human dignity, in a rare moment in the 20th century, triumphed over power.
"The message of human dignity that led to the toppling of the Berlin Wall twenty years ago is a true message of hope rooted in the spiritual nature of man and the freedom to know God," Gingrich concluded. "And so it is a true shame that the President of the United States - this man who cloaks himself in the rhetoric of hope - won't be pausing to remember."
Obama's schedule next week, however, is getting complicated. He is supposed to leave Wednesday on a 10-day tour of Asia, but he has also committed to attend the memorial service for the victims of the massacre at Fort Hood in Texas, which could also be next week.
The others in the official US delegation are Philip D. Murphy, the US ambassador to Germany; Brent Scowcroft, former national security adviser to Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush; and Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter.
GOP jumps on jobless rise, Obama signs benefits extension and asks for patience
Republicans are using the new unemployment numbers out today to pummel President Obama and the Democrats on their record on the economy -- the top issue for voters in Tuesday's election that gave the GOP the governor's offices in New Jersey and Virginia.
The Labor Department reported that the national jobless rate has exceeded 10 percent for the first time since 1983. The rate rose to 10.2 percent last month from 9.8 percent in September. Nearly 16 million people can't find jobs, and counting those who have settled for part-time jobs or stopped looking for work, the rate would be 17.5 percent, the highest on records dating from 1994.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele again attacked the $787 billion economic stimulus package, whose benefits cited in Obama administration reports have come under scrutiny.
"Since President Obama’s inauguration, the nation has watched the unemployment rate continue to climb, and unfortunately the month of October was no different," Steele said in a statement. "With so many families looking for work, it is time the Obama administration stop spreading their phony ‘saved or created’ talking points and start creating the dependable jobs America needs. President Obama promised jobs during his campaign for president, and the elections in Virginia and New Jersey on Tuesday were a clear referendum on his failure to deliver on this promise.”
And Representative Eric Cantor, the second-ranking Republican in the House, cited the new numbers to argue against the health care overhaul that House Democrats plan to push through as soon as Saturday.
"As unemployment tops 10 percent this holiday season, Republicans have put jobs and the economy first, and are focused on developing real solutions that will put Americans back to work. Increasing taxes on small business, as Democrats will do to pay for government run health care, is the wrong approach. Instead, we should work to empower small businesses to hire more workers, not penalize them further, costing even Americans their jobs," Cantor said in his statement.
“Americans, particularly those with friends, neighbors, and family out of work, are pleading with leaders in Washington to focus on jobs and the economy. From coast to coast, people are concerned with the direction that Washington is heading, and are tired of the spending, tired of the waste, and are pleading for their leaders to focus on jobs and the economy. With millions of Americans desperately seeking work, I ask the President put the economy first, and sit down with Republicans to develop bipartisan solutions that will change the direction of this economy and get people working again.”
Obama this week has touted his administration's efforts to rebuild the economy, while at the same time warning that unemployment would continue to rise until the recovery takes hold.
Today, Obama did sign an extension of jobless benefits -- 14 more weeks for those who have used up their benefits or will do so by the end of the year about 2 million nationwide, including as many as 40,000 in Massachusetts. Those in states such as Massachusetts where the jobless rate is 8.5 percent or above get an additional six weeks. It is the fourth such extension in the past 18 months. (The White House release on the bill is below.)
In a Rose Garden appearance this morning after signing the bill, Obama said the "sobering" jobless numbers underline the "economic challenges ahead."
He noted that the economy grew in the third quarter, but that "job growth always lags behind economic growth."
Obama vowed not to let up on creating jobs and said his administration is looking at additional incentives, tax cuts for businesses, and more measures to free up credit.
He said while it "will take time and patience," he's confident the economy will recover and the country is headed in the right direction. (His full remarks are below.)
Responding to the new numbers, the White House issued a statement this morning from Christina Romer, chairwoman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, putting the best spin on them.
“Today’s employment report contained both signs of hope for recovery and painful evidence of continued labor market weakness," she said.
"Payroll employment declined 190,000 in October, continuing the steady trend of moderating job loss that began last spring. Furthermore, the employment loss in both August and September was revised down substantially. Importantly, employment in temporary help services, typically one of the first industries to see job gains, increased by 33,700. The motor vehicle industry also posted employment gains. These are hopeful signs that the unprecedented policy actions are working to stabilize the economy and put us on a path toward recovery.
"The unemployment rate, however, rose four-tenths of a percentage point, to 10.2 percent. That this occurred despite the rise in real GDP last quarter reflects both the typical lag between GDP growth and unemployment decline, and the recent exceptional increases in productivity. Having the unemployment rate reach double-digits is a stark reminder of how much work remains to be done before American families see the job gains and reduced unemployment that they need and deserve.”
Poll: Majority says health bill not ready
As House Democrats prepare to push through their health care overhaul this weekend, a new poll suggests that most Americans aren't satisfied with the sweeping measure and want Congress to keep working on it.
In the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released this morning, 33 percent of respondents said they wanted Congress to pass the final legislation only after "major changes" are made, another 24 percent said Congress should start from scratch and seek passage next year, and 15 percent said Congress should stop work on an overhaul altogether.
Only 26 percent said they wanted Congress to proceed with only minor changes to the proposals.
The poll also found 55 percent in favor of the public option -- a government-run plan to compete with private insurers -- though that support was down from 61 percent two weeks ago. Support for President Obama's health care plan has also declined to 45 percent from 49 percent in mid-October.
And the poll found that health care is far behind the economy in importance to Americans -- and that gap has grown in the past two weeks. Now, 47 percent rank the economy as the most important issue facing the nation, compared to 17 percent for health care -- a 30-percentage-point difference compared to 21 percentage points two weeks ago.
The new survey was conducted Oct. 30 to Nov. 1 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Obama addresses Army base shooting
President Obama urged Americans this afternoon to keep the men and women of Fort Hood in their prayers after a "horrific outburst of violence" at the sprawling Army base in Texas.
He said he will make sure all questions will be answered about the shooting rampage at the deployment readiness center. The death toll rose overnight to 13, with 31 wounded. The suspected shooter, an Army major and psychologist, was shot but survived, contrary to early Army reports that he had been killed.
"We will make sure that we get answers to every single question about this horrible incident," the president said.
"It's difficult enough when we lose these brave Americans in battles overseas. It's horrifying that they should come under fire at an Army base on American soil," Obama added in a brief statement during remarks he had been previously scheduled to deliver at the close of a summit of Native American leaders. (His full remarks are below.)
UPDATE: Vice President Joe Biden also issued a statement this evening: “Jill and I join the President and Michelle in expressing our sympathies to the families of the brave soldiers who fell today. We are all praying for those who were wounded and hoping for their full and speedy recovery. Our thoughts and prayers are also with the entire Fort Hood community as they deal with this senseless tragedy.”
The US House and Senate both observed a moment of silence for the shooting victims.
FULL ENTRYHealth care fight heats up
The political jockeying is ramping up as the House prepares to vote on its sweeping health care bill as soon as Saturday.
Not a single Republican is expected to vote for the Democratic bill, which would cost $1.2 trillion bill over 10 years, require employers to insure their employees, and prohibit insurance companies from dropping coverage for sick people.
Instead, House Republicans are promoting their own belated bill -- including in a marathon online town hall today -- that focuses far more on cutting costs than covering uninsured Americans.
(Democrats, meanwhile, issued a dismissive slap at the online town hall. "We're planning a twelve second town hall to explain every last detail of the GOP health care plan," Democratic National Committee spokesman Hari Sevugan said in a statement. "According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the Republican 'plan' would do no nothing to stop insurance companies from denying care to Americans with pre-existing conditions or other profit protecting practices, do less to reduce the deficit and leave more people without insurance than there are today. They might as well call it the Do Nothing Act of 2009.")
House GOP Leader John Boehner is bragging about an independent analysis by the Congressional Budget Office that says the Republican health care plan will lower premiums by as much as 10 percent and reduce the federal deficit by $68 billion over 10 years.
“When it comes to reforming health care, controlling skyrocketing costs is the American peoples’ top priority. Now CBO has confirmed that the Republican plan will lower health care costs for American families, and that’s good news for everyone struggling in today’s economy. The choice now could not be clearer: Speaker Pelosi’s plan raises costs. Our plan lowers them," Boehner said in a statement.
“Not only does the GOP plan lower health care costs, but it also increases access to quality care – including for those with pre-existing conditions – at a price our country can afford. The cost of the Speaker’s bill, now at $1.3 trillion and counting, is a debt that will be paid for by our kids and our grandkids. The American people deserve a better solution, and Republicans’ smart, fiscally-responsible plan gives them exactly what they want."
Boehner, however, does not mention that the CBO analysis found that the Republican plan would only decrease the number of uninsured Americans by about 3 million by 2019, leaving about 50 million without coverage. The Democratic bill, by contrast, would cover an estimated 96 percent of Americans.
UPDATE: Also, thousands of protestors, many of them "tea party" anti-tax activists, are holding a rally outside Congress in opposition to the Democratic bill and President Obama's plan. They say it would extend government control over health care and lead to higher taxes.
Speaking to the rally, Boehner called the Democratic health care bill "the greatest threat to freedom" he had seen in his 19 years in Congress.
He warned that it would lead to a government takeover with bureaucrats making health care decisions.
"I'm going to stand with you and all freedom-loving Americans," he said, holding up a copy of the Constitution and reading from the preamble about the "right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
According to the Associated Press, protestors' signs included one that said "Waterboard Congress," along with echoes of the rallying cry at August town halls with lawmakers, "Vote no to government-run health care."
One protester carried a placard reading, "Bury Obamacare with Kennedy," a reference to Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, who died of brain cancer in August and who called universal health care the cause of his life.
A liberal-labor coalition is rebutting the GOP plan with a new TV ad that slams it as a bill to protect insurance company profits.
"This just in: Republicans in Congress have introduced the Health Insurance Industry Profits Protection Act," the announcer says in the ad from Americans United for Change.
"The Republican bill lets insurance companies continue denying care for preexisting conditions," the announcer continues in the faux newscast. "Republicans will still let insurers raise premiums four times faster than wages. And health care will remain unaffordable for most Americans."
"Well folks, it looks like when it comes to health care, the party of no is now, the party of no change."
The AARP, a powerful lobby for seniors, officially announced its endorsement today of the House Democratic bill, despite concerns about potential cuts for members enrolled in Medicare "plus" plans.
The group, however, focused on the provisions that it says will "curb insurance companies’ discrimination against older Americans and Medicare improvements that strengthen benefits while protecting the program for future generations."
“Our goals have always been to make health coverage more affordable for our younger members, those aged 50 to 64, and to protect Medicare for seniors,” Deborah Banda, AARP Massachusetts state director, said in a statement. “Having reviewed the Affordable Health Care for America Act, we believe it meets these goals by improving benefits for people in Medicare – including closing the Medicare prescription drug coverage gap, the dreaded “doughnut hole” – and making health insurance market reforms to help ensure affordable health coverage for every American.”
Obama highlights AARP, AMA endorsements
President Obama, in a surprise appearance during the regular press briefing, bragged this afternoon about the support for the Democratic health care bill by the AARP and the American Medical Association, saying the endorsements bring reform closer than ever.
"This is no small endorsement," he said of the AARP support, saying it should rebut criticism that the proposals would hurt seniors.
"We're thrilled they're standing with us," Obama, who plans to visit Capitol Hill on Friday in support of health reform, told reporters.
The AMA's backing is also important, he said, because "the doctors of America know what needs to be fixed with our health care system." (His full remarks are below.)
The AMA backed the Democratic bill, plus a companion bill that would shield doctors from cuts in Medicare reimbursements.
"The time to make health system reform a reality is now,” J. James Rohack, AMA president, said in a statement. "These two bills were introduced together, and they need to be passed together. Both are essential to achieving meaningful health system reform this year."
While the health bill is "not perfect," on balance it "is consistent with our principles of pluralism, freedom of choice, freedom of physician practice and universal access," he added. "It will significantly expand health insurance coverage to Americans to empower patient and physician decision making; institute meaningful insurance market reforms; make substantial investments in quality; institute prevention and wellness initiatives; provide incentives to states that adopt certificate of merit and/or early offer liability reforms, and reduce administrative burdens."
Earlier today, the AARP officially announced its endorsement despite concerns about potential cuts for members enrolled in Medicare "plus" plans.
The group, however, focused on the provisions that it says will "curb insurance companies’ discrimination against older Americans and Medicare improvements that strengthen benefits while protecting the program for future generations."
“Our goals have always been to make health coverage more affordable for our younger members, those aged 50 to 64, and to protect Medicare for seniors,” Deborah Banda, AARP Massachusetts state director, said in a statement. “Having reviewed the Affordable Health Care for America Act, we believe it meets these goals by improving benefits for people in Medicare – including closing the Medicare prescription drug coverage gap, the dreaded “doughnut hole” – and making health insurance market reforms to help ensure affordable health coverage for every American.”
Obama reaches out to Native Americans
President Obama, addressing a rare gathering of leaders of all 564 federally recognized Native American tribes, pledged this morning to give them full access to America's opportunities and get their relationship with the federal government "right."
Opening the White House Tribal Nations Conference, where each recognized tribe was invited to send one representative, Obama said his election a year ago promised "meaningful change for those too long excluded from American dream" -- and that Native Americans were perhaps the most marginalized of all.
While the tribal leaders are right to be skeptical given the bloody history, Obama said he will make sure they have the ear of top administration officials who will work with them on issues such as unemployment.
After all, he noted, he is an adopted Native American. In May 2008 while campaigning for president, Obama became the first candidate to visit the Montana reservation of the Crow Nation and was adopted under the Crow name "One Who Helps People Throughout the Land." In the ceremony, he was escorted by his adoptive parents, Hartford and Mary Black Eagle.
"Only in America could the adopted son of Crow Indians could become president of the United States," Obama said today.
His full remarks, plus exchanges with tribal leaders, are below:
FULL ENTRYObama tries to rally supporters
Exactly one year since his historic election, President Obama sent a video message today to his grassroots supporters, telling them that they put him in office, thanking them for their dedication since, but warning that they have much more work to do.
"Victory alone was not the change we sought, it was only the chance for us to make that change," he says.
His campaign manager David Plouffe elaborates in an email to Organizing for America accompanying the video: "One year ago today, you made history.We all knew that electing Barack Obama President was only the opportunity to bring about change; that we would all have to keep working to fulfill the promise our victory offered.
"And you've come through -- by making hundreds of thousands of calls to Congress to push health reform forward, by pouring your effort into seemingly insurmountable challenges time and again, and, since January, by building on the power of our campaign to create Organizing for America. And now, with the finish line on health reform in sight, we need your voice more than ever before," Plouffe implores.
Study: Parallels between 1994 and now on health care
By Lisa Wangsness, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- Americans' opinion of the health care proposals now before Congress is eerily similar to public opinion of the Clinton health reform initiatives in 1994, according to an analysis published in the New England Journal of Medicine today -- and that may not bode well for Democrats.
In theory, Americans think the health care system needs to be fixed and they like many of the ideas Democrats are promoting. But they don't like the specific proposals taking shape because they do not think they will benefit them personally.
The report, an in-depth look at more than 30 polls conducted this fall and during the same period in 1994, when the Clinton health reform effort was gasping its last breaths, was co-authored by Robert J. Blendon, a Harvard professor and a leading specialist on health care and public opinion whom congressional leaders of both parties have consulted.
Critics are likely to point out that it is impossible to compare the two periods -- in the fall of 1994, Clinton had been president for a year longer than President Obama has now. Obama has had much more cooperation from Congress than Clinton has had, thanks partly to a difference in strategy. Obama allowed Congress to handle the details of the lawmaking process, while Clinton created resentment among lawmakers by employing a secretive process within the executive branch.
At this time in 1993, the parallel point in the Clinton presidency, Clinton had not yet even introduced bills; this time, five congressional committees have passed legislation, and all of the bills approach the problem of how to insure nearly 50 million Americans without coverage in basically the same way.
But Blendon's analysis hones in on a key point that Democrats are likely to pay increasing attention to, particularly after this week's elections put them on notice that voters remain deeply concerned about the economy and restless with their political leadership.
A year after election, Obama focuses on schools
Speaking one year to the day he was elected, President Obama this afternoon used the anniversary to call for "a national mission" to improve public education and build it into a pillar -- along with an overhauled health care system and clean energy jobs -- of the new economy.
"One year ago, Americans all across this country went to the polls and cast ballots for the future they wanted to see. Election Day was a day of hope, it was a day of possibility, but it was also a sobering one because we knew even then that we faced an array of challenges that would test us as a country. We had a financial crisis that threatened to plunge our economy into a Great Depression, the worst we had seen in generations. We had record deficits, two wars, frayed alliances around the world," Obama said at Wright Middle School in Madison, Wisc.
He said his administration has saved the economy from "imminent collapse" and is now moving ahead on its second core obligation -- to rebuild the economy stronger than before.
"It was an obligation to tackle the festering problems that had been kicked down the road year after year, decade after decade; problems that have to be overcome America to move forward," Obama said. "....That’s why we’ve been pushing so hard on health care reform. That’s why we’re taking up the cause of a clean energy economy that will free America from the grip of foreign oil and generate millions of good-paying jobs in the process.... And that’s why we’re taking up the cause that I’m here to talk about today – that is offering the best possible education to America’s sons and daughters."
He listed some of public schools' woes: falling behind the rest of the world in math and science education, lowering standards for students, and the achievement gap continuing for African-American and Latino students.
"Of course, these problems aren’t new. We’ve heard about them for years. But instead of coming together to solve them, we’ve let partisanship and petty bickering stand in the way of progress. It’s been Democrat versus Republican, vouchers versus better public schools, more resources versus more reform. This status quo has held back our children, it has held back our economy, and it has held back our country long enough. It’s time to stop just talking about education reform and start actually doing it," Obama said.
To that end, he formally announced $4 billion in "Race to the Top" grants available to competing states that commit to real reforms that focus on teaching kids, raising standards, developing good teachers, and, when necessary, taking over or closing struggling schools.
Straying off his prepared speech, Obama said it's up to parents to instill in their children the desire to learn -- and told about his own daughters to make the point.
He said his elder daughter, 11-year-old Malia, came home recently from the swanky Sidwell Friends private school with a 73 on a science test -- far less than the 90 percent goal. She then got a 95 on the next one, but more importantly had learned a lesson, Obama said: "I just like having knowledge,' that's what she said."
Obama's full remarks are below:
Reading the tea leaves from Tuesday
The highest-profile elections around the country on Tuesday anointed obvious winners and losers, but the races also brought some collateral political damage.
While Republicans celebrated their wins for governor in New Jersey and Virginia, the White House is licking its wounds.
It had basically written off Democrat Creigh Deeds, who was beaten badly by Republican Bob McDonnell in Virginia, where the electorate that turned out on Tuesday looked far different than the one that a year ago made President Obama the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state since 1964.
But the White House invested more in New Jersey, where incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine was ousted by Republican Chris Christie despite several appearances by President Obama and an effort by his grassroots organization to rekindle the magic of 2008.
And in both New Jersey and Virginia, exit polls suggested that many of the independent voters who flocked to Obama went toward Republicans.
UPDATE: White House spokesman Robert Gibbs gave its spin today, insisting that the New Jersey and Virginia results reflected "very local issues that didn't involve the president."
Voters were worried about the economy, Gibbs told reporters, adding, "I don't think the president needed an election or an exit poll to come to that conclusion."
Predictably, Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele sought to make the most out of the wins. He noted that it was the first time since 1997 that Republicans had swept the races for governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general in Virginia. "The Republican Party’s overwhelming victory in Virginia is a blow to President Obama and the Democrat Party. It sends a clear signal that voters have had enough of the president’s liberal agenda," Steele said in a statement.
Steele saw even more import in the New Jersey result: “In a state that overwhelmingly voted in favor of President Obama, this stunning defeat of Corzine sends a clear message to Democrats across the country. Americans have grown sick and tired of big government and reckless spending, and this vote is a sound rejection of the far-left policies that are hurting our nation. While the White House sent their political machine to New Jersey in full force – President Obama and Vice President Biden each campaigning in the state 3 times – even that was not enough to convince voters to ignore the realities of their harmful liberal agenda. I fully expect this trend to continue in the coming months, and President Obama and Democrats should have reason to fear the upcoming elections in 2010.”
His Democratic counterpart, Tim Kaine, downplayed the results and their national significance. "In both Virginia and New Jersey we had strong candidates who were running against a significant historical tide and faced uphill battles from the start of this campaign. In New Jersey, the party in power in the White House hasn't won the governor's office since 1985 and the party in power in the White House hasn't won the governor's office in Virginia since 1977. It would have been historic if not unprecedented to win one or both of these races given historical trends," Kaine said in a statement. "These races turned on local and state issues and circumstances and on the candidates in each race - and despite what some will certainly claim - the results are not predictive of the future or reflective of the national mood or political environment."
But in the special congressional election in upstate New York, Bill Owens became the first Democrat to win in more than a century -- after Republican fratricide that exposed deep divisions in the party.
The official GOP candidate withdrew from the race at the last minute because conservatives including Sarah Palin backed third-party Conservative Doug Hoffman. Palin and those others who bucked the GOP are now out on the limb.
Democrats argued that election would have more meaning going forward.
“This election represents a double-blow for national Republicans and their hopes of translating this summer’s ‘tea party’ energy into victories at the ballot box," Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen said in a statement. "Not only did eight extreme right-wing groups spend more than $1 million to drive the moderate Republican – and the NRCC’s chosen candidate – out of the race. Now, after losing a seat that was held by Republicans for nearly 120 years, they have to deal with an emboldened and well-funded far right-wing that refuses to tolerate moderate Republicans with differing opinions."
Obama reaches out to Iran
President Obama, trying to use diplomacy to defuse the standoff with Iran over its nuclear program, today marked the 30th anniversary of the event that ruined relations with the US -- the hostage crisis at the US embassy in Tehran.
"This event helped set the United States and Iran on a path of sustained suspicion, mistrust, and confrontation," Obama said.
In his statement, Obama said he is reaching out to the Iranian regime, but it must now respond in kind for relations to improve.
"I have made it clear that the United States of America wants to move beyond this past, and seeks a relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran based upon mutual interests and mutual respect," he said. "We do not interfere in Iran’s internal affairs. We have condemned terrorist attacks against Iran. We have recognized Iran’s international right to peaceful nuclear power. We have demonstrated our willingness to take confidence-building steps along with others in the international community. We have accepted a proposal by the International Atomic Energy Agency to meet Iran’s request for assistance in meeting the medical needs of its people. We have made clear that if Iran lives up to the obligations that every nation has, it will have a path to a more prosperous and productive relationship with the international community."
"Iran must choose," the president continued. "It is time for the Iranian government to decide whether it wants to focus on the past, or whether it will make the choices that will open the door to greater opportunity, prosperity, and justice for its people."
His full statement is below:
White House: No swine flu shots for Gitmo detainees
The White House is trying to nip in the bud a budding controversy over terrorism detainees at Guantanamo Bay getting swine flu vaccine sooner than many Americans.
"There is no vaccine in Guantanamo, and there's no vaccine on the way to Guantanamo," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters today.
He directly contradicted a spokesman at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, who had said that guards and then detainees were set to receive the vaccinations later this month.
Pressed on that apparent conflict in stories, Gibbs replied, "I don't know what the Pentagon said," and reiterated that there would be no vaccine for the detainees.
The prospect set off Obama administration critics, who noted that with suppliers behind on delivering the vaccine, Americans have been lining up for the inoculations.
"I don't think it's a good idea," the top House Republican, Representative John Boehner of Ohio, said on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday.
"The administration probably didn't think it would be very popular either; that's why they announced it on Friday night," Boehner added.
Gibbs defended the administration's efforts to defend the nation against the H1N1 virus.
"Obviously, the president is frustrated that there's anybody that is in one of these groups, at a high-risk group, that is having trouble getting the vaccine now, and we're making progress on getting more and more of that vaccine each day," Gibbs said at his regular daily press briefing.
Obama's poll numbers dropping
President Obama's overall approval rating is still at a healthy 54 percent, but a new poll suggests some weakness on major issues.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released this morning shows his approval rating down from 58 percent in the same poll in mid-September.
More worrisome for the White House, the poll numbers have flipped from majority approval to majority disapproval on the economy (54 percent disapproval now, 54 percent approval in September), health care policy (57 percent disapproval now, 51 percent approval then), and the war in Afghanistan (56 percent disapproval now, 49 percent approval in August.)
On the economy, while some macro numbers are improving, unemployment continues to rise and some economists fear a jobless recovery is in the offing.
On health care, while Congress is moving in fits and starts to approving a bill that Obama can sign, the onslaught of criticism continues unabated -- both from conservatives who see it as big government, and from liberals disappointed that there isn't a stronger public option.
And on Afghanistan, while Obama decides whether to send more US troops, casualties have increased, a beleaguered Afghan president won a disputed election in a walkover, and critics are questioning why the president is taking so long.
CNN's polling director noted that Obama's overall approval rating is nearly identical to the 53 percent of the vote he won a year ago, as his his approval rating among nearly every demographic group. But he is less popular among conservatives than the share of their vote he won, and more popular among liberals.
The new survey, conducted Friday through Sunday, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Obama, Republicans battle over economy
As the White House declares that the economy is moving from crisis into recovery, President Obama meets this morning for the second time with his big-name advisory group "to discuss long-term, innovation based ideas to sustain growth and continue to create jobs of the future."
The Economic Recovery Advisory Board, named in November, includes CEOs of major corporations and union leaders.
UPDATE: "We have come a long way since January, when at that time we were losing 700,000 jobs per month and across the political spectrum I think there was fear of the possibility of another Great Depression," Obama said during the meeting.
"We have pulled the economy back from the brink. We got good news last week showing that for the first time in over a year the economy was actually growing once again. And we have seen some other indicators that manufacturing is beginning to pick up. That's all good news and we are pleased that the actions that we took swiftly through the Recovery Act helped to stem what could have been a disastrous situation for the economy and we are starting to see stabilization and, indeed, some improvement," he added.
"But the reason we're here today is because we just are not where we need to be yet," he said. "We've got a long way to go. We are still seeing production levels that are significantly below peak levels and most distressing is the fact that job growth continues to lag. Now, we all know that in every economic recovery there is going to be a lag between the economy growing again, businesses investing again and businesses hiring again. But given the severity of the job losses that took place at the beginning of the year and the need for us to make up a whole lot of job loss, is going to require I think some bold, innovative action on our part and on Congress's part and on the private sector's part." (His full remarks are below.)
But as the administration touts the third quarter GDP growth and the nearly 650,000 jobs it says have been saved or created by the $787 billion stimulus package, Republicans are continuing to criticize. They question the job numbers, point out that many of them are government positions rather than private-sector ones, and note that the unemployment rate continues to rise.
This morning, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, a potential Obama rival in 2012, said that "the stimulus that the president and the Congress passed is not what's helped the economy."
Instead, Romney said on "The Early Show" on CBS, the economy is rebounding because the private sector has regained its footing on its own.
FULL ENTRYObama: Economy is less scary
President Obama wishes Americans a Happy Halloween -- and says that the latest numbers show the economy is getting far less scary.
In his weekly radio-Internet address today, Obama highlights the gross domestic product report earlier in the week that showed the economy growing at 3.5 percent.
"It is easy to forget that it was only several months ago that the economy was shrinking rapidly and many economists feared another Great Depression," the president says.
But he is quick to acknowledge "economic growth is no substitute for job growth." "And we will likely see further job losses in the coming days, a fact that is both troubling for our economy and heartbreaking for the men and women who suddenly find themselves out of work," he warns.
To stem those losses, Obama says the administration has taken steps to free up credit, prevent foreclosures, and cut taxes. He also touted the $787 billion economic stimulus package, asserting that "it is clear that the Recovery Act has now created and saved more than one million jobs. That’s more than a million people who might otherwise be out of work today – folks who can wake up each day knowing that they’ll be able to provide for themselves and their families."
Republicans would dispute that number, but Obama says it shows the country is back on the right track and building a more solid economy.
"I want to emphasize that there’s still plenty of progress to be made," he adds. "And positive news today does not mean there won’t be difficult days ahead. As I’ve said many times, it took years to dig our way into the crisis we’ve faced. It will take more than a few months to dig our way out. But make no mistake: that’s exactly what we will do."
UPDATE: House Republican leader John Boehner's response: “The ingenuity of hard-working Americans will be the engine of economic growth and a prosperous future. But the Administration’s claims about its trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’ just don’t pass the straight-face test. Americans were promised that it would keep unemployment from going above 8 percent, and would start working immediately. Neither have turned out to be true. No one is buying the latest claim that it created or saved 1 million jobs – a claim the Vice President acknowledged is not accurate. It’s time to get to work on policies that get our economy moving again and that don’t saddle our children and grandchildren with mountains of debt, taxes and unsustainable spending.”
Obama's full address is below and can be viewed here.
Obama did have middle-of-night call
Top aides to President Obama say that, yes indeed, he did have that 3 a.m. phone call that then-rival Hillary Rodham Clinton warned he couldn't handle.
Before the Texas Democratic primary last year, Clinton aired a provocative TV ad that showed children sleeping peacefully and asking voters who they would trust to deal with a middle-of-the-night crisis.
Senior adviser David Axelrod, communications director Anita Dunn, and press secretary Robert Gibbs told CNN that it happened in April, when Obama was in Prague and North Korea tested a long-range missile.
"I think it was about 4:00 in the morning we were in there and we then discussed that and I went to wake him up and he soon joined all of us in getting intelligence briefings from in the room as well as back in D.C.," Gibbs said.
"He came in, sat down, got a read up on the military people, got on the line with Secretary Gates, General Cartwright I think. And then he says, 'OK. Here’s what we’re going to do -- bing, bing, bing,' " Axelrod continued.
Obama, who condemned the test, didn't go back to sleep. Instead, he went to the gym.
The interview is scheduled to air in full on Monday, but CNN released excerpts today.
Debate over stimulus rages
The Obama administration said this afternoon that more than 640,000 jobs have been saved or created under President Obama's economic stimulus plan at state and local governments, nonprofit groups, and universities.
The 640,329 are in reports covering approximately $160 billion, which represents a little less than half of the funds spent through Sept. 30. Counting jobs linked to $288 billion in tax cuts, White House officials say the $787 billion stimulus plan has already created or saved more than 1 million jobs.
“These reports are strong confirmation that the Recovery Act is responsible for over one million jobs so far and we are on-track to create and save 3.5 million jobs through the Recovery Act by the end of next year. This is another encouraging sign of progress following yesterday’s news that the economy has begun to grow again for the first time in more than a year, but the President and I will not be satisfied until monthly reports show net job growth. We are working every day to create more jobs and we will continue to report on our progress doing so with the Recovery Act in the same transparent way we did today,” Vice President Joe Biden, who is overseeing the stimulus, said in an event with Governors Arnold Schwarzenegger, the California Republican, and Martin O’Malley, the Maryland Democrat.
The official numbers were posted late this afternoon on the website of the independent board overseeing the stimulus. The state-by-state breakdown can be viewed here.
A separate report released today by Jared Bernstein, Biden's chief economist, asserted that the new data confirms the administration is on-track to meet its goal of creating and saving at least 3.5 million jobs by next year. The report also found that the states with the highest unemployment rates nationwide reported 25 percent more jobs created and saved per capita than the nation as a whole.
The government numbers include 23,533 jobs that officials say were retained as a result of spending $1.9 billion in federal stimulus money over the past eight months in Massachusetts. Governor Deval Patrick announced that estimate on Wednesday, but then on Thursday announced he would eliminate nearly 1,000 state jobs to help close a $600 million budget gap.
But the Republican National Committee is aggressively disputing the numbers, citing an Associated Press report this week that an earlier stimulus status report had overstated the jobs numbers.
"Today's release from the White House will be the fourth job report in the last two months," it said today. "With a pattern of these White House 'jobs created or saved' reports being published in close proximity to releases of real data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (showing continuing job loss and rising unemployment), it is clear the Obama administration is trying to cover up economic reality by manufacturing job numbers out of thin air."
Obama lifts AIDS travel ban
President Obama announced today that his administration is lifting travel restrictions into the country for those with HIV/AIDS.
"Twenty-two years ago, in a decision rooted in fear rather than fact, the United States instituted a travel ban on entry into the country for people living with HIV/AIDS. Now, we talk about reducing the stigma of this disease -- yet we've treated a visitor living with it as a threat. We lead the world when it comes to helping stem the AIDS pandemic -- yet we are one of only a dozen countries that still bar people from HIV from entering our own country," Obama declared, before signing a bill extending the HIV/AIDS treatment act named for Ryan White, who was diagnosed with AIDS at 13 in 1984 and died in 1990. The bill provides medical care, medication, and support services to about 500,000, mostly poor, people.
"If we want to be the global leader in combating HIV/AIDS, we need to act like it. And that's why, on Monday my administration will publish a final rule that eliminates the travel ban effective just after the New Year. Congress and President Bush began this process last year, and they ought to be commended for it. We are finishing the job. It's a step that will encourage people to get tested and get treatment, it's a step that will keep families together, and it's a step that will save lives."
(His full remarks are below.)
The travel ban, imposed 22 years ago, will be lifted in January, according to a final regulation that will be published Monday, Obama said.
Similar restrictions are in place in about a dozen countries to protect public health. But Obama said the travel ban unnecessarily reinforces the stigma of AIDS.
Senator John F. Kerry, who co-authored legislation that the Senate passed last year to lift the ban, praised Obama's decision, asserting that the 1987 provision baring HIV-positive individuals from travelling or immigrating to the US covered doctors and experts, as well as refugees seeking asylum despite the lack of scientific evidence supporing the ban as an effective tool for disease control.
“Today a discriminatory travel and immigration ban has gone the way of the dinosaur and we’re glad it’s finally extinct. It sure took too long to get here,” Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement. “We’ve now removed one more hurdle in our fight against AIDS, and it’s long overdue for people living with HIV who battle against stigma and bigotry day in and day out.”
“At long last, our nation’s unjust policy of excluding HIV-positive visitors and immigrants has ended,” added Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, in a statement issued by Kerry's office. “We applaud the leadership of our allies in Congress, especially Senator Kerry, and of President Obama and Secretary Sebelius in bringing this discriminatory chapter of our history to a close.”
Romney's stake in Tuesday's races
Mitt Romney's name won't be on the ballot -- and neither will President Obama's -- but both have something at stake in the battles for governor in New Jersey and Virginia next Tuesday.
Romney has campaigned and raised money for the Republican candidates, and Obama has done the same for the Democrats in what some are viewing as a one-year referendum on the president.
Today, Romney sent an email to supporters of his Free and Strong and America PAC, soliciting last-minute contributions. "A donation today can help achieve strong conservative wins in the critical states of Virginia and New Jersey and will give us the momentum we need to take back the House and Senate in 2010," he wrote.
"This is our time. Polls show that we continue to gain strength, but we cannot back down," he continues. "I am doing all I can to stand up for what we believe, but I can't do it alone."
Romney, who sought the GOP presidential nomination last year and is potential contender in 2012, has staked quite a bit of his influence on how Bob McDonnell does in Virginia and Chris Christie fares in New Jersey. The former Massachusetts governor has done more for McDonnell, who is ahead of Democrat Creigh Deeds in the polls, than for Christie, who trails incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine.
UPDATE: Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele also expressed confidence in the New Jersey and Virginia races today, issuing a memo giving an extremely rosy view of the party's prospects going forward.
"Just one year ago, many political pundits had written the epitaph of the Republican Party. They claimed the nation had undergone a fundamental realignment from the center-right of the political spectrum toward the Democrats, and that the GOP had become nothing but a regional party – at best," he told supporters.
"Today, Republicans have begun to reestablish the trust of voters on a majority of issues; and, I am proud to say are turning an important corner and are moving forward with strength."
Steele's full memo is below:
In solemn ritual, Obama sees war's toll
Wrestling with whether to send more US troops to Afghanistan, President Obama saw the war's cost first-hand early this morning on a bleak, blustery tarmac in Delaware.
Obama saluted and honored 18 Americans killed this week -- one of the bloodiest of the deadliest month for US forces in the eight-year war -- as they returned home at Dover Air Force Base.
The 18 flag-draped transfer cases contained the bodies of seven soldiers and three Drug Enforcement Agency agents killed in a helicopter crash Monday and eight soldiers killed when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb Tuesday.
UPDATE: "Obviously it was a sobering reminder of the extraordinary sacrifices that our young men and women in uniform are engaging in every single day -- not only our troops, but their families as well. And so Michelle and I are constantly mindful of those sacrifices," Obama told reporters this afternoon.
"And obviously the burden that both our troops and our families bear in any wartime situation is going to bear on how I see these conflicts. And it is something that I think about each and every day."
According to the press pool report, Obama, wearing a dark suit and topcoat against the night chill, arrived at Dover with a delegation of senior officials, including Attorney General Eric Holder.
From Marine One, the president first took a motorcade to a base chapel, where he met privately with families of the killed. Then, Obama and his party boarded the mammoth C-17 cargo plane, where a prayer was led by an Air Force chaplain. They walked down the plane's rear ramp, and stood in a line at the base.
Reporters were allowed to witness Obama participating in the solemn transfer ritual for Army Sergeant Dale R. Griffin of Terre Haute, Ind., whose family consented to media coverage. Obama stood at attention at the base of the plane’s loading ramp as Griffin’s family arrived. Obama saluted as six Army soldiers wearing white gloves carried the flag- draped transfer case from the plane to a waiting vehicle. As it drove away, Obama saluted again.
The unannounced trip -- Obama left the White House about 11:30 p.m. Wednesday and didn't return until nearly 5 a.m. today -- was the first time a commander in chief has met returning casualties since Bill Clinton in 1996 met the body of his Secretary of Commerce Ronald Brown, who was killed in Europe.
Earlier this year, Obama reversed an 18-year-old policy barring media coverage of returning war dead.
The 18 honored by the president did not include Captain Kyle R. VanDeGiesen, 29, of North Attleborough, a Marine helicopter pilot who was one of four Marines killed in a second helicopter crash in Afghanistan on Monday.
The politics of the economy
The politics of jobs numbers will be on full display the rest of the week.
The White House is crowing about the Commerce Department report this morning that the US economy grew by 3.5 percent in the third quarter, the highest growth rate in two years and the strongest sign yet that the worst recession since the 1930s is done.
The growth was fueled by consumers spending money on cars and homes provided in large measure by Obama administration programs. But many economists believe that the growth rate will slow as the impact wanes from the $787 billion economic stimulus package.
“Data released today by the Commerce Department show that real GDP grew at an annual rate of 3.5 percent in the third quarter of the year. This is in stark contrast to the decline of 6.4 percent annual rate just two quarters ago. Indeed, the two-quarter swing in the rate of growth of 9.9 percentage points was the largest since 1980. Analysis by both the Council of Economic Advisers and a wide range of private and public-sector forecasters indicates that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 contributed between 3 and 4 percentage points to real GDP growth in the third quarter. This suggests that in the absence of the Recovery Act, real GDP would have risen little, if at all, this past quarter,” the White House said in a statement.
“After four consecutive quarters of decline, positive GDP growth is an encouraging sign that the U.S. economy is moving in the right direction. However, this welcome milestone is just another step, and we still have a long road to travel until the economy is fully recovered. The turnaround in crucial labor market indicators, such as employment and the unemployment rate, typically occurs after the turnaround in GDP. And it will take sustained, robust GDP growth to bring the unemployment rate down substantially. Such a decline in unemployment is, of course, what we are all working to achieve.”
Republicans, meanwhile, are highlighting an Associated Press report that the initial job numbers from the stimulus package have been overstated by thousands. The AP said some jobs credited to the stimulus program were counted two, three, four or even more times.
While the administration claimed that federal contracts awarded to businesses under the recovery plan already had helped pay for more than 30,000 jobs, the AP said its limited review found the number was overstated at the very least by nearly 5,000, or one in six.
The story gave more ammunition to Republicans who argue that the stimulus has been a flop.
But the White House quickly issued a lengthy response.
"“This story draws misleading conclusions from a handful of examples. It looks at only a small portion of the data – an initial upload of data representing just two percent of Recovery Act spending – that was made publicly available before a full review of its accuracy could be done. Virtually all of the errors found by the AP had already been found by our review, and were already corrected in an update to be loaded onto Recovery.gov this week," said Ed DeSeve, a senior adviser to the president in charge of the stimulus package.
"Tomorrow, more than 100,000 recipient reports will be posted on Recovery.gov. Unlike the small number of reports reviewed by AP, these reports have been reviewed for weeks, errors have been spotted and corrected, and additional layers of review by state and local governments have further improved the data quality. As a result, whatever problems the early and partial data had, the full data to be posted on Friday will provide the American people with an accurate, detailed look at the early success of the Recovery Act,” he added in a statement.
The full White House statement is below:
Obama taps intelligence advisers
President Obama today is naming two former senators -- one Democrat and one Republican -- to lead his intelligence advisory board.
David Boren of Oklahoma and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska will be co-chairmen of the board, which reports directly to the president as an independent source of advice on intelligence matters including the quality, quantity, and adequacy of intelligence activities; the effectiveness of organization structure, management, and personnel; and the performance of federal agencies.
“I’m very pleased that these two distinguished Americans have agreed to serve as co-chairmen of my Intelligence Advisory Board,” Obama said in a statement released by the White House. “They have been leading voices on intelligence and security issues, and they represent the bipartisan consensus for a strong and smart national security policy. They have my full support, will report to me, and will have the full cooperation of my National Security Council staff and the organizations represented here.”
“I appreciate the privilege and opportunity that President Obama has given me to co-chair the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board,” Hagel said. “I look forward to working on behalf of our country to help build a more secure America. I am particularly grateful to participate in this effort with former Oklahoma Senator and Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman David Boren. His distinguished record of accomplishment and experience will provide strong and enlightened leadership for the Board. Working with Senator Boren and the other impressive members of the board we will make every effort to provide thoughtful, informed and independent advice to the President and his team.”
Boren said in a statement, “I am honored by the president’s appointment to co-chair the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board. I appreciate the opportunity the president has given me to help in the effort to strengthen our national security. I’m especially pleased that former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, for whom I have great respect, will serve as the other co-chair. It is my hope that together, with the other members of the board, we can give candid, thoughtful, and nonpartisan advice, which will be helpful to the country. This part time advisory role, which is uncompensated, will in no way alter my plans to remain as president of the University of Oklahoma. I see this appointment as a chance to perform my duty as a citizen to serve our country.”
Their full remarks at the meeting are below:
GOP calls for probe into donors access to White House
Republicans are jumping all over a published report today that President Obama -- despite all his talk of cleaning up Washington -- is marketing VIP access to the White House to big campaign donors.
"During his first nine months in office, President Obama has quietly rewarded scores of top Democratic donors with VIP access to the White House, private briefings with administration advisers and invitations to important speeches and town-hall meetings," the Washington Times reported today.
"High-dollar fundraisers have been promised access to senior White House officials in exchange for pledges to donate $30,400 personally or to bundle $300,000 in contributions ahead of the 2010 midterm elections, according to internal Democratic National Committee documents obtained by The Washington Times. Top donors described in interviews with The Times how they were given a birthday visit to the Oval Office and allowed use of a White House-complex bowling alley for their family. Bundlers closest to the president were invited to watch a movie in the red-walled theater in the basement of the presidential mansion."
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele responded in a statement calling for an investigation and for the White House to release the names of the selected donors.
“Bill Clinton turned the White House into a hotel and coffee shop. Now President Obama has turned the White House into a full service resort complete with amenities for the highest Democrat bidder," Steele said.
"The seriousness of this issue requires an immediate investigation looking into the degree and details of fundraising efforts between the White House and DNC, whether there was any quid pro quo offered to donors, and the names of White House officials who were involved in such activities. The White House should also immediately release the names of donors who have accessed these perks or received special briefings from administration officials. Candidate Obama pledged to clean up the muddy waters of Washington, but President Obama has jumped in head first.”
A White House spokesman said that many donors given access were also longtime Obama family friends and, that given the millions of contributors to Obama's campaign, it wasn't surprising that some visited the White House.
"Contributing does not guarantee a ticket to the White House, nor does it prohibit the contributor from visiting," Dan Pfeiffer, the White House's deputy communications director, told the Times.
UPDATE: Asked about the report at his daily briefing today, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs asserted that the administration is the most transparent in history, noting that it will soon start disclosing the names of almost every visitor to the White House.
He joked that the only person he knew who had received special access to the White House bowling alley was his son, who had the bumpers down and was chowing down on chicken.
McCain to Obama: Send troops now
Senator John McCain, President Obama's Republican foe last year, has largely supported his rival since the election.
But now, the Vietnam War hero and Iraq troop surge supporter is putting increasing pressure on Obama to send more troops to Afghanistan -- and do it soon.
The president has held six war councils and counting to decide the strategy going forward, and some expect him to wait on deciding on his top commander's request for as many as 40,000 additional troops until after the Nov. 7 Afghan presidential run-off election.
But McCain said on "The Early Show" on CBS this morning that the war policy in Afghanistan "has been reviewed time and again" and it's time to act because the long delay "is not helpful to our effort" and is frustrating military commanders and making allies nervous.
And in an op-ed posted online on CNN today, McCain calls on Obama to move as quickly as possible to grant General Stanley McChrystal's request for additional troops.
McCain notes that he supported the Afghanistan strategy that Obama laid out in March, when he announced his decision to dispatch 21,000 more US troops. And the senator also stresses that he backed Obama's appointment of McChrystal as the top US commander on the ground -- so the president should listen to the general now.
"I agree with our commander's assessment of the security situation as 'deteriorating' and that our civilian and military leaders urgently need more resources, including more combat troops, to turn the tide toward success," McCain writes. "I sympathize with our president, because sending men and women into harm's way is the most difficult decision that a commander-in-chief must make. However, Americans are already serving in harm's way in Afghanistan, and the sooner we can provide the reinforcements and resources they need, the safer and more successful they will be."
(Read the full opinion piece here.)
Deja vu for Obama
It's like President Obama is starring in his own version of "Groundhog Day."
His schedule today sounds an awful like his itinerary on Friday -- talk up his clean energy proposals and try to boost a Democratic candidate for governor.
On Friday, he called for America to be a leader in alternative energy at a speech at MIT in the morning, and followed up in the afternoon with a fund-raiser for Governor Deval Patrick, who faces what looks like a tough re-election fight next year.
Today, he announced $3.4 billion in federal grants for "smart" power grid and other energy efficiency projects during a visit to Florida Power & Light Co.'s DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center, the largest photovoltaic electricity facility in the country. (The White House release is below.)
With an array of solar cells behind him, Obama said the current power grid wastes too much energy and is too susceptible to blackouts.
Mentioning President Dwight D. Eisenhower's push for the interstate highway system, the president said it's time to make the same kind of investment in the power grid, asserting that it would save consumers and create jobs. (His full remarks are below.)
UPDATE: Senators John F. Kerry and Paul Kirk announced this afternoon that six Massachusetts communities and companies will receive a total of $36 million in smart grid grants from the economic stimulus package.
“These investments will make our electricity delivery system more efficient, give us more control over power surges and reduce the amount of energy we use,” Kerry said in a statement. “I’m grateful that the Obama Administration recognizes the benefits of investing in these projects.”
Then, Obama followed up this afternoon with a rally for Creigh Deeds, the Democrat running for governor in Virginia. (The president's prepared remarks at the rally are below.)
But there's a big difference -- while Patrick has until next year to recover in the polls, Deeds only has until next Tuesday.
In advance of today's rally at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., the Democratic National Committee said it has launched a new Facebook ad highlighting Obama's support for Deeds.
But a Washington Post poll released Monday said that Deeds trails Republican Bob McDonnell by 55 percent to 44 percent margin. And Obama might not be able to help Deeds much -- the poll also found that seven in 10 respondents say the president -- who remains relatively popular with an approval rating of 54 percent among likely voters -- won't be a factor in their vote one way or the other.
Also, McDonnell's campaign announced that the former Virginia attorney general raised more than $4 million in the first 21 days of October and finished the reporting period with $1.8 million in available cash.
Poll: support growing for public option
Public support for a public option in health care appears to be growing, according to a new poll.
The NBC/Wall Street Journal survey found that 48 percent support a government-run plan to compete with private insurers and 42 percent oppose it -- the strongest support ever in the survey. Last month, opinion was basically divided with 46 percent in favor and 48 percent against.
The new poll, conducted Thursday through Sunday, has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.
The top Senate Democrat, Harry Reid of Nevada, revived the possibility of a public option being in the final bill by announcing Monday that he would include one in the version he plans to bring to the full Senate -- albeit with a big exception in that states would be able to opt out.
But at the same time, Reid's move might have cost him a vote of a Senate moderate.
The Associated Press is reporting that Senator Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent who caucuses with Democrats, is saying that while he's "strongly inclined" to vote to bring Reid's health care plan to the Senate floor for debate, he would ultimately vote no because it includes a public option.
Lieberman told the AP that he's worried a public option would be costly to taxpayers and drive up insurance premiums.
UPDATE: But Lieberman told Politico that he would join a Republican filibuster if the bill includes a public option.
"We're trying to do too much at once," Lieberman told Politico. “To put this government-created insurance company on top of everything else is just asking for trouble for the taxpayers, for the premium payers and for the national debt. I don’t think we need it now."
And Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine, the only Republican to support any of the health bills so far, is saying she would vote with fellow Republicans to block the Democratic bill if changes are not made to the version that Reid outlined, the AP reports.
Counting Lieberman, Democrats control 60 votes -- just enough to overcome a possible GOP filibuster -- so Snowe's vote could be crucial.
Democrats, labor sound populist call
A populist economic message -- and perhaps a little class warfare -- is alive and well today among Democrats and their allies.
In Washington, Senators John F. Kerry of Massachusetts and Max Baucus of Montana and Representatives Richard Neal of Massachusetts and Charles Rangel of New York introduced bills today that would crack down on wealthy Americans and businesses that hide assets in offshore tax havens.
"A small number of individuals and businesses hide their assets overseas solely in order to shirk their responsibilities, even as the vast majority of hard-working Americans honor the obligations of citizenship and fulfill their responsibilities," President Obama said in a statement cheering them on.
“Shortly after taking office, I laid out a set of proposals to crack down on illegal overseas tax evasion. The legislation introduced today would fulfill that promise, putting a stop to billions of dollars worth of abuses. I look forward to working with Congress to turn these proposals into law so that honest Americans no longer shoulder the burden of the few individuals and businesses that put profit before responsibility,” the president added.
Meanwhile in Chicago, the AFL-CIO is protesting outside the convention of the American Bankers Association.
"We're gathered here today to send a message to the bankers meeting inside, and the message is this: Business as usual is over. We are shutting it down. You work for us-not the other way around," AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka said. "Your job is to be stewards of our savings-to put and keep working families in homes, to lend the money companies need to create jobs. And you have failed. You've turned the American economy into your own private casino, gambling away our financial future with our money, driving us to the brink of a second Great Depression, then sticking out your hand for taxpayers to bail you out."
His full prepared remarks are below:
Reid backs public option
After weeks of uncertainty, the top Senate Democrat announced this afternoon that he wants to include a government-run option as part of the health care overhaul, though it's not clear he has the votes to get it through the Senate.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said at a news conference that he favors the contentious public option, which is included in the versions passed by the Senate health committee and three House panels but not the one from the Senate Finance Committee, according to several media organizations.
"While the public option is not a silver bullet, I believe it's an important way to ensure competition and to level the playing field for patients with the insurance industry," Reid said.
Reid threw his support behind a version that would allow states to opt out of offering government-run coverage to compete with private insurers. Under his proposal, states would have until 2014 to do so.
"Under this concept, states will be able to determine whether the public option works well for them and will have the ability to opt out, if they so choose," Reid said. "I believe that a public option can achieve the goal of bringing meaningful reform to our broken system. It will protect consumers, keep insurers honest and ensure competition."
But the opt-out will not please liberal Democrats, who say the public option should be available nationwide and is essential to keeping the insurance industry honest.
President Obama has said he prefers a public option, but is not demanding it as part of a bill he could sign.
Reid said the bill that goes to the Senate floor will also include a provision for nonprofit co-ops as another option for affordable coverage.
He said he is sending his proposal -- which combines elements of the Senate Finance and Senate health bills -- to the Congressional Budget Office for an analysis of how much it would cost. He and Obama are aiming for a plan that comes in at $900 billion over 10 years or less.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs issued a statement on Obama's behalf congratulating Reid, Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, and Senate Christopher Dodd, who shepherded the health committee bill.
“Thanks to their efforts, we’re closer than we’ve ever been to solving this decades-old problem," Gibbs said. "And while much work remains, the President is pleased that at the progress that Congress has made. He’s also pleased that the Senate has decided to include a public option for health coverage, in this case with an allowance for states to opt out. As he said to Congress and the nation in September, he supports the public option because it has the potential to play an essential role in holding insurance companies accountable through choice and competition.”
Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, a Finance Committee member, also applauded Reid for including a public option.
“This is big news, and it’s very good news. Majority Leader Reid is taking the gutsy and appropriate road in fighting for the right policy, something the American people want and an issue on which every Senator should be held accountable," Kerry said in a statement.
"That’s why I voted for it in the Finance Committee and why I’ve advocated for it since day one. Leader Reid has laid out a plan that is reasonable and fair and will help achieve quality, affordable healthcare for all Americans. Ted Kennedy once told me there were many ways to arrive at health care reform, and he always knew that the first step was in finding every possible avenue to fight for the best policy. That’s the tradition the Majority Leader is carrying on today.”
Obama, Kerry plot Afghan strategy
President Obama and his point man in Congress for foreign policy are both focusing on Afghanistan today.
Obama met this morning with his national security team to discuss US policy in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan as pressure builds on the president to decide on his top commander's request for as many as 40,000 more troops.
The White House said expected attendees included Vice President Joe Biden (via videoconference), Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, National Security Adviser General James Jones, Deputy National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, counterterrorism adviser John Brennan, and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.
They met as word comes from Afghanistan that 14 American military members and civilians were killed in two helicopter crashes.
This afternoon, Obama traveled to Jacksonville, Fla., where he will speak to and meet with sailors and Marines.
UPDATE: In his speech at Naval Air Station Jacksonville, Obama did not give any significant hints on his Afghanistan decision. But he did mention that debate as he pledged anew not to send US forces into combat unless absolutely necessary.
"While I will never hesitate to use force to protect the American people or our vital interests, I also promise you this -- and this is very important as we consider our next steps in Afghanistan: I will never rush the solemn decision of sending you into harm’s way," he said. "I won’t risk your lives unless it is absolutely necessary. And if it is necessary, we will back you up. Because you deserve the strategy, the clear mission, the defined goals and the equipment and support you need to get the job done. That’s the promise I make to you."
Instead, the president spent most of his address thanking the sailors and Marines for their service, mentioning the loss of 14 Americans in separate helicopter crashes in Afghanistan.
"You are the best-trained, best-prepared, best-led force in history. You -- our people -- are our most precious resource," he said.
"We were reminded of this again, with today’s helicopter crashes in Afghanistan. Fourteen Americans gave their lives. And our prayers are with these service members, their civilian colleagues and the families who loved them. And while no words can ease the ache in their hearts today, may they find some comfort in knowing this: like all those who give their lives in service to America, they were doing their duty and they were doing this nation proud."
Obama also promised to make sure members of the military are taken care of when they return home.
"We’re improving care for our wounded warriors, especially those with Post-Traumatic Stress and Traumatic Brain Injuries. We’re funding the Post-9/11 GI Bill to give you and your families the chance to pursue your dreams. And we’re making the biggest commitment to our veterans -- the largest percentage increase in the VA budget -- in more than 30 years," he said.
"These are the commitments I make to you; the obligations that your country is honor-bound to uphold. Because you’ve have always taken care of America, and America must always take care of you. Always."
(His full remarks are below.)
About an hour after Obama's strategy session began this morning, Senator John F. Kerry delivered a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations entitled “Afghanistan: Defining the Possibilities” to examine the way forward for US strategy in Afghanistan.
Kerry was on the ground in Afghanistan and Pakistan during a seven-day trip that ended last Wednesday and that culminated in the Senate Foreign Relations chairman playing a key role in persuading Afghan President Hamid Karzai to accept a Nov. 7 runoff election that US officials hope provides legitimacy to the Afghan government.
In his speech, Kerry said that the Afghanistan debate has been oversimplified and that Obama is right to take his time to decide what to do next.
"With certainty, we all know why we invaded Afghanistan. It was not a mistake to go in. We now have to choose a smart way forward so that no one is ever compelled to ask whether we've made a mistake in staying," he said.
"The easiest way to make a mistake, frankly, is to tolerate a debate that sells our country short. In recent weeks, politics has reduced an extraordinarily complex country and mission to a simple, headline-ready “yes or no” on troop numbers. That debate is completely at odds with reality. What we need, above all, what our troops deserve-- and what we haven’t had-- is a comprehensive strategy, military and civilian combined.”
Kerry said that he believes the troop request by General Stanley McChrystal is too expansive. “I am convinced from my conversations with General Stanley McChrystal that he understands the necessity of conducting a smart counterinsurgency in a limited geographic area. But I believe his current plan reaches too far, too fast. We do not yet have the critical guarantees of governance and development capacity. I also have serious concerns about the ability to produce effective Afghan forces to partner with, so we can ensure that when our troops make heroic sacrifices, the benefits to the Afghans are clear and sustainable.”
The senator also hit back at former Vice President Dick Cheney, who said last week that the White House was "dithering" and endangering US troops by taking so long to decide.
"After eight years of neglecting Afghanistan as vice president, Dick Cheney has now come out of retirement to criticize President Obama for taking time to examine assumptions before sending troops into war, this from the man who in 2002 told America, quote, 'The Taliban regime is out of business permanently.' I think this is one time I wish Dick Cheney had been right, but tragically, he wasn't, and he isn't today, and that's why we have to make the tough choices about Afghanistan now," Kerry said.
"Make no mistake: Because of the gross mishandling of this war by past civilian leadership, there are no great options for its handling today. One American officer captured well our lack of a strategy when he said, We haven't been fighting in Afghanistan for eight years. We've been fighting in Afghanistan for one year eight times in a row. That is our inheritance."
His full speech is below:
FULL ENTRYCantor: Bipartisan deal still possible on health care
The No. 2 Republican in the House says there's still daylight for a bipartisan deal on health care.
But what Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia says the GOP would support falls far short of what Democrats and the White House want -- making even more clear how deep and wide the partisan divide is on health care.
"Given the heated rhetoric and sharp partisan divides that have characterized this year's debate, it's easy to forget that there are several key reforms in health care that Democrats and Republicans can agree on," Cantor says in an opinion piece published online on CNN.
He says both parties agree on providing more affordable health coverage, especially for Americans who change jobs; barring insurers from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions; and going some distance on medical malpractice reform.
"Congress can accomplish the dual goals of improving the quality of care in America and trimming the ranks of the uninsured if we focus on what Democrats and Republicans can agree on, rather than on our differences. It's not too late for the majority to change course," he writes.
But Cantor says Democrats' proposals for a public option -- a government plan to compete with private insurers -- is a "poison pill" that would guarantee Republican opposition. And he accuses Democrats of a bill that "dishonestly resorts to a host of budget gimmicks to give the veneer of deficit neutrality over the next decade."
Liberals push Obama on public option
Liberals are trying to intensify their pressure on President Obama for a full-fledged public option as part of the health care overhaul.
The Progressive Change Campaign Committee has a petition, website, and a new TV ad urging Obama to insist on a government-run plan to compete with private insurers -- and to stop kowtowing to Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine, the only Republican to support the health reform bill so far. She has made clear the most she would support is a public option "trigger" that would go into effect only if private insurers don't provide coverage and cut costs.
The petition, YesWeStillCan.org website, and ad all seek to remind Obama of his campaign pledges that attracted a huge grassroots groundswell that put him in the White House.
In the TV spot, an activist notes that Maine went heavily for Obama last November and that polls show a majority of Maine residents support a public option. "We worked hard for it," the activist says. "We worked hard for you."
The petition echoes, "Every day, insurance companies deny care and let people die. Getting one Republican senator's vote is not worth delaying reform -- too many real lives are at stake. We need you to fight and state clearly that anything less than a strong public option is not change we can believe in."
And Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, criticizes Obama for not putting more pressure on top Senate Democrat Harry Reid for a public option and for telling his grassroots Organizing for America group last week that they should be happy with the bill that doesn't include the government plan. "Understand that the bill that you least like in Congress right now. The one you least like, of the five that are out there, would provide 29 million Americans health care," the president lectured.
Green retorts: "Yay insurance for 29 million people -- by mandating they buy insurance from rip-off artists with no choice of a public option!"
"Here's what the White House needs to understand: Expressing a preference for the public option is not the same as fighting for the public option. Telling Harry Reid 'good luck with that' is not the same as the president saying, 'I am there helping Reid fight for those final votes,' " Green said in a statement.
"Americans clearly favor a strong bill over a bipartisan bill and are clamoring for President Obama to make good on the mandate for sweeping change that was given to him in the 2008 election. President Obama will be judged by many of his biggest 2008 supporters on whether he fights for a strong public option at this critical moment."
Health reform and the deficit
A senior White House economic adviser is trying today to make the economic case for a health care overhaul.
Republicans and other critics are warning that the president's proposals to remake such a significant portion of the US economy could hurt growth, balloon the federal deficit, and pinch recession-weary families.
But Christina Romer, chairwoman of White House Council of Economic Advisers, plans to tell the liberal Center for American Progress this afternoon that the only way to get the deficit under control is to trim health care costs, particularly in the government Medicare and Medicaid programs.
"Given the central role of rising health care expenditures, any solution to our long-run budget problem will simply have to include slowing the growth rate of health care costs,” Romer will say, according to advance excerpts released by the White House.
"Some have argued that it is irresponsible to reform our health care system at a time when the budget deficit is so large and our long-run fiscal problems are so severe. I firmly believe the opposite: it is fiscally irresponsible not to do health care reform.
State and local governments and private businesses alike would benefit from the health overhaul, she asserts. "Slowing the growth rate of health care costs will enable firms to once again give raises in the form of take-home pay rather than more expensive health insurance,” Romer plans to say.
“[F]iscally prudent health care reform that expands coverage to tens of millions of Americans and transforms our health care system to one that is higher quality and lower cost is possible.”
Obama mixes policy, politics in N.E.
In a one-day jaunt to New England today, President Obama mixes policy and politics, talking clean energy and helping two vulnerable Democrats raise some campaign cash.
Obama started his visit by touring a research lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, then giving a speech challenging Americans to lead the global economy in clean energy.
During the tour, Obama said, he saw innovations including windows that generate energy by directing light to solar cells.
"That was neat stuff," he said.
Obama praised the role of MIT and other research universities in scientific advances that are crucial to economic growth -- and an important driver of American progress.
"We have always been about innovation. We have always been about discovery. It's in our DNA," he said.
Obama talked about the importance of investing in energy technology to create jobs in the 21st century and highlighted the $787 billion economic stimulus package investments that are creating jobs and making advancements in wind energy. (His full remarks are below.)
"It's an important message, and the president is going to continue to talk about things that can help grow the economy, because there are few things in this administration that are more important than creating jobs and getting this economy on track," deputy White House spokesman Bill Burton told reporters traveling with the president.
Obama also made sure to credit Governor Deval Patrick's role in making sure that Massachusetts shares in the energy technology boom. Patrick was bragging about the Bay State on their drive to MIT, the president said, and he told the governor: "You don't have to be a booster. I already love the state."
Representative Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, a chief author of the sweeping climate change bill passed by the House in June, praised Obama's speech.
“Today President Obama reaffirmed his commitment to our clean energy future and his vision of America leading the clean energy economy of the 21st century,” Markey said in a statement. “With President Obama’s leadership in the White House and clean energy legislation making its way through Congress, America can win the race for the next great clean energy technologies that will create jobs and revive our economy.”
“President Obama also expertly dispelled the myths surrounding clean energy legislation being spread by naysayers and special interests. President Obama knows we can cap carbon pollution without kneecapping our economy. States are the laboratories of democracy, and when it comes to clean energy policy there are few more successful labs than Massachusetts. There could have been no better choice for his speech than MIT and the city of Boston, the hub of the clean energy universe.”
The White House issued an advance look at the MIT event. MIT president Susan Hockfield and Ernest J. Moniz, director of MIT's Technology Energy Initiative, are to speak prior to the president. The audience of about 750 will include MIT faculty and staff, business and community leaders, entrepreneurs, and local political leaders and members of Congress, including Senator John F. Kerry, Representative Michael Capuano, Patrick, and Lieutenant Governor Tim Murray.
(The full release is below.)
Scientists at places like MIT would be at the forefront of research designed to wean the country from fossil fuels and move toward alternative energy. But it is also a center for the debate over a sweeping climate change bill that passed the House in June and is now being debated in the Senate.
In advance of the president's speech, the Republican National Committee noted that MIT-affiliated professors have warned against the centerpiece of the bill -- a cap-and-trade system in which carbon emissions would be limited, and pollution credits would be bought and sold.
An MIT study this year projected that cap-and-trade could cost American consumers between $720 and $1,200 a year. Former MIT economist Denny Ellerman testified this week before a Senate committee that American consumers could eventually be hit with a national energy tax and that cap-and-trade allows the government to pick winners and losers among energy producers.
(A sidelight: The Washington Post notes today that even though Obama will be in a state whose universal health care law is a model for his overhaul proposals, he won't be talking about it. "The president's critics say his reluctance to spotlight the Massachusetts model is real-world evidence that his vision would not work on a national scale," the Post writes.)
After the MIT speech, Obama goes to the Westin Copley Place for a fund-raiser for Governor Deval Patrick, his friend and political ally who faces what looks like a tough re-election fight in 2010. Patrick's popularity is being battered by the economic downturn, and he already faces prominent Republican and independent opponents.
Obama heads on to Connecticut, where he will tour a small business and speak at a fund-raising dinner in Stamford to boost Senator Christopher Dodd, who also faces rough sledding to keep his seat. Dodd, under criticism for being too cozy with Wall Street, faces primary as well as GOP opposition.
FULL ENTRYAll smiles in Obama family portrait
The White House this morning released the official first family portrait, taken by none other than celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz.
President Obama is in white dress shirt and tie, but without a jacket. Michelle Obama wears a black dress, and their daughters are color-coordinated with her. They're all seated, with Sasha wrapping her arm around the president, and Malia hugging her mother.
Click here to see a full-screen version (thanks to Mark Halperin of Time magazine.)
Public option gains momentum
The public option -- one of the most contentious proposals in the health care fight -- might end up in the Senate health overhaul bill after all.
Several media organizations, including the New York Times and the Associated Press, are reporting this evening that there's no done deal, but there is movement toward including a provision for the federal government to sell insurance in direct competition with private insurers with individual states permitted to drop out of the system.
The Times says that the top Senate Democrat, Harry Reid, is leaning toward including the government-run health insurance plan in the bill he will soon take to the Senate floor. While Republicans and some moderate Democrats oppose the public option, those in favor of it are pushing Reid to force a vote to strip it out of the bill. "The idea is that it's better to show some fight," a senior Democratic aide told the Times.
Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine, the only Republican to support the health care bill in the Senate Finance Committee, has made clear she would only support a public plan if it is triggered by private insurers not cutting costs and extending coverage enough.
House Democrats have the public option in the bill they are finalizing, without a provision for states to opt out.
Polls have also shown public support for a public plan to keep private insurers honest, but Republicans and other critics say it would lead to a government takeover of health care.
Cheney: Obama 'dithering' on Afghanistan
The war of words over foreign policy is back on between former Vice President Dick Cheney and the Obama administration.
In a speech Wednesday night, Cheney suggested that the president was afraid to decide whether to send more US troops to Afghanistan and that's why it is taking so long.
"The White House must stop dithering while America's armed forces are in danger," Cheney told the conservative Center for Security Policy. "It's time for President Obama to do what it takes to win a war he has repeatedly and rightly called a war of necessity."
"Make no mistake. Signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries," Cheney added, according to the Associated Press.
He also disputed remarks by White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel on talk shows over the weekend that the Obama administration had to start from scratch to come up with an Afghanistan strategy because the Bush administration let the situation slide.
Cheney said the Bush team reviewed the eight-year-old war before leaving office and presented its findings to Obama's transition team. "They asked us not to announce our findings publicly, and we agreed, giving them the benefit of our work and the benefit of the doubt," he said.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs took on Cheney today, saying that Obama is making sure he gets the strategy right.
"What Vice President Cheney calls dithering, President Obama calls his solemn responsibility to the men and women in uniform and to the American public. I think we've all seen what happens when somebody doesn't take that responsibility seriously," Gibbs said during his daily briefing.
The spokesman also hit back at the Bush-Cheney team, saying it allowed the situation to worsen in Afghanistan and asserting the 21,000-troop increase that Obama approved in March had been sitting on the desk of the Bush White House for months.
Calling Cheney's comment "curious," Gibbs said, "I think it's pretty safe to say that the vice president was for seven years not focused on Afghanistan, even more curious given the fact that an increase in troops sat on desks in this White House, including the vice president's, for more than eight months, a resource request filled by President Obama in March."
"I find it interesting that he's blaming us for something that he didn't see fit to do over, best I can tell, seven years of a war in Afghanistan," Gibbs added.
UPDATE: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also came to the president's defense.
"The president has a very difficult decision to make," she told reporters this afternoon on Capitol Hill. "He's got to have the facts to make that. We all pray for the difficult decision he has to make. I don't think it's very constructive for the vice president to say that - he's forgotten whose administration made matters worse in Afghanistan by their neglect."
Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, who sits on the Armed Services Committee and has visited Afghanistan, also said Obama is right to take the time for a full policy review.
"They say that elephants don't forget, but it looks like many members of the Republican Party have a mass case of amnesia. The same politicians who were demanding that the current president stop dithering and do whatever his generals suggest forget that the previous administration ignored and under resourced our commanders and soldiers in Afghanistan for nearly eight years," Reed said at a news conference.
Saying he found Cheney's comments "very puzzling," Reid asked, "Why didn't the former vice president ask George Bush to just do what it takes to win in Afghanistan for the seven years when he was in office, instead of blindly rushing into Iraq and allowing Afghanistan to drift into chaos?"
"I voted against the Iraq war in part because I knew it would shift the focus and hundreds of billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of our troops away from Afghanistan, the area where our greatest threat emanates from," Reed added. "And had the Bush administration conducted a thorough review and looked at all the facts prior to the invasion of Iraq, they might have avoided a major foreign policy disaster that also has ended up crippling our economy back home."
Republican Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee also sided with Obama.
"I think President Obama is entitled to take sufficient time to decide what our long-term role ought to be in Afghanistan," Alexander said on MSNBC. "Then I think he should come to Congress and say to the American people what that plan is and see if he can persuade us and all of the American people of the rightness of it because he needs to have support all the way through to the end of that mission, so I want him to take the time to get it right."
Cheney's reappearance on the public stage also brought a sharp rebuke from a liberal-leaning security think tank.
"The record is clear: Dick Cheney and the Bush administration were incompetent war fighters," National Security Network senior adviser, retired General Paul Eaton, said in a statement. "They ignored Afghanistan for 7 years with a crude approach to counter-insurgency warfare best illustrated by: 1. Deny it. 2. Ignore it. 3. Bomb it. While our intelligence agencies called the region the greatest threat to America, the Bush White House under-resourced our military efforts, shifted attention to Iraq, and failed to bring to justice the masterminds of September 11.
"The only time Cheney and his cabal of foreign policy 'experts' have anything to say is when they feel compelled to protect this failed legacy. While President Obama is tasked with cleaning up the considerable mess they left behind, they continue to defend torture or rewrite a legacy of indifference on Afghanistan. Simply put, Mr. Cheney sees history throughout extremely myopic and partisan eyes," continued Eaton, who served more than 30 years in the United States Army and from 2003-2004 oversaw the training of the Iraqi military.
"As one deeply invested in the Armed Forces of this country, I am grateful for the senior military commanders assigned to leading this fight and the men and women fighting on the ground. But I dismiss men like Cheney who inject partisan politics into the profound deliberations our Commander-in-Chief and commanders on the ground are having to develop a cohesive and comprehensive strategy, bringing to bear the economic and diplomatic as well as the military power, for Afghanistan -- something Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld never did. No human endeavor can be as profound as sending a nation's youth to war. I am very happy to see serious men and women working hard to get it right."
The former vice president had lain rather low since the remarkable, high-profile face-off in May with Obama on the war on terror.
In back-to-back speeches before different audiences, Obama and Cheney each forcefully laid out their sharply different views on how to keep America safe from terrorism, the effectiveness of harsh interrogations, and whether the Guantanamo Bay detainees pose an imminent danger if brought to US soil.
Obama hails approval of consumer agency
It's not quite as powerful as he wanted, but President Obama this afternoon praised the approval of a new consumer protection agency designed to prevent abuses by banks, lenders, and others.
The House Financial Services Committee, on a 39-29 vote, endorsed the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, one of the most contentious parts of a financial regulation overhaul that lawmakers hope will avert another meltdown like last year.
Republicans and the industry opposed the new agency and won many exemptions to the agency's oversight, including retailers, auto dealers, real estate brokers, and accountants. The committee's chairman, Barney Frank of Massachusetts, said the exceptions would make clear that the agency will monitor financial products and not every financial transaction of Americans. But he drew the line at Republican proposals, including one that would have exempted student loan providers.
The agency proposal will now be part of the bill that goes to the full House.
"I congratulate the House Financial Services Committee and Chairman Barney Frank on passing a bill out of Committee to establish the Consumer Financial Protection Agency," Obama said in his statement. "The Consumer Financial Protection Agency will prevent predatory lending practices and other abuses and will ensure that consumers get clear information they can understand about financial products like credit cards and mortgages.
"This bill has now passed a major hurdle and this step sends an important signal to the American people that we will not stand by and allow big financial firms and their lobbyists to mobilize against change," the president added. "They are doing what they always do -- descending on Congress, using every bit of influence they have to maintain the status quo that has maximized their profits at the expense of American consumers, despite the fact that recently those same American consumers bailed them out as a consequence of the bad decisions that they made."
Democrats go after Steele
Democrats picked a big, highly visible target for the latest in their series of "call 'em out" missives -- GOP chief Michael Steele.
The Democratic National Committee today announced a multimedia effort aiming at the Republican Party chairman for "continuing to spread lies about health insurance reform."
It is using a website and a web video and urging supporters to use Facebook and Twitter to go after Steele, whom the DNC says is spreading misinformation by claiming, among other assertions, that the health care overhaul being pushed by President Obama and congressional Democrats would "dump" millions of Americans out of their insurance and would cut Medicare.
Kerry advises Obama to wait after runoff on troop decision
By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- Senator John F. Kerry, fresh from a diplomatic coup in Afghanistan, said this afternoon that President Obama should wait until after the Afghanistan presidential run-off before deciding whether to send more US troops.
After briefing Obama in a private 45-minute one-on-one meeting, Kerry said it wouldn't be "common sense" to determine the best US strategy without knowing how the election goes and who will be in charge of the country.
"You need to know what kind of government is coming out of it," Kerry told reporters at the White House. "I would absolutely counsel [Obama] to wait until after the run-off."
While Kerry said he did not discuss the issue with Obama, "I'd be surprised if he wasn't on the same wavelength..."
The president, however, told NBC News today that it's possible that he will announce before the Nov. 7 run-off his decision on a request by the top US commander for as many as 40,000 additional troops.
"I think it is entirely possibly that we have a strategy formulated before a runoff is determined. We may not announce it," Obama said in the NBC interview.
"I think we're still in-- finding out how this whole process in Afghanistan is gonna unfold. I thought that the steps that President Karzai took yesterday, agreeing to the certification of a second round was positive. What we've said is that it is important to make sure that we understand the landscape and the partner that we're gonna be dealing with," the president added.
"Because our strategy in Afghanistan is not just dependent on military forces. It's also dependent on how well we're doing with our civilian development efforts, how well we're doing in stemming corruption. So this is part of a comprehensive strategy; it always has been. And our basic attitude is that we are going to take the time to get this right. We're not gonna drag it out, because there is a sense that the sooner we get a sound approach in place and personnel in place, the better off we're gonna be. But we also want to make sure that we don't put resources ahead of strategy."
Kerry said since it would take months to actually get additional forces in place, if that is what Obama decides, a two-week delay would not interfere. "Two weeks is a very short span of time, folks, to determine whether you have a government to work with during a war."
Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who supports a troop increase, said there's no need to wait until after the run-off.
“We’re there not to advocate or protect any particular leadership of Afghanistan; we’re there really to secure the people of Afghanistan and to help them determine their own future," Lieberman said on Fox News Channel. “If the president makes this decision to increase troops before Election Day it’s going to give more Afghans the confidence to come out and vote.”
Kerry, who is being lauded for his role in persuading Afghan President Hamid Karzai to accept a run-off election in hopes of removing the taint of balloting fraud in the first go-round, also dismissed suggestions that he had eclipsed Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was given the job Kerry wanted.
"That's an unfair characterization," Kerry said, noting that he was in frequent touch with Clinton during the talks with Karzai.
Earlier today, the top Senate Democrat heaped praise on Kerry. Though it remains unclear whether the run-off can happen on schedule or without more shenanigans, Karzai's decision, announced Tuesday with Kerry at his side, averted an immediate crisis.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on the Senate floor this morning that Kerry's diplomatic success is the latest example of his "service to our country" -- as a decorated Vietnam War veteran, 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, and now as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.
"What he's doing in Afghanistan is something that is vitally important to not only our country, but to the world," Reid gushed.
Obama announces aid for small business
President Obama is unveiling more help for the nation's small businesses today, hoping that they can hire more people and drive down the unemployment rate.
The package, already dismissed by Republicans as a repackaging of existing programs, is designed to make it easier for small firms to borrow money so they can expand.
"Over the past decade and a half, America’s small businesses have created 65% of all new jobs in this country. And more than half of all working Americans working in the private sector are either employed by a small business or own one – more than half. These companies are the engine of job growth in America. They fuel our prosperity. And that is why they must be at the forefront of our recovery," Obama said at Metropolitan Archives, a family-owned small business in Landover, Md., that recently expanded with an SBA loan.
"The problem is, our small businesses have been some of the hardest hit by this recession," Obama added. "From the middle of 2007 through the end of 2008, small businesses lost 2.4 million jobs. And because banks shrunk from lending in the midst of the financial crisis, it has been difficult for entrepreneurs to take out the loans they need to start a business. For those who do own a small business, it’s been difficult to finance inventories, make payrolls, or expand if things are going well."
(His full remarks are below.)
UPDATE: The No. 2 Republican in the House, Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, responded to Obama by asserting that the real help small businesses need is freedom from new taxes.
“Small business job creators must be protected. While the President’s announcement that he will repackage some of the same SBA and TARP programs for small businesses is fine, it remains clear that neither this Administration nor the Speaker of the House understand the struggles that small business job creators face," Cantor said in a statement.
“As the President spoke today, Democrats in Congress continued their push for new taxes and mandates on small businesses to pay for their government health care overhaul – policies that will force many small businesses to close and cost even more workers their jobs. Today, I call on the President to pledge to small business job creators across this nation that he will veto any legislation that will raise their taxes."
The White House summary can be viewed here, and a rundown is below:
Americans divided on Obama health plan
The political pendulum has swung slightly away from President Obama on health care, though a majority of Americans still want an overhaul, and still want a public insurance option, a new poll says.
According to the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released this afternoon, 49 percent favor and 49 percent oppose the health overhaul. That's down from 51 percent support last month, though better than the 48 percent in late August after protestors at town halls railed against the president's plan.
The rest of the poll had better news for Obama.
A majority -- 53 percent -- said it would be better for the country to pass a bill along the lines proposed by the president instead of leaving the current health system in place.
The poll also found that 61 percent support a public option -- a government-run plan to compete with private insurers -- up from 55 percent in August. And 40 percent said they would support the overhaul bill only if it included the public option.
And respondents trust Obama far more than Republicans -- mocked by Democrats as the "party of no" -- on health care; 50 percent said they trust Obama more to deal with major health care changes, while 34 percent picked congressional Republicans.
The poll, conducted Friday through Sunday, has an overall margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Obama group passes 300,000 calls for health care
Pro-Obama groups said this morning they ended up at 315,023 calls to Congress on Tuesday pushing the health care overhaul, tripling the original goal of 100,000.
The massive effort was put together by Organizing for America, the president's grassroots group from the campaign. (Click here for updates.)
"As you know, we set a big goal: 100,000 calls to Congress placed or committed to in a single day by OFA supporters and allied organizations. By 2:30 p.m., you had crushed it. So, we gulped and said let's go for 200,000, not knowing what would happen. But the calls just kept pouring in -- keeping phones ringing off the hook in congressional offices in D.C. and your representatives' district offices around the country," the group's national director, Mitch Stewart, told supporters this morning.
"Then, OFA supporters gathered in over 1,000 living rooms and community centers from Macon, Georgia to Missoula, Montana. You called hundreds of thousands of key voters in your community and got them to agree to call Congress and speak out for reform, too. President Obama joined in at a call party in New York -- and he had some amazing words of support for the folks like you who make this movement possible."
Obama, himself, addressed thousands of supporters who are making calls via live webcast Tuesday night from the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City, where 2,500 people will be making similar calls in support of reform.
"You know why this is so important," he told them. "You know premiums have doubled over the past decade."
Obama to speak at MIT on Friday
By Matt Viser, Globe Staff
President Obama's economy event on Friday is a speech at MIT on US leadership in clean energy technology.
Obama, who is in town to attend a political fund-raiser for Governor Deval Patrick, will "address state and community leaders, business leaders and entrepreneurs, and MIT students and staff," the White House said late this afternoon.
After the address, the president will head to a luncheon fundraiser for Patrick at the Westin Copley Place Hotel’s American Ballroom.
Patrick’s campaign team sent out a message this afternoon to supporters, saying tickets were still available, perhaps an indication that they’re having trouble selling seats that cost $500 a person.
“Massachusetts is poised to come out of this economic downturn stronger and faster than the rest of the country because of the work done by President Obama, Governor Patrick and Lt. Governor Murray,” read the message. “It is an honor to have the President as such a strong supporter of our efforts.”
Obama, Kerry laud Karzai accepting runoff
President Obama praised Afghan President Hamid Karzai this morning for agreeing to a runoff election -- balloting that the US hopes gives legitimacy to the regime in Kabul and is expected to free Obama to decide whether to send more US troops.
"I welcome President Karzai’s statement today accepting the Independent Electoral Commission’s certification of the August 20 election results, and agreeing to participate in a second round of the election. This is an important step forward in ensuring a credible process for the Afghan people which results in a government that reflects their will," Obama said in a statement issued through the White House.
"While this election could have remained unresolved to the detriment of the country, President Karzai’s constructive actions established an important precedent for Afghanistan’s new democracy. The Afghan Constitution and laws are strengthened by President Karzai’s decision, which is in the best interests of the Afghan people," Obama added. (His full statement is below.)
Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, helped persuade Karzai to accept an independent commission's findings that there was enough voter fraud in the first round of balloting to push him below a majority and force a runoff, expected on Nov. 7.
Kerry stood next to Karzai today when he announced he would accept the runoff, and said that Karzai's move had transformed a crisis into a "moment of great opportunity."
(Kerry's full prepared remarks are also below.)
FULL ENTRYRepublicans rake in cash, slam Reid
The Republican National Committee announced today that it is getting donations from a record number of small donors.
The RNC said that it raised $8.74 million in the month of September and had $18.9 million cash on hand at month's end with no debt. It averaged 2,400 new donors a day during the month, an off-year record and an increase of about 2,000 new donors per day since February, the RNC said.
The average donor contribution in September was $36, with a year to date average donation of about $41.
The RNC also unveiled its latest web video, slamming top Senate Democrat Harry Reid for negotiating the details of the health care overhaul in private.
The video has Reid promising transparency, saying, "No longer can we allow special interests and lawmakers to conspire behind closed doors." It also shows Obama making similar pledges.
But now, the video points out, Reid is working closely and privately with the White House to meld the version the Senate Finance Committee approved last week, and a more liberal version that the Senate health committee passed earlier.
They're talking in secret because they don't want the public to realize the health care bill would raise costs and mean a far greater government role, the announcer says.
"It may be Halloween, but the Democrats' intentions cannot be disguised," the announcer concludes.
Insurance industry defends study
The chief spokeswoman for the nation's private insurance companies is defending a report that many saw as the industry trying to kill the health care overhaul.
America's Health Insurance Plans issued the report just before the Senate Finance Committee voted last week, asserting that the bill would dramatically raise premiums. The report has been widely pilloried for not accounting for cost-saving measures in the bill. (To reach the entire bill, click here.)
In an opinion article in today's Washington Post, Karen Ignagni, president and CEO of AHIP, writes, "Let me be clear and direct: Health plans continue to strongly support reform. In fact, last year we proposed new insurance market rules and consumer protections to achieve universal coverage, remove restrictions on preexisting conditions and end the practice of basing premiums on health status or gender. We firmly believe that all the cost concerns the report raised can be resolved."
She adds, "The report's central finding has long been noncontroversial in health policy and economic circles: namely, that implementing reforms of the insurance market without a strong requirement that everyone participate will cause adverse selection and significantly increase costs for individuals and small businesses. This finding echoes the message President Obama delivered in his address to Congress last month."
But liberal groups supporting the health bills are continuing their assault on the insurance industry.
Americans United for Change released its latest ad today featuring an insurance horror story -- this one about a woman who purportedly was told she would have to be sterilized to keep coverage.
"The new spot is our latest salvo against the shameful practices of the health insurance industry, which finally dropped the ‘we want reform, too’ façade last week with AHIP’s release of that amazingly disingenuous “report” asserting of all things that reform would mean 'higher premiums' – laughable stuff coming from the folks that raised premiums three to four times faster than wages the last ten years," Americans United for Change said.
Poll: Concern among liberals on Obama health care stands
A new poll finds support rebounding for a public option and some discomfort with President Obama among his liberal allies.
The Washington Post/ABC News survey released this afternoon found that 57 percent of Americans favor a public insurance option, while 40 percent are opposed. But opinion continues to be split -- 45 percent for, 48 percent against -- for the overall health overhaul bills being debated in Congress.
Obama's aides repeated over the weekend that while the president prefers a bill that includes the public option -- a government-run plan to offer affordable coverage and to compete with private insurers -- he isn't wedded to it.
While 7 in 10 Democrats back the plan being put together, Obama's strong approval ratings on health care from fellow Democrats have dropped 15 percentage points since mid-September.
More broadly, while 57 percent approve of the way Obama is handling his job as president, "strong approval" among liberal Democrats is down 16 percentage points over the past month.
Obama charts new path in Sudan
President Obama, acknowledging that not enough has been done to stop the genocide in Darfur, nonetheless charted a new course today, offering to engage the Sudanese government and offer incentives.
"Today, my Administration is releasing a comprehensive strategy to confront the serious and urgent situation in Sudan," Obama said in a statement.
"For years, the people of Sudan have faced enormous and unacceptable hardship. The genocide in Darfur has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and left millions more displaced. Conflict in the region has wrought more suffering, posing dangers beyond Sudan’s borders and blocking the potential of this important part of Africa. Sudan is now poised to fall further into chaos if swift action is not taken.
Many activists have been wary of the Obama administration's new policy and have criticized special envoy Scott Gration for being too close to the regime.
But the administration says that the new approach is designed to end “gross human rights abuses” in Darfur and follow through on a peace deal that ended war between northern and southern Sudan.
The United Nations estimates that 300,000 people have died in the civil war in Darfur and 2.7 million people have been driven from their homes.
"Our conscience and our interests in peace and security call upon the United States and the international community to act with a sense of urgency and purpose. First, we must seek a definitive end to conflict, gross human rights abuses and genocide in Darfur. Second, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the North and South in Sudan must be implemented to create the possibility of long-term peace. These two goals must both be pursued simultaneously with urgency. Achieving them requires the commitment of the United States, as well as the active participation of international partners. Concurrently, we will work aggressively to ensure that Sudan does not provide a safe-haven for international terrorists," Obama's statement continued.
"The United States Special Envoy has worked actively and effectively to engage all of the parties involved, and he will continue to pursue engagement that saves lives and achieves results. Later this week, I will renew the declaration of a National Emergency with respect to Sudan, which will continue tough sanctions on the Sudanese Government. If the Government of Sudan acts to improve the situation on the ground and to advance peace, there will be incentives; if it does not, then there will be increased pressure imposed by the United States and the international community. As the United States and our international partners meet our responsibility to act, the Government of Sudan must meet its responsibilities to take concrete steps in a new direction.
"Over the last several years, governments, non-governmental organizations, and individuals, and from around the world have taken action to address the situation in Sudan, and to end the genocide in Darfur. Going forward, all of our efforts must be measured by the lives that are led by the people of Sudan. After so much suffering, they deserve a future that allows them to live with greater dignity, security, and opportunity. It will not be easy, and there are no simple answers to the extraordinary challenges that confront this part of the world. But now is the time for all of us to come together, and to make a strong and sustained effort on behalf of a better future for the people of Sudan."
Senator John F. Kerry, who as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee visited Sudan in April to meet with government officials, humanitarian workers, and Darfuri refugees, endorsed the new policy.
“I support the comprehensive Sudan policy announced today by the President and Secretary of State. This strategy, which will be spearheaded by the United States Special Envoy, General Scott Gration, both emphasizes the urgency of working for peace in Darfur and seeks to ensure that the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between North and South Sudan does not collapse, which would lead to further devastation for the people of the region," Kerry said in a statement this afternoon.
"Importantly, this strategy builds on lessons learned from past efforts and addresses the situation as it exists today, promoting both engagement and accountability.”
White House claims education boon from stimulus
After a decidedly underwhelming count last week of jobs created by federal contractors hired under the $787 billion economic stimulus plan, the White House today asserted that the stimulus accounted for at least 250,000 education jobs across the country.
It said that "preliminary indications" are that state governments later this month will credit the recovery package with that total of jobs saved or created. The Domestic Policy Council, in cooperation with the US Department of Education, cited preliminary data on states using stimulus grants to restore nearly all of their projected education budget shortfalls for fiscal 2009 and 2010, thereby averting layoffs of educators in school districts and universities across the nation. Click here to see the report.
"This is one more indication of how the Recovery Act is helping soften the blow of tough times, by keeping educators on the job and teachers in the classroom," Vice President Joe Biden, who is overseeing the stimulus plan, said in a statement.
UPDATE: Par for the course, Republicans expressed deep skepticism about the administration's findings.
"From coast to coast, families and small business job creators believe that to date, the President’s policies have not created jobs, and no amount of campaign-style events or spin will change that reality unless there is significant change in the Administration’s policy," Brad Dayspring, a spokesman for No. 2 House Republican Eric Cantor, said in a statement. "Rather than even more deficit spending, Republicans continue to offer solutions that empower small business job creators to put Americans back to work and safeguard our children from the Democrats’ endless spending binge. The House Republican economic working group, led by Republican Whip Eric Cantor, continues to focus on policy solutions that get people working again and ensure that America’s economy once again provides opportunity for all. "
Romney stands up for Israel
Seeking to buff up his foreign policy credentials and reaching out to Israel's supporters, Mitt Romney is telling a major pro-Israel group today that he is "very concerned" by the Obama administration's Mideast policy.
"In pursuit of a peace process, the United States today has exerted substantial pressure on Israel while putting almost no pressure on the Palestinians and the Arab world," the former Massachusetts governor, 2008 Republican presidential hopeful, and possible 2012 contender said to the AIPAC national summit in San Diego.
Obama has been pushing for a renewal of negotiations toward a comprehensive peace deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority -- and has been pressuring Israel to stop expanding settlements on the West Bank.
But saying that America and Israel are "bound together by common commitments and shared values," Romney says US policy should recognize that.
"Inexplicably, the United States now places the burden on Israel to make still more unilateral concessions," he said. "At the United Nations, we decried the building of new Israeli settlements but ignored the launching of Palestinian rockets. How is this possible? Have we not yet learned from the concessions in Gaza, as well as from all recorded history, that giving in to the demands of oppressors always and only leads to more demands, not to peace?
"We can encourage both parties in the conflict, but we must never forget which one is our ally. Nor must we forget that Hamas, like other violent Jihadists, does not have a two-state solution as its objective—it has the conquest and annihilation of Israel as its objective. The notion that Hamas and violent Jihadists are motivated by 'shared interests' and 'common goals' is naďve in the extreme and dangerous to the entire free world."
Romney also inveighs against the United Nations, which is about to consider a report accusing Israel of war crimes during its assault in Gaza, saying it "has become a forum for invective against the Jewish state."
And Romney urged a hard line against Iran's nuclear ambitions and warned against Obama's desire for talks.
"At this late stage I would simply say that it is long past time for America to recognize the nature of the regime we are dealing with," he said. "The Iranian regime is unalloyed evil, run by people who are at once ruthless and fanatical. Stop thinking that a charm offensive will talk the Iranians out of their pursuit of nuclear weapons. It will not. And agreements, unenforceable and unverifiable, will have no greater impact here than they did in North Korea. Once an outstretched hand is met with a clenched fist, it becomes a symbol of weakness and impotence."
His full prepared remarks are below:
Liberals pressure Reid on public option
Liberals are ramping up the pressure on top Senate Democrat Harry Reid, one of the key players in the negotiations over the health care overhaul.
Trying to craft a plan that can draw at least 60 votes in the Senate, Reid, the White House, and other moderate and conservative Democrats are waffling on whether a "public option" -- a government-run plan to offer affordable coverage and compete with private insurers -- should be in the final bill. Worried liberals say that health reform without it would be less than half a loaf.
Today, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee unveiled a TV ad in Nevada, where Reid face re-election next year, and sent an email to 225,000 activists nationwide seeking to raise at least $100,000 online to air the spot 200 times.
It features Nevada nurse Lee Slaughter, who says she has spent 20 years providing critical care -- and seeing patients cut off because of insurance. "Now, it's happening to me," she says, saying that she broke both her hips and that her insurer isn't providing all the care she needs. broke both hips insurers
Slaughter says she's a swing voter for supported Reid and President Obama, and says that in 2010, she will vote on only one issue.
"I'm watching to see if Harry Reid is strong and effective enough as a leader to pass a public health insurance option into law," she says.
Obama slams insurers on health care bill
A health care bill within sight, President Obama aggressively takes on his critics who he says are trying to stop the overhaul by misleading and scaring Americans with dire warnings of higher premiums and other damage.
In his weekly radio-Internet address, Obama targets insurance companies, one-time allies who have gone on the attack, blasting a bill approved by the Senate Finance Committee this week.
"In fact, the insurance industry is rolling out the big guns and breaking open their massive war chest -- to marshal their forces for one last fight to save the status quo," Obama says. "They’re filling the airwaves with deceptive and dishonest ads. They’re flooding Capitol Hill with lobbyists and campaign contributions. And they’re funding studies designed to mislead the American people."
"It’s smoke and mirrors. It’s bogus. And it’s all too familiar," the president adds. "Every time we get close to passing reform, the insurance companies produce these phony studies as a prescription and say, “Take one of these, and call us in a decade.” Well, not this time. The fact is, the insurance industry is making this last-ditch effort to stop reform even as costs continue to rise and our health care dollars continue to be poured into their profits, bonuses, and administrative costs that do nothing to make us healthy – that often actually go toward figuring out how to avoid covering people. And they’re earning these profits and bonuses while enjoying a privileged exception from our anti-trust laws, a matter that Congress is rightfully reviewing."
Asserting that Americans voted for change when they made him their president, Obama urges Congress "to stand against the power plays and political ploys – and to stand up on behalf the American people who sent us to Washington to do their business."
The full address is below and can be viewed here.
Obama plans economy event in Boston
The White House announced this evening that while President Obama is in Boston for a fund-raiser next week for Governor Deval Patrick, his friend and political ally, he will also hold an event on the economy.
There were no other details on the public event next Friday, when Obama will later attend a fund-raiser for Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut.
But in recent speeches, Obama has talked about what his administration has done to pull the economy back from the brink and what yet needs to be done, both on health care and financial regulation reform.
Clinton counsels patience on health care, Afghanistan troop decision
Hillary Rodham Clinton -- former first lady, presidential contender, and now secretary of state -- knows painfully first-hand how difficult a lift health care is.
So she counsels patience as Congress and the White House tries to come up with a bill that can pass -- and that can work.
"I'm very encouraged by the action that's going on in the Senate. But I think I, probably better than anyone, know how difficult this is," she said in an interview aired on CNN today.
"But we've made a lot of progress in the last nine months. And I'm very optimistic we're going to get a health care plan that will really improve the lives of the American people," added Clinton, who led a White House health care task force in 1993-94 that submitted a detailed bill to Congress that was derided as "Hillarycare" and went nowhere.
In the interview, Clinton also preached patience on Obama's decision whether to dispatch more US troops to Afghanistan, saying that "it's to the president's credit that he has had the patience and the persistence to really force the process without responding prematurely."
The president, she said, needs to closely scrutinize the broad view of what the US mission in Afghanistan should be and how best to accomplish it, citing a recent strategic review.
"It was quite remarkable that the report came in with two big ideas that had not, in my view, been fully either explored or certainly implemented in the prior eight years," she said. "One was you've got to look at Afghanistan and Pakistan together. Now, that may sound self-evident. But that wasn't what was being done previously. And you have to have a much greater integration of the civilian and the military efforts."
The full transcript of Clinton's interview with CNN's Jill Dougherty, as provided by the network, is below:
Obama tells critics: 'Grab a mop'
President Obama told a Democratic fund-raiser late Thursday night that he understands the way that Washington works and the need for the loyal opposition.
But he also chided his Republican opponents for not offering constructive alternatives.
"I believe in a two-party system where ideas are tested and assumptions are challenged -- because that’s how we can move this country forward. But what I reject is when some folks decide to sit on the sidelines and root for failure on health care or on energy or on our economy," he said at the Democratic National Committee event at the Westin St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. "What I reject is when some folks say we should go back to the past policies when it was those very same policies that got us into this mess in the first place." (Applause.)
He used the analogy of the White House and congressional Democrats "busy with our mop cleaning up somebody else’s mess." "We don’t want somebody sitting back saying, 'You're not holding the mop the right way.' Why don’t you grab a mop, why don’t you help clean up.
" 'You're not mopping fast enough, that's a socialist mop.' " the president mocked critics as saying.
"Grab a mop –- let’s get to work," he implored. "I think all of us in Washington have a greater purpose. We have a higher calling. And let me tell you, as long as I have the privilege of holding this office, I will do my very best to live up to my responsibilities to our country, to our children, to the future that we hold in common."
The remainder of his remarks were largely a recitation of what he sees as his administration's accomplishments on the economy and a repeat of his vows to get health care done.
The full remarks are below:
Democrats bash insurance industry
The Democratic National Committee said today it is going after the insurance industry in the latest of its “Call ‘Em Out” series targeting those who it says is trying to mislead the public on the health care overhaul.
Democrats are criticizing an industry-funded study that said insurance premiums would rise under the bill approved Tuesday by the Senate Finance Committee and assailing an insurance industry ad campaign warning seniors of cuts in Medicare.
"After fighting health reform with lies, deceit, and multi-million dollar ad campaigns, the health insurance lobby -- America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) -- just released a report on the 'effects of health reform.' Surprise! It's full of flawed claims that reform would increase costs," the DNC told supporters in a email accompanying a video.
"We're not going to take it sitting down. So this week, we're calling out the health insurance lobby. The lobby has invested millions trying to convince Congress to oppose reform. So this week, we're not simply debunking lies: The best way to Call 'em Out is to cut through the spin and tell our representatives to say 'no' to deceitful lobbyists and 'yes' to reform. "
Obama calls on grassroots
President Obama is activating his grassroots army again, trying to get 100,000 of them to call Congress on a single day to push for health care.
Organizing for America's national director, Mitch Stewart, announced today that Obama will join thousands of "Time to Deliver" events on Oct. 20 via a live webcast
"These call parties couldn't come at a more important time -- the final Senate committee just passed their version of the plan, so the debate is about to move to the full Congress for the first time. And the insurance industry lobby is throwing everything they've got at us to distort the issues and derail progress. Our voices must be heard," Stewart said in an email to supporters.
Organizing for America, housed within the Democratic National Committee, is the post-election iteration of Obama's vaunted campaign organization.
Obama signs Pakistan aid bill
President Obama today signed a bill, championed by Senator John F. Kerry, that increases US aid to crucial, but volatile ally Pakistan to $1.5 billion a year.
"This law is the tangible manifestation of broad support for Pakistan in the U.S., as evidenced by its bipartisan, bicameral, unanimous passage in Congress," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a statement.
"As President Obama said on March 27, the United States wants to engage Pakistan on the basis of a strategic partnership, 'grounded in support for Pakistan's democratic institutions and the Pakistani people.' This Act formalizes that partnership, based on a shared commitment to improving the living conditions of the people of Pakistan through sustainable economic development, strengthening democracy and the rule of law, and combating the extremism that threatens Pakistan and the United States."
On Wednesday, Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, held a joint news conference with Pakistan's foreign minister to clarify that the conditions attached to the aid aren't meant to delve into the country's internal affairs.
The first hard numbers on stimulus
In its latest effort to prove that its $787 billion economic stimulus package is working, the Obama administration today released new data showing that federal contractors using stimulus cash created or saved about 30,400 jobs, including nearly 600 in Massachusetts.
The figure represents the payoff from only the first $16 billion in spending, but is the first hard data on the recovery package, which has been assailed by critics who point to rising unemployment, at 9.8 percent last month. The White House has previously relied on economic models for its estimates of success.
"It is too soon to draw any global conclusions from this partial and preliminary data, as it reports on just $16 billion of the $339 billion in Recovery Act efforts before September 30th, but the early indications are quite positive," Vice President Joe Biden's chief economist Jared Bernstein said in a statement. "The direct count by Recovery Act recipients of jobs created or saved from this small percentage of the Recovery Act exceeds our projections. All signs -- from private estimates to this fragmentary data -- point to the conclusion that the Recovery Act did indeed create or save about 1 million jobs in its first seven months, a much needed lift in a very difficult period for our economy. We look forward to the much larger, comprehensive report due on October 30th.”
Republicans, however, quickly asserted that the new figure -- which counts only those directly hired by contractors that received stimulus money -- is far smaller than the 600,000 to 1.1 million estimate of jobs saved or created that the White House Council of Economic Advisers put out last month.
Biden, put in charge of overseeing the stimulus, will be in St. Louis today to tout how the package is creating jobs and aiding law enforcement.
League of Women Voters weighs in on health care
The nonpartisan, normally genteel League of Women Voters is taking the unusual step of airing a TV ad taking a tough issue position -- urging Americans to support the Democratic-supported health care overhaul.
The League said it is airing the 30-second spot in the home states of key senators, including Maine, where Olympia Snowe was the only Republican on the Finance Committee to support the bill on Tuesday and where fellow Republican Susan Collins suggested she might go along.
“Health care reform is a critically important issue for Americans – an issue that requires action from all of us,” League President Mary G. Wilson said in a statement. “After watching opponents of health care reform repeatedly attempt to scare people with lies and disorderly conduct, the League decided that we must speak up.”
“This is an unusual step for us. But as a nonpartisan membership organization that believes in reasoned and civil debate we felt compelled to take a stand against the lies and the distortions,” Wilson added.
“Health care is too important to let the nay-sayers and the special interests stand in the way of real reform. We have an obligation to get the facts straight.”
Kerry tries to soothe Pakistan's ruffled feathers
Senator John F. Kerry did a little diplomatic two-step today to reassure Pakistan that a foreign aid bill he championed does not impinge on the precarious nation's independence.
As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kerry held a joint press conference with House Foreign Relations Chairman Howard L. Berman and Pakistani Foreign Minister Qureshi to release a "joint explanatory statement."
"It affirms that the primary intention of the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act is to demonstrate the American people’s long-term commitment to the people of Pakistan. It will be placed in the Congressional Record today along with the final version of the legislation that the President will be signing," Kerry said.
“It affirms that the United States values its friendship with the Pakistani people and honors the great sacrifices made by Pakistani security forces in the fight against extremism. And it also makes absolutely clear – and I want to emphasize this point – that the legislation does not seek in any way to compromise Pakistan’s sovereignty, impinge on Pakistan’s national security interests, or micromanage any aspect of Pakistani military or civilian operations.
Both the Senate and House have passed the bill, which would provide Pakistan with $1.5 billion a year over the next five years to spend on democratic, economic and social development programs. The bill awaits President Obama's signature.
Pakistan's military has objected to provisions in the bill that links money for counterterrorism assistance to a crackdown on militants and other conditions.
The full explanatory statement is below:
Insurers, unions criticize Finance health bill
Two major players in the health care debate -- Big Insurance and Big Labor -- are both registering their objections to the bill passed by the Senate Finance Committee.
But they're coming at it from far different vantage points.
America's Health Insurance Plans, which represents the big insurers, is airing a TV ad that criticizes the bill's provision that would trim Medicare Advantage, the premium coverage that seniors get through private insurers.
"Most people agree we need to reform health care but is it right to ask 10 million seniors on Medicare Advantage for more than their fair share," the announcer says.
The Democratic bills would cut Medicare Advantage by more than $120 billion over 10 years, meaning that 10 million seniors -- including 175,000 in Massachusetts -- could have their health plans shrink or be replaced with traditional coverage.
On the other hand, a dozen of the largest labor unions are taking out full-page ads in Washington and national newspapers complaining that the Finance bill does not include a public option -- a government-run plan to compete with private plans -- and does call for penalties on people who do not obtain coverage.
The ad, entitled "Our Bottom Line for Health Care Reform," says that "Unless the bill that goes to the floor of the U.S. Senate makes substantial progress to address the concerns of working men and women, we will oppose it."
When does a bill become bipartisan
The White House and Democrats were thrilled that Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine broke ranks with Republicans to give a bipartisan patina to the Senate Finance Committee's approval of a health care overhaul.
But Republicans predictably are not as impressed.
“One Republican vote out of 40 in the Senate does not bipartisan make,” GOP chairman Michael Steele said today on Fox News Channel.
“You’ve got a long way to go Mr. President before you get to bipartisanship in terms of really putting together a bill that makes sense,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports that there could be a second Republican vote for the health care bill -- Snowe's fellow Mainer, Susan Collins.
Collins said that the bill approved on a 14-9 vote Tuesday by the Finance Committee needs substantial improvements. "My hope is we that can fix the flaws in the bill and come together with a truly bipartisan bill that could garner widespread support," Collins said in the AP interview. "I think this bill is far superior to the ones passed by the Senate [health]) committee and the three House committees, but it needs substantial additional work."
Steele said the health package would have to be far different to draw more Republican support. “If it doesn’t have triggers for a government plan, if it doesn’t have little hidden mechanisms and features that Congress is famous for doing that ultimately gets us on a road to government controlled health care, I think you will see a lot of Republican support,” he said on Fox.
Obama gets back to health care
Back from a failed bid to bring back the 2016 Summer Olympics to Chicago, President Obama returns today to the issue he initially said would keep him too busy to go to Copenhagen to make the sales pitch in person.
In his weekly radio-Internet address, Obama asserts that his health care overhaul would help America's small businesses, which he says a crucial job engine but are being "overwhelmed by rising health care costs."
Obama, who also plans a health care event on Monday, bringing doctors from across the country to the White House, says health costs are stopping budding entrepreneurs from going out on their own because they're afraid to lose their health coverage and preventing firms from growing and hiring more workers.
The health care legislation before Congress will allow small businesses to buy health insurance through a new exchange where they can compare policies and will offer tax credits to help them pay for it, the president says
"These small businesses are the mom and pop stores and restaurants, beauty shops and construction companies that support families and sustain communities. They’re the small startups with big ideas, hoping to be the next Google, or Apple, or HP. Altogether, they create roughly half of all new jobs." he says.
"So we know that reforming our health insurance system will be a critical step in rebuilding our economy so that our entrepreneurs can pursue the American Dream again, and our small businesses can grow and expand and create new jobs again."
The full address is below and can be viewed here.
Liberal group goes after Boehner
A liberal-labor coalition is trying to keep up its support for a "public option" in the health care overhaul -- and going after House Republican leader John Boehner in the bargain.
Americans United for Change unveiled a new TV ad airing on cable TV in Boehner's district in Ohio that attacks what they call his "laughable claim" that “I’m still trying to find the first American to talk to who is in favor of the public option” as part of health insurance reform.
It says that Boehner is out of touch with his constituents, noting a recent Quinnipiac University poll showing that 57 percent of Ohio voters support the idea of a government-run option as part of the health care overhaul.
“Maybe Congressman Boehner should spend a little less time schmoozing with lobbyists on golf courses in Florida and a lot more time talking to his constituents back home about the kind of health insurance reform they are demanding," Tom McMahon, acting executive director of Americans United for Change, said in a statement.
Obama, McChrystal meet in person
Just before leaving Copenhagen on his whirlwind Olympics trip, President Obama managed this morning to squeeze in his first face-to-face meeting with his top commander in Afghanistan.
General Stanley McChrystal, who is believed to be seeking reinforcements totaling as many as 40,000 troops, talked with the president for about 25 minutes aboard Air Force One.
"The president wanted to take the opportunity to get together with Gen. McChrystal," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters.
McChrystal was summoned from London, where on Thursday he gave a speech warning that the militants are gaining strength and more troops are needed to "buy time" for the Afghan military and police forces to prepare to take control of the country in 2013. He said there is a “huge risk’’ al Qaeda terrorists will again find safe haven in Afghanistan unless new tactics are put in place in the near future.
Obama and McChrystal had talked only twice previously, including by videoconference on Wednesday when the president huddled with his top military and diplomatic advisers as he mulls a new strategy in Afghanistan, including the request for more troops on top of the 21,000 he has already dispatched.
Obama lauds Senate Finance action on health bill
President Obama hailed the Senate Finance Committee's endorsement early this morning of a health care overhaul that follows most of his principles -- a major step in his push for reform.
“Thanks to the unyielding commitment of Senator Baucus and members of the Senate Finance Committee, we have reached another milestone in our effort to pass health insurance reform," the president said in a statement. "Over the past two weeks, the Committee has engaged in long hours of thoughtful deliberation and vigorous debate. They have considered hundreds of amendments, and incorporated many of the best ideas from both parties. And they have shown a spirit of civility, a seriousness of purpose, and a willingness to compromise that embodies our democratic process at its very best.
“The Finance Committee’s work is the culmination of tireless efforts over the better part of this year by the five committees and many members of Congress involved in health reform -- holding numerous hearings and bi-partisan meetings; reaching out to stakeholders across the spectrum; and striving to find common ground. As a result of this work, we are now closer than ever before to finally passing reform that will offer security to those who have coverage and affordable insurance to those who don’t. We have a long way to go, but I am confident that as we move forward, we will continue to engage with each other as productively as the members of the Finance Committee, and will get reform passed this year,” Obama added.
The Finance Committee put off a final vote until next week so congressional budget officials can certify the $900 billion bill does not add to federal deficits. Then, Senate Democrats and the White House will have to try to meld the bill with one passed earlier by the Senate health committee.
Obama announces medical research grants
President Obama, who vows to support science in contrast to his predecessor, is touring one of the nation's epicenters for research today to announce that $5 billion in grants have been awarded for cutting-edge work.
Obama is at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., and is announcing that the institute has already handed out more than 12,000 grants from the $10 billion it received from the economic stimulus package he championed.
He said the grants are expected to create tens of thousands of jobs over the next two years and are part of a total of $100 billion in the stimulus package that is broadly going to science and technology.
“We know that this kind of investment will also lead to new jobs: tens of thousands of jobs conducting research, manufacturing and supplying medical equipment, and building and modernizing laboratories and research facilities,” Obama said in a statement. “I’ve long said, the goal of the Recovery Act was not to create make-work jobs, but jobs making a difference for our future. There is no better example than the jobs we will produce or preserve through the grants we are announcing this morning.”
The grants include $1 billion for research, using the technology produced by the Human Genome Project, to study genetic changes linked to cancer, heart, lung, and blood disease and autism -- in hopes of finding new treatments and cures. Of the money, $175 million will go to collect more than 20,000 tissue samples from more than 20 cancers, and determine in detail all of the genetic changes in thousands of these tumor samples.
“This historic investment demonstrates this administration’s commitment to pushing the boundaries of science and turning those discoveries into benefits for the American people. NIH researchers and grantees are already conducting some of the world’s most groundbreaking biomedical research," added Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who is accompanying Obama on the tour. “These awards will accelerate our progress towards the new medicines, treatments, and cures that will help Americans live longer, healthier lives."
UPDATE: Senators John Kerry and Paul Kirk today announced that Massachusetts will receive a total of $434,036,356 in Recovery Act funding for cutting edge medical research. The funding comes in the form of 1,148 separate grants for 84 schools and organizations across the state.
The funding will be used to support the full spectrum of medical research – from clinical studies to basic research.
“These significant investments in medical research across Massachusetts will save lives, create jobs and ensure that our state remains a world leader in medical technology,” said Senator John Kerry. “12,000 grants were awarded nationwide and more than 1,000 right here in our state. I'm grateful that President Obama has once again recognized the cutting edge work being done by our medical institutions.”
Senator Paul G. Kirk said, “These grants are well-deserved and will enable our world class universities, hospitals and research centers across the Commonwealth to continue their groundbreaking work in medical research. Massachusetts is and will continue to be a leader in this field, and I commend the Obama Administration for committing these essential funds.”
Obama's full remarks are below:
FULL ENTRYObama says Iran talks a 'constructive beginning'
President Obama, who called out Iran last week for secretly building a new uranium enrichment plant, this afternoon sounded a note of cautious optimistic after Iran agreed to continue talks and open the plant to United Nations inspectors.
He said the moves were "a constructive beginning," but must be followed with "constructive action" by Iran to show that its nuclear program is for only civilian, not military, purposes.
"We're not interested in talking for the sake of talking," he said. "Pledges of cooperation must be fulfilled."
Obama said Iran is responding to a united front, and said the progress shows that his overtures to Iran -- which were roundly criticized in some quarters -- are paying off.
In Geneva earlier today, officials from Iran, the US, and five other world powers ended their meeting with an agreement to meet again later this month for more discussions. There was also a rare direct huddle between the senior US and Iranian delegates. And diplomats said Iran will open its newly disclosed nuclear plant to inspectors, probably within a few weeks.
Obama called on Iran to allow unfettered inspections within the next two weeks and to let a third country enrich its uranium.
"Taking the step of transferring its low enriched uranium to a third country would be a step towards building confidence that Iran’s program is in fact peaceful," he said.
His full remarks are below:
FULL ENTRYKerry calls hearing on Afghanistan and Pakistan
WASHINGTON -- Senator John F. Kerry made clear today that, while he is weighing the wisdom of adding additional troops to Afghanistan, he does not believe that withdrawal is an option.
"I don't see that as on the table," he said. "I don't think that there is anyone up here who is talking about that."
Kerry spoke at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing -- the third in a series he has called on Afghanistan -- that probed what the impact of additional troops would be on stability in Pakistan, a fragile, nuclear-armed neighbor.
Maleeha Lodhi, former Pakistani ambassador to the United States, said an increase in US combat troops in Afghanistan could lead to an increase in suicide attacks, militant groups, and support for extremism in Pakistan.
"A further military escalation in Afghanistan is unlikely to succeed," she said.
Lodhi, Milt Bearden, who served as the CIA station chief in Pakistan during the 1980s, and Steve Coll of the New America Foundation, said the Obama administration should put the emphasis on brokering a political solution to the fighting.
"I think we are going to have to start understanding who they are and deal with them," Bearden said. "There will always be enough Pashtuns to meet our troops in the field."
Kerry's opening statement is below.
As the Globe reported Wednesday, Kerry is trying to carve out a significant role on US policy in Afghanistan as Obama comes up with a new strategy and decides whether to approve a military request for more reinforcements.
Kerry has also weighed in on Pakistan. Thursday, the House gave final approval to a bill that he championed in the Senate that would give Pakistan $1.5 billion in aid a year over the next five years focused on democratic, economic, and social development programs. Obama is expected to sign the bill into law.
Kerry issued a statement congratulating the House on its vote. “The final version of the bill is the product of several months of intense consultation and compromise between the Chambers, and I am delighted that we were able to forge this landmark piece of legislation on a bipartisan, bicameral basis," he said. "This bill reaffirms the depth of America’s long-term commitment to the people and Government of Pakistan. By tripling past years’ level of non-military aid to $1.5 billion a year for fiscal years 2010 to 2014, we demonstrate our steadfast support for Pakistani efforts to combat violent extremism, defeat al-Qaeda and solidify democratic government."
FULL ENTRYObama wears many hats today
President Obama is having his usual briefings and meetings today at the White House as chief executive and commander-in-chief.
But he'll put on different hats for the more intriguing items on his daybook.
This afternoon, he plays partisan politician, headlining a major fund-raiser for the Democratic Governors Association.
Obama is counting on their support for his domestic agenda, particularly on the economy and health care. But the Republican National Committee notes that some Democratic governors are concerned that the health care overhaul will increase their states' costs -- but not the money to cover the new mandates.
The president said that the health reform would help states by reducing costs to families and businesses, including start-ups and small firms that are the most entrepreneurial and create a big share of jobs. Without the overhaul, costs for businesses would continue to rise.
"We can't afford a health system that hampers America's economy in the 21st century," Obama said.
He also told the governors he's "absolutely committed" to giving them the support they need on the front lines of the "economic storm."
"They have a full, committed partner in the White House," Obama said.
One big example, he said: the $787 billion stimulus package that he said has eased the burden on the states with money to keep police officers and firefighters on payrolls, with infrastructure spending, and extensions of unemployment benefits.
(His full remarks are below.)
Then this evening, Obama takes on the role of hometown booster, leaving for Copenhagen, where he hopes to close the deal on Chicago winning the right to host the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Republicans have bashed Obama's trip, saying it shows he does not have his priorities in order. But the schedule has the president getting his usual sleep aboard Air Force One, where he has a full office if necessary. He will set down in Denmark at about 2 a.m. EDT Friday, just before his presentation to the International Olympic Committee. And he will leave at 7 a.m. EDT Friday, several hours before the IOC is expected to announce its decision.
Top adviser goes on active duty
The military's manpower needs as it fights two wars is reaching into the highest reaches of the White House.
The White House announced today that Mark Lippert, deputy National Security Director and National Security Council chief of staff, will be returning to active duty in the US Navy.
Though there are reports that Lippert rubbed some the wrong way, he did serve in Iraq during the presidential campaign. Denis McDonough, deputy National Security adviser, and two others will take over Lippert's duties.
“I will miss Mark and his counsel, his excellent work at the NSC, and his good cheer. At the same time, I was not surprised when he came and told me he had stepped forward for another mobilization, as Mark is passionate about the Navy. I support his decision. He is a close friend, and I admire and respect his devotion to our country and answering the call to active duty service. He will always have a senior foreign policy position in this White House, when he chooses to return to civilian life," President Obama said in a statement.
Kerry: Give diplomacy a try with Iran
As the US and its allies begin high-stakes talks today with Iran to demand an end to its nuclear weapons program, Senator John F. Kerry put in his two cents on what he calls "the most important American diplomatic engagement with Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution."
In Geneva, officials from the US and five other world powers are meeting with representatives of Iran, a week after President Obama called out Iran at the G-20 economic summit, disclosing intelligence that it had been secretly building a new uranium enrichment plant.
In an op-ed piece published in today's Financial Times, Kerry says that the Western powers enter the talks from a position of strength. "Consider the view from Tehran," he writes. "It is on the defensive – caught red-handed in another nuclear deception. In contrast to the rancorous run-up to the war in Iraq, America and Europe are increasingly reading from the same script and Russia is signalling an openness to further sanctions."
The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee says that for the diplomatic overtures to work, " two things are vital. First, if Iran is not willing to negotiate in good faith, it must understand the consequences. Pressure is not an alternative to engagement; the two strategies complement each other."
"Second," Kerry adds, "we must be willing to take yes for an answer. An important lesson of Iraq is that intrusive inspections can work. Our ability to detect and monitor the Qom enrichment facility for years before publicly revealing it is encouraging."
The Massachusetts Democrat acknowledges that diplomacy could very well fail.
"And yet, it remains vital to seek a diplomatic solution to the stand-off," he concludes. "The international community is finally in a position to force Iran to choose either pariah status or a more constructive relationship with America and the world. Certainly the real possibility of either military conflict or a nuclear-armed Iran compels us to give diplomacy a chance."
Representative Eric Cantor, the second-ranking Republican in the House, is less optimistic that the negotiations will be fruitful.
"The unfortunate reality for President Obama is that there is absolutely no evidence that Iran is willing to reach any agreement acceptable on U.S. terms – much less use negotiations for any purpose other than to buy more time for its illicit nuclear enrichment activities," Cantor writes in an op-ed published today in Politico.
The congressman says that Obama should not delay in winning international support for "crippling sanctions" to force Iran to comply.
"The key point is that we have been down this road before – and it has reached a dead end. This time around we simply don’t have the luxury of time," Cantor says, adding that Obama "must treat Iran’s government as the oppressive and unyielding engine of terror that it is, not as the trustworthy and compromising rational actor we all wish it could be. Should he expeditiously follow through on the heavy sanctions Iran deserves, the president will have the support of a clear majority of Congress."
Obama convenes high-stakes Afghanistan meeting
Mr. President, meet General McChrystal. General, meet your commander-in-chief.
President Obama huddled privately with his entire national security team for three hours this afternoon -- and spoke directly for only the second time with the top US commander in Afghanistan. And even this time, Stanley McChrystal wasn't be there in person, but via a secure videoconference link.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs tonight issued this report of the private session:
"In today’s meeting, the President engaged his national security team in a candid assessment of the progress that has been made and the challenges we still face in Afghanistan and Pakistan since the President's strategy was announced in March. As a part of this review, the President will consult with his national security team, including his military commanders, civilian leadership, and Ambassadors in the region. He will also consult closely with our Allies and with the United States Congress.
"As the U.S. aggressively confronts al Qaeda and its leadership around the world, the President has set a clear goal in Afghanistan: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda and their extremist allies. When it come to decisions as important as keeping this country safe and putting our troops into harm’s way, the President has made it clear that he will rigorously assess our progress. That is why he held this meeting today and will take the next several weeks to review our strategy.
"This was the second of five scheduled intensive sessions with National Security Council as well as field commanders and regional ambassadors. The President has also directed his inter-agency team to provide regular consultation sessions with Congress, during this period, starting with Gen. Jones’ briefing of all US senators this evening."
Gibbs said Obama will meet again with his national security team to discuss Afghanistan and Pakistan on Oct. 7.
The Associated Press reports that Obama made no decisions during the meeting.
The AP quotes a senior administration official saying that the president pushed for specifics and details, focusing on what the goals of the US strategy should be. The official, who was involved in the session, said no decisions about increased troop levels were discussed.
The other top officials who were supposed to be in attendance, either in person or via video hookup: Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, special envoy Richard Holbrooke, Joint Chiefs chairman Michael Mullen, Central Command General David Petraeus, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, CIA Director Leon Panetta, National Security Adviser James Jones,
US ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry, and US ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson.
It was an unusual gathering in the White House situation room -- the top-secret retreat seen only in movies and TV, where the president is responding to one world crisis or another.
Obama is trying to find the right US strategy after eight years of war in Afghanistan -- even as he is buffeted from the left and the right over a pending request from McChrystal for thousands more US troops, on top of the 21,000 the president has already dispatched.
Senator John F. Kerry, a fellow Democrat and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is trying to prevail on Obama to take as long as it takes for the review of the Afghanistan mission.
"I am arguing that the president has the time and we have the time," Kerry told the Globe Tuesday.
But Senator John McCain of Arizona, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, urged Obama today to quickly approve the request for additional troops.
"Time is not on our side so we need a decision pretty quickly," McCain, who is likening the request to the troop surge that turned around the situation in Iraq, said on ABC's "Good Morning America." "I think history is pretty clear that when the Taliban took over, it became a base for attacks on the United States and our allies."
The white coat calvary
President Obama has had doctors and nurses by his side as he pitches his health care plans.
Now, his political group wants to put the medical professionals in new TV ads to rebuild public support for an overhaul of the health care system.
"The cavalry is here -- and they're in white coats and scrubs: More than a half a million doctors and millions of nurses are joining forces to help pass real health reform. Americans listen to their nurses and doctors when it comes to health reform -- and for good reason. If we can help them amplify their voices, it'll be a huge boost to our campaign for change," Mitch Stewart, national director of Organizing for America, told supporters in a fund-raising solicitation today.
Stewart said the group is trying to come up with $300,000 by Thursday for the ad, which would note that the reform effort has the backing of the American Medical Association and a dozen other physicians groups representing 500,000 doctors, plus the American Nurses Association and other organizations representing millions of nurses.
Liberal web ad mocks GOP health plan
A liberal-labor group supporting President Obama and the Democrats on health care has a new web ad that uses a more humorous, tongue-in-cheek approach to make the case that Republicans don't have a plan to offer.
The video from Americans United for Change puts together clips of various Republican lawmakers to argue that the GOP plan for those without insurance is to go to emergency rooms and seek charity care; for those seeking better benefits to get a federal government job; and for those trying to cut costs by dropping maternity care.
"This has been Republican Party health care solutions," the video ends.
Democrats call out Republicans for scaring seniors
Democrats are keeping up their assault on Republicans for what they say is scaring seniors by warning of cuts in benefits that would come from the health care overhaul.
The new TV ad today from the Democratic National Committee cites news reports that question the truthfulness of the Republican critiques and the AARP conclusion that Republicans are using "scare tactics." The spot is clearly aimed at the elderly set, down to the key points appearing on a billboard and on a piece of paper inserted into an ancient Royal typewriter.
The ad asserts that instead of cuts, seniors will benefit from lower prescription drug costs and premium payments.
While Republican accusations that the Democratic bills could lead to rationing of care have been largely debunked, independent analysts say that the GOP does have a point when it comes to a portion of the Medicare program. Under the Democratic proposals, more than 10 million seniors enrolled in an enhanced, private version of Medicare known as Medicare Advantage could have their coverage shrink or be replaced with traditional plans.
Halloween coming early on health, liberal group says
As the Senate Finance Committee today voted against including in the health care overhaul a government-run public option to compete with private insurers, the back-and-forth continues over an existing government program.
After Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus complained about a mailer sent by Humana, one of the nation's largest insurers, warning seniors that they could lose important Medicare benefits under the Democratic health care bills, Health and Human Services ordered Humana and other private companies that contract with Medicare to stop sending customers information about the overhaul's potential effects on their benefits.
While Democrats deny that the bills would cut Medicare benefits, the Congressional Budget Office and independent analysts said some seniors could lose some enhanced benefits under the Medicare Advantage program .
Republican leaders responded late last week by warning HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that they will block confirmations of any agency appointees until she lifts what they call the "gag order" on insurers.
Today, the liberal-labor coalition Americans United for Change unveiled a new TV spot going after Humana and the Republicans.
The Halloween-themed ad accuses the insurance industry and its GOP allies of resorting to fear tactics.
"This year Halloween comes early for health insurance giant Humana," the announcer says. "Humana is sending letters to its senior citizen policy holders intended to frighten them into opposing health insurance reform. The letters say health insurance reform threatens their Medicare benefits. AARP says: that’s just not true."
"But we shouldn’t be surprised," the announcer says as images of Republican leaders in various costumes flit across the screen. "Whether it’s the insurance companies or their Republican allies, the case against health insurance reform always gets down to one word."
"Boo!" it says on screen.
Baucus did not include a public option in his draft plan, largely because he does not believe that a bill that includes it would pass the Senate. Liberal groups launched a new TV ad this week in his home state trying to pressure him to change his mind.
But Senator Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, is proposing a public plan modeled on Medicare, the government program for the elderly.
President Obama has said he prefers a public option, but is not firmly wedded to it, as long as there is competition for private insurers.
Obama talks Afghanistan with NATO chief
President Obama huddled today with the leader of NATO and the main topic for discussion was the war in Afghanistan.
NATO casualties have risen, along with American ones, as the coalition forces more aggressively take on the Taliban and al Qaeda.
After the meeting, Obama said he and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen agree it's "absolutely critical" to be successful in destroying the al Qaeda network and to work with the Afghan government on improving security.
"This is not an American battle, this is a NATO mission," Obama said.
Rasmussen echoed that view, saying it is a "team effort."
The president did not offer any hints on where he will come down on a recommendation from the top US commander on the ground for more troops. He has already dispatched 21,000 more troops, bringing the total to about 68,000 by year's end.
Rasmussen said NATO officials are also reviewing the recommendation and said that Obama is right to determine the strategy first, then decide what resources are needed.
Obama also said the two men discussed the missile defense system, which the president is revamping from the Bush model, focusing more on the threat of short- and medium-range missiles from Iran and no longer deploying interceptors and radar in the Czech Republic and Poland.
Their full remarks are below:
FULL ENTRYPoll: Support rebounding for health overhaul
The latest health care poll is also the most recent to suggest that the battering the Democratic bills took during the protests and shouting that met August congressional town halls has dissipated as the focus returned to Capitol Hill.
According to the sixth tracking poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 57 percent of Americans believe that tackling health care reform is more important than ever, up from 53 percent in August. The proportion of Americans who believe their families would be better off after an overhaul is up six percentage points to 42 percent and the proportion who think that the country would be better off is up eight points to 53 percent.
Also according to the survey, most Americans support the principles at the core of the bills supported by President Obama and congressional Democrats, including a requirement that individuals obtain coverage (68 percent), a mandate that most employers offer coverage (67 percent), and an expansion of Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (82 percent).
Majorities also back "having health insurance companies pay a fee based on how much business they have” and “having health insurance companies pay a tax for offering very expensive policies,” according to Kaiser.
The Kaiser poll, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, was conducted Sept. 11-18 -- just after Obama gave a nationally televised address to Congress to lay out what he wanted in a health care bill. He has kept up the drumbeat for reform since with rallies and repeated TV appearances.
Other polls have also shown rebounding support for reform after the drumbeat of criticism led by conservative activists and Republicans in August drove down the numbers.
Tracking stimulus cash
The office in charge of overseeing the $787 billion economic stimulus package opened its new and improved website for business today.
The portal (click here) features several different ways to track how the money is being spent, including by state (Massachusetts has received nearly $5.6 billion so far) and by agency.
“Today’s launch of the latest version of Recovery.gov marks a significant step forward in our efforts to provide unprecedented transparency and accountability of Recovery Act dollars at work," Vice President Joe Biden, put in charge by the president, said in a statement.
"Visitors to the site now have at their fingertips agency-level information about every area of Recovery Act spending through new interactive maps, graphs and other user-friendly features – and this is just the beginning. Starting next month, this pioneering project will go even farther with the posting of data directly from recipients showing how they have put Recovery dollars to work on projects nationwide. I applaud the work of Earl Devaney and his team at the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board leveraging the latest technology to provide the public with more information about their taxpayer dollars at work than with any previous program in the history of our government. And I look forward to watching Recovery.gov continue to grow along with the Recovery Act.”
Liberals press Baucus on public option
Liberal groups are trying to intensify the pressure on Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus on the eve of his panel's vote whether to include a "public option" -- a government-run plan to compete with private insurers -- in its bill.
Seeking support from moderate Democrats and Republicans, Baucus did not include it in his draft. The finance committee is expected to vote Tuesday.
The Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Democracy for America are airing an ad in Baucus's home state of Montana and in Washington, D.C., featuring a Billings man as a real-life example of the need for a public option.
Bing Perrine says he had to have heart surgery, but didn't have insurance. While friends and strangers held bake sales and other fund-raisers, he still owes $100,000, he says in the ad.
Perrine goes on to assert that Baucus has received nearly $4 million in campaign contributions from health care interests.
"Senator Baucus, when you take millions of dollars from health and insurance interests that oppose reform, and oppose giving families like mine the choice of a public option, I have to ask: 'Whose side are you on?' the Montana farmer asks.
GOP, Democrats trade charges on health plan
A new GOP web ad aims straight for the sensitive spot in the health care overhaul from President Obama and Democrats -- that the proposals would mean higher taxes.
The ad claims that the bills would mean taxes on tests, scans and X-rays; on medical supplies; and on charities and small businesses. “Hundreds of billions in new taxes, all of it passed right back to the consumer,” the announcer says over images of a laughing Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and top Senate Democrat Harry Reid, juxtaposed with worried consumers.
The GOP ad then notes that the bill calls for a penalty for those who don't obtain health insurance, though it doesn't mention that there would be subsidies to help them: “And if you think you can’t afford it, you can’t afford not to, because they’ve even proposed a tax for not having health insurance.”
Obama has insisted that the penalty does not amount to a tax increase, but many independent observers disagree and the ad shows the dictionary definition.
"Obama health care taxes,” the announcer concludes. “Wrong for health care. ”
“For months, President Obama has tried to convince the American people that his government-run health care experiment will be all gain and no pain, but they aren’t buying it," Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele said in a statement. "The fact is, his plan contains huge new taxes that will harm the economy and cost more jobs. Democrats are paying for their dangerous experiment with higher taxes on small business owners, charitable giving, and even middle-class families who can least afford it. I encourage President Obama to abandon these health care taxes and set a course for a truly bipartisan bill that embraces reforms Americans actually want and need.”
Democrats, however, argue that the Senate Finance bill does not include any mandate on employers and that both businesses and individuals would end up eventually benefiting from lower health care costs.
"Apparently undeterred by the facts, the RNC is again relying on scare-tactics to ‘kill’ health insurance reform in a new web video released today," the Democratic National Committee said in its response. "The RNC’s latest attempt to mislead voters accuses the President of being 'in denial' over 'new taxes' that the RNC claims would result from reform. The only person guilty of that charge, however, is the Republican Party’s own Chairman who just this morning on Fox News denied that this country’s 'health care system' was 'going broke.' ”
For its part, the Democratic National Committee today sent out an email bashing House Republican leader John Boehner -- the second missive in its "Call 'em out" campaign targeting Republicans for repeating "falsehoods" about the Democratic proposals.
"As the Republican leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, John Boehner could use his important position to forge honest consensus around reforms that most Americans overwhelmingly support. Sadly, Boehner is choosing to be a leading peddler of health reform lies instead," says the email to supporters, urging them to criticize Boehner on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter and to write letters to the editor.
"When Boehner repeated his claim that reform would result in a government takeover of health care, it was clear he's been too busy trying to score political points to read the overwhelming evidence -- including a post from the non-partisan FactCheck.org -- debunking this claim," the email continues. "And cruelly scaring seniors with lies about benefit cuts, even though his own party voted to gut Medicare? On his side of the aisle, that's become standard operating procedure. Then of course there's Boehner's blatant lie that reform will provide taxpayer-funded abortions, a claim rejected even by groups that oppose abortion. His lies have been thoroughly debunked, but John Boehner just won't stop -- so we're calling him out."
Boehner responded to the Democrats' attack: "There's a reason why the majority of Americans oppose the Democrats' government takeover of health care, $500 billion in Medicare cuts, tax hikes, and mountains of new debt on our kids and grandkids. It's because they are in their bill. Try as they might, Democrats have a major credibility problem. Americans don't trust them with their health care, and they shouldn't."
Kerry points to Vietnam lessons on Afghanistan
Senator John F. Kerry, an influential adviser to President Obama on Afghanistan, is bending his ear about the lessons of Vietnam.
The Massachusetts Democrat is asking whether a more limited counterterrorism mission in Afghanistan would be a better strategy than than sending thousands more US troops for a full-blown counterinsurgency operation.
Obama is taking another look at the US strategy as General Stanley McChrystal, the top US commander on the ground, has asked for more forces.
Kerry, who came to politics as a Vietnam War veteran turned antiwar protestor, has called several hearings of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to explore those arguments. And he makes them again in an op-ed published in today's Wall Street Journal.
"We in Congress have our own assignment: to test all of the underlying assumptions in Afghanistan and make sure they are the right ones before embarking on a new strategy," Kerry writes. "For example, one assumption of the proposed counterinsurgency plan is that our troops and civilians will be working in partnership with a legitimate and reliable government in Afghanistan. After the deeply flawed presidential election last month, we must ask whether we can succeed if our partner is weak and viewed with deep suspicion by his own people.
"We also need to know whether a full-blown counterinsurgency, with its increased footprint and inevitably higher casualties, is a fundamental part of our plans to go after al Qaeda and avoid destabilizing Pakistan. Could a far smaller, well-honed counterterrorism strategy work as well or better?" Kerry asks.
He goes on to assert that "one of the lessons from Vietnam—applied in the first Gulf War and sadly forgotten for too long in Iraq—is that we should not commit troops to the battlefield without a clear understanding of what we expect them to accomplish, how long it will take, and how we maintain the consent of the American people. Otherwise, we risk bringing our troops home from a mission unachieved or poorly conceived."
Obama claims progress on world stage
Wrapping up a week of meetings on the world stage, President Obama uses his weekly address to claim progress on economic stability and international security -- even as he still faces unemployment woes and a recalcitrant Congress on health care at home.
"Over the past nine months my administration has renewed American leadership, and pursued a new era of engagement in which we call upon all nations to live up to their responsibilities. This week, our engagement produced tangible results in several areas," Obama says.
At the United Nations, he became the first president to preside over the Security Council, which unanimously passed a nuclear nonproliferation resolution and brought together Israeli and Palestinian leaders for the time in almost a year, though little progress was reported.
At the G-20 summit that concluded Friday in Pittsburgh, leaders agreed to steps to prevent another financial meltdown. He also joined leaders from Europe and Russia in firmly declaring that Iran must not acquire nuclear weapons after disclosing a second, secret uranium enrichment site.
"This is a serious challenge to the global nonproliferation regime, and continues a disturbing pattern of Iranian evasion. That is why international negotiations with Iran scheduled for October 1st now take on added urgency." he says.
"My offer of a serious, meaningful dialogue to resolve this issue remains open. But Iran must now cooperate fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and take action to demonstrate its peaceful intentions. On this, the international community is more united than ever before."
Obama issued another stern warning to Iran's leaders, saying they "must now choose – they can live up to their responsibilities and achieve integration with the community of nations. Or they will face increased pressure and isolation, and deny opportunity to their own people."
"These are the urgent threats of our time," he concludes. "And the United States is committed to a new chapter of international cooperation to meet them. This new chapter will not be written in one week or even one year. But we have begun. And for the American people and the people of the world, it will mean greater security and prosperity for years to come."
His full address is below and can be viewed here.
Obama warns Iran on nuclear site
President Obama, backed by the leaders of Britain and France, issued a stern warning to Iran today after announcing that it has been building a secret, second nuclear site.
At the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh, Obama said the three western powers submitted evidence of the uranium enrichment facility to the International Atomic Energy Agency and now demand that Iran open the site to IAEA inspectors.
The disclosure came a day after Obama presided over the United Nations Security Council as it adopted a US-backed resolution that supports Obama's goal of a world free of nuclear weapons.
"Iran has a right to peaceful nuclear power that meets the energy needs of its people. But the size and configuration of this facility is inconsistent with a peaceful program," Obama said at a news conference.
"Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow, endangering the global nonproliferation regime, denying its own people access to the opportunity they deserve, and threatening the stability and security of the region and the world."
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown added, "We will not let this matter rest. And we are prepared to implement further and more stringent sanctions.
"Let the message that goes out to the world be absolutely clear: that Iran must abandon any military ambitions for its nuclear program."
(Their full remarks, along with those of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, are below.)
UPDATE: Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, asked about a possible military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities, said today that diplomacy can work and is the better option.
"The reality is, there is no military option that does anything more than buy time," Gates said during an interview airing on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday. "The estimates are one to three years or so. And the only way you end up not having a nuclear-capable Iran is for the Iranian government to decide that their security is diminished by having those weapons, as opposed to strengthened."
"While you don't take options off the table, I think there's still room left for diplomacy," he added, in excerpts released by CNN this afternoon. "The Iranians are in a very bad spot now because of this deception, in terms of all of the great powers. And there obviously is the opportunity for severe additional sanctions. And I think we have the time to make that work."
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad abruptly cancelled a press conference he planned to hold at the United Nations today after Obama's news conference.
Ahmadinejad learned of Obama's announcement this morning during an interview at Time Magazine. He called the accusation "a mistake" and claimed that the Iranian government would have informed the IAEA of its new nuclear facility being built near the holy city of Qom in due time.
"This does not mean that anything was done secretly," he said. "We are the ones who always inform the IAEA of our activities."
An Iranian dissident group revealed the existence of the first clandestine uranium enrichment facility at Natanz in 2002. Under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, such a facility must be open to international inspectors. But Iranian officials argued that they did not have to inform the international body of its construction until they brought nuclear material there.
Senator John F. Kerry, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, echoed the leaders' warnings.
“In light of Iran’s continuing deception, the international community must step up its demands that Iran halt its enrichment and reprocessing work, answer the International Atomic Energy Agency's questions, and provide IAEA inspectors with the full complement of access and transparency they require," he said in a statement.
“President Obama has offered Iran every opportunity to open a constructive diplomatic dialogue on its nuclear program. To this point, there is no evidence that Iran intends to reciprocate. I continue to support engagement with Iran, but now is the time to supplement engagement with more robust international sanctions. That’s the only way to dramatically increase the economic and diplomatic pressure on Iran from the outside and help leverage pressure on the regime from its own population which wants a different relationship with the world. Tehran must make a fundamental decision on whether it wants to continue its pariah status or enter a more constructive relationship with the world.”
House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio also weighed in with a rebuke of Iran, and warned that the United States should not directly negotiate with the country, as Obama has suggested he would be open to doing.
“Today’s announcement about Iran’s secret nuclear facility is further confirmation of its pattern of deception and denial. For years, the regime in Tehran has done everything in its power to hide the truth that it is committed to building a nuclear bomb to threaten the United States and our allies. The IAEA must be allowed into the country to conduct immediate, unimpeded, and comprehensive inspections, and there must be full transparency regarding the results of those inspections," Boehner said in a statement.
“This revelation should put the international community on notice that its collective willingness to give the Iranian regime ‘one more chance’ is not working. How will we respond to a regime that refuses civil liberties, denies its citizens free and fair elections, and aims to dominate a critical region through violence, terrorism, and nuclear weapons? How will we respond if Iran does not let inspectors in? Why should we feel confident they are being honest about anything else?
“The United States should not participate in direct negotiations with Iran – negotiations that will further legitimize this brutal regime – until we have answers to these important questions. Unfortunately, the Administration has not, to date, given Iran reason to believe we are serious about preventing them from acquiring or developing a nuclear capability, especially in light of the Administration’s recent policy decision regarding missile defense in Central Europe and its public remarks about Israel and the Middle East peace process. The United States and our European allies must demonstrate a willingness to quickly impose meaningful sanctions against the regime in Iran. We can do so even if other nations like Russia and China refuse to join this effort, and we should. Finally, Congress needs to get serious about moving a sanctions bill, and it needs to do so now.”
Senate passes Pakistan aid bill
Senators John F. Kerry and Richard Lugar praised their colleagues today for passing a bill that triples foreign aid to Pakistan, an ally with a nuclear arsenal that is beset by internal divisions and Islamic militants.
The bill they championed includes $1.5 billion a year over the next five years for democratic, economic, and social development assistance. It could win House passage as early as Friday, sending it to President Obama for his signature, the Associated Press reports.
Kerry broke the news of the Senate vote to Pakistan's foreign minister in a telephone call during a meeting in New York of senior diplomats pledging support for Pakistan. The room broke out into applause, reports the Globe's Farah Stockman.
President Obama also attended that meeting, where he said he wanted to "reaffirm my country’s deep commitment to the people of Pakistan."
(His full remarks are below.)
"This Act represents a collaboration between both Democrats and Republicans, in both Senate and the House, to forge a new long-term relationship between the people of America and Pakistan. The fact that President Obama was able to announce this at the United Nations sends an important message to Pakistan and the world of our strengthened commitment to this relationship," Kerry said in a statement.
“I am delighted by the action of my colleagues today—and by the unanimity displayed in the Senate vote. This landmark piece of legislation is the product of careful consultation between both Chambers, and both sides of the aisle: I salute my friends Dick Lugar and Howard Berman for their leadership. It is my hope and expectation that the House will pass this bill speedily, so that the President can sign it into law without delay.”
Lugar added, “The United States has an intense strategic interest in Pakistan and the surrounding region. The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate last year painted a bleak picture of the converging crises in Pakistan. A growing al-Qaeda sanctuary, an expanding Taliban insurgency, political brinksmanship, and a failing economy are intensifying turmoil and violence in that country. These circumstances are a threat to Pakistan, the region, and the United States.
“We should make clear to the people of Pakistan that our interests are focused on democracy, pluralism, stability, and the fight against terrorism. These are values supported by a large majority of the Pakistani people. If Pakistan is to break its debilitating cycle of instability, it will need to achieve progress on fighting corruption, delivering government services, and promoting broad based economic growth. The international community and the United States should support reforms that contribute to the strengthening of Pakistani civilian institutions.”
Obama leads UN session on nuclear weapons
President Obama this morning became the first US commander in chief to preside at a United Nations Security Council session -- and he used the forum to renew his vision for a world free of nuclear weapons.
Calling the use and spread of nuclear weapons a "fundamental threat" to humankind, Obama said a single bomb detonated in a major city like New York would kill hundreds of thousands of people and destabilize the globe.
Aftter the 15-member council unanimously approved a draft resolution on nonproliferation, he announced that the United States will hold a summit next spring to work on enforcement.
“We harbor no illusions about the difficulty of bringing about a world without nuclear weapons," Obama told the council. "We know there are plenty of cynics, and that there will be setbacks to prove their point. But there will also be days like today that push us forward – days that tell a different story. It is the story of a world that understands that no difference or division is worth destroying all that we have built and all that we love. It is a recognition that can bring people of different nationalities and ethnicities and ideologies together. In my own country, it has brought Democrats and Republican leaders together.”
(His full remarks are below, followed by the White House release.)
He announced the goal in a speech in Prague in April, and said that the United States had a "moral responsibility" to lead because no other country has used one. The US has agreed to reduce its stockpile of nuclear weapons, has committed to negotiate a new strategic weapons reduction treaty with Russia, and is leading efforts to control nuclear material in the former Soviet Union.
As the Globe reported in June, another tool Obama is proposing is an internationally managed nuclear fuel bank, which could remove the "peaceful use" justification for Iran and other nations that might be trying to use a civilian nuclear program as cover to make nuclear weapons.
Many arms-control specialists consider the idea of a "fuel bank" controlled by the International Atomic Energy Agency a key way to test the sincerity of Iranian leaders, who maintain that their enrichment program is only for civilian use and necessary because they cannot be assured of energy supplies from other countries.
Senator John F. Kerry, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, issued a statement applauding the resolution's passage.
“I commend the President for reasserting American leadership on the vital issue of nuclear nonproliferation and for securing unanimous Security Council approval of an important resolution. The world has long looked to our nation to lead in combating nuclear proliferation, and today’s action by the Security Council demonstrates the concrete benefits to our own nation’s security that can be achieved when the United States takes up that mantle of leadership.
“With this resolution the Security Council has called upon all states to follow the United States’ lead and take on the goal of securing all of the world’s vulnerable nuclear material in four years. It has also put governments of the world on notice that the international community will not tolerate cynical efforts to take advantage of the rights to peaceful nuclear energy that are enshrined in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) in the pursuit of nuclear weapons.
“I am especially pleased that the Security Council has called upon states to adopt stricter export controls over sensitive nuclear equipment and technology, will address any move by a state to withdraw from the NPT, and has affirmed that a state that withdraws from the NPT remains responsible for any violations of the Treaty that it committed before withdrawal.”
The White House also released a joint statement from former Secretary of State George Shultz, former Secretary of Defense William Perry, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and former Senator Sam Nunn, who in 2007 penned a widely circulated opinion piece also calling for a nuclear weapons-free world.
"The Summit in the UN Security Council brings much-needed global focus to the risks posed by the spread of nuclear weapons, nuclear know-how and nuclear material. By convening heads of state, the meeting can help build the necessary political will around the urgent steps required to reduce nuclear dangers," they said.
"The four of us have come together in a nonpartisan effort, deeply committed to building support for a global effort to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons, to prevent their spread into potentially dangerous hands, and ultimately to end them as a threat to the world. We remain committed to working toward this vision and advancing the steps essential to achieve this goal. We welcome the leadership of the U.S. administration in this effort."
Biden touts stimulus report
Vice President Joe Biden jumped all over the congressional watchdog's report on the Obama administration's economic stimulus plan, saying the report shows that the stimulus is working.
“Today’s report from the Government Accountability Office confirms what I have been hearing from people across the country: the Recovery Act is working to jump-start critical infrastructure projects, cushion the impact of record state budget deficits and provide new job opportunities for hard-hit communities," Biden, who has been put in charge of making sure the stimulus money is not wasted, said in a statement.
"As the GAO notes, Recovery Act funds are being put to work ahead of schedule, and project bids are frequently coming in under-budget -- with the millions of dollars of cost-savings often redirected to communities that need the economic boost the most. The fact that a survey of nine major Recovery Act programs across sixteen states by the government’s top watchdog, showed such significant progress is a testament to the care with which we have put taxpayer dollars to work.”
“We look ahead to receiving the first reports directly from recipients of Recovery Act funds next month on what it has meant for their business or organization. We appreciate the GAO’s recommendations for carrying out that process. I am also stressing to agencies the importance of responding to the GAO’s other recommendations for improvements in execution and oversight of this highly complex effort.”
Biden didn't mention, however, that the GAO also warned that a government's plans to measure the success of a $1.2 billion jobs program for teenagers are so lax that they "may reveal little about what the program achieved.
The Associated Press reports that many teens didn't get jobs, partly because unemployed adults sought the same low-wage, entry-level positions. Youth unemployment rates hit 18.5 percent in July, the highest rate measured among 16- to 24-year-olds in that month since 1948, the AP notes.
Republicans have also kept up a barrage of criticism of the stimulus, saying it hasn't created the promised jobs.
Republicans call for more focus on Afghanistan, not health care
House Republican leaders added their voices today to those who say the focus on health care on Capitol Hill is crowding out other crucial issues, namely what to do in Afghanistan.
“With Afghanistan now becoming such a very troublesome issue, we should be making progress on health care so it doesn’t get in the way of a very, very important national security issue,” Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the No. 2 House Republican, told reporters after a private GOP meeting. “Central Asia is the Persian Gulf of the 21st century. We are foolish to be ignoring that threat right now."
"Health care in this building has made it so that it seems we can't get anything else done. We have burning issues out there is this country," Cantor added.
Obama, who is weighing a revamped strategy for Afghanistan and whether to send even more reinforcements than the 21,000 he has already dispatched, is likely to need Republican support for whatever he decides because the vast majority of Democrats are opposed to any escalation of the US mission.
"With all the attention there is on health care, the attention that needs to be paid to what is happening in Afghanistan isn’t happening,” added Representative John Boehner, the House Republican leader.
He and other key lawmakers have demanded that General Stanley McChrystal, the top US commander in Afghanistan, appear before House and Senate committees to explain his report to the White House that calls for additional troops.
"What strategy does he believe is going to be necessary in order to secure Afghanistan so that we deny the Taliban and al Qaeda a safe haven from which to train, operate and organize to come after Americans again? And so, we need General McChrystal up here as soon as possible to help members understand. I think the President ought to take his request as soon as possible,” Boehner added.
“I do believe that there is a lot of danger in the delay. First, with insufficient troops in the field, we put the troops that we do have there at greater risk. Secondly, if the President doesn’t come to a decision soon—what will happen is— we will miss the window of getting more troops into the theater as the spring thaw occurs, when the additional troops are going to be necessary. And so, I would hope that the timetable that’s been discussed by the Administration gets sped up, and gets sped up rapidly.”
As the Globe reported on Monday, some lawmakers and advocates are chafing that the sluggish pace on a health care overhaul has backed up priorities including climate change, transportation, and financial regulation.
On Fox Business Network this afternoon, Boehner said House Democrats should realize that their plan, with a government-run public option, is not going to get through.
"They're still moving in the direction of those big government plan, high taxes and big deficits. At some point it's going to become clear that this can't pass. I don't know whether that's three weeks from now, four weeks from now, six weeks from now, but at some point it's going to become clear," Boehner said.
"And then they're going to have to make a decision - do they accept the defeat or do they hit the reset button and scrap all these big government ideas and work with Republicans to make our current system work better."
Delahunt, Schuster to represent US at UN
President Obama tapped Representative William Delahunt of Massachusetts and Partners Health Care board member Elaine Schuster today as US delegates to the United Nations General Assembly session this week.
They are joined by Representative Chris Smith of New Jersey, and as alternate representatives former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb and New York lawyer Laura Gore Ross.
The White House mini-biographies on them are below:
FULL ENTRYKerry strikes back at GOP complaints on health care
Senator John F. Kerry, who has picked up some of the health care mantle from the late Edward M. Kennedy, lashed out today at Republicans complaining that the issue is being rushed.
“Only in Washington could people argue that we’ve rushed this process,” Kerry said in a statement. “This has been America’s battle for decades, and those suffering in a broken system cannot afford the political gaming of stall and delay – they simply will not survive it. We are going to get this done. I’ve been confident of that all along, and I’m confident of it now. We’re going to do it because we have to and because it is the right thing to do. And in the end, I think, we will show something about the character and the compassion of the American people.”
As the Senate Finance Committee started deliberating and amending a proposal from Chairman Max Baucus, Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the panel's senior Republican, said the mid-September deadline preempted bipartisan talks. "I find it utterly and completely appalling," he said.
Baucus unveiled his bill last weeks after months of negotiations toward a possible bipartisan deal proved fruitless.
Kerry's full statement to the committee is below:
Obama: Time to move ahead on Mideast peace
Before hosting a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, President Obama made clear today that he wants the stalled Mideast peace talks to pick up momentum again.
"Simply put it is past time to talk about starting negotiations -- it is time to move forward. It is time to show the flexibility and common sense and sense of compromise that’s necessary to achieve our goals. Permanent status negotiations must begin and begin soon. And more importantly, we must give those negotiations the opportunity to succeed," he said after meeting separately with the two leaders.
"And so my message to these two leaders is clear," Obama added. "Despite all the obstacles, despite all the history, despite all the mistrust, we have to find a way forward. We have to summon the will to break the deadlock that has trapped generations of Israelis and Palestinians in an endless cycle of conflict and suffering. We cannot continue the same pattern of taking tentative steps forward and then stepping back. Success depends on all sides acting with a sense of urgency."
But expectations for any kind of breakthrough are extremely low. Obama's Mideast envoy, former Senator George Mitchell of Maine, came home without any progress, particularly on the thorny issue of Israeli settlements on the West Bank.
Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John F. Kerry sounded a note of hope.
“President Obama has shown a commendable commitment to making Middle East peace a priority," Kerry said in a statement. "I hope that today’s meeting between President Obama, Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas is the first step back to the negotiating table—and eventually toward a comprehensive peace. Progress towards peace requires bold steps from all sides. Ultimately, it’s up to Israeli, Palestinian and Arab leaders to seize this opportunity and match the President’s leadership.”
Obama's full remarks are below:
Biden sounds warning on health premiums
In one of his first forays into the thick of the health care debate, Vice President Joe Biden today used a new White House report on premium increases to warn that without an overhaul, families will face higher and higher costs.
"The status quo of rising premiums is simply unsustainable for families, for businesses, for state budgets, and for our national economy," Biden told state insurance commissioners.
According to the White House report, the national average annual family premium for employer-sponsored health insurance rose to $13,375 in 2009, up 5.5 percent during a recession when overall inflation fell by 0.7 percent. The report found that families’ premiums have gone up between 90 percent and 150 percent over the last decade, depending on the state, far faster than wages and inflation.
In Massachusetts, premiums jumped 119 percent between 1999 and 2009, nearly three times the 35 percent increase in wages, according to the report.
Click here for the full report.
Biden's full remarks are below:
Trial lawyers fight back on malpractice
With President Obama opening the door a crack to tort reform as part of a health care overhaul, the nation's trial lawyers are trying to slam it shut again.
The American Association for Justice announced today it is launching what it called the first phase of a nationwide ad campaign "to educate lawmakers about the epidemic of preventable medical errors and how tort law changes won’t lower costs or cover the uninsured."
The ads, running in Washington publications and on online news sites, say the estimated 98,000 deaths from preventable medical errors is “like two 737s crashing every day for a whole year.”
But the ad concludes: “Would we blame the passengers or the airlines?”
The group, formerly known as the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, also has a website on the issue.
“Our health care system is clearly broken, and if we are serious about improving it, we need to fix preventable medical errors,” AAJ President Anthony Tarricone said in a statement. “This new ad campaign gives Congress 98,000 reasons why they should put patients’ health first – before the profits of insurance companies. If we work to improve our health care system and reduce medical errors – rather than strip people of their rights – there would be far fewer victims that need legal recourse.”
Obama, in his speech to Congress earlier this month, said while he didn't see malpractice reform as a "silver bullet," he was open to looking at ways to decrease "defensive medicine," when doctors order extra tests and procedures to avoid malpractice lawsuits.
Last week, the White House followed up by announcing $25 million in grants to help states and health care systems test models designed to compensate patients for malpractice but also reduce frivolous lawsuits and lower insurance premiums paid by doctors.
Obama vows action on climate change
Kicking off four days of meetings with world leaders, President Obama declared this morning that the international response to global warming will determine how history views their success.
"Our generation’s response to this challenge will be judged by history, for if we fail to meet it – boldly, swiftly, and together – we risk consigning future generations to an irreversible catastrophe," he said at a climate change summit in New York hosted by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
"It is true that for too many years, mankind has been slow to respond to or even recognize the magnitude of the climate threat. It is true of my own country as well. We recognize that. But this is a new day. It is a new era. And I am proud to say that the United States has done more to promote clean energy and reduce carbon pollution in the last eight months than at any other time in our history," he bragged.
The president cited new fuel efficiency standards for vehicles, clean energy investments in the economic stimulus package, and energy efficiency initiatives. He also noted that in June, the US House passed a landmark climate change bill that calls for a cap-and-trade system that includes a limit on carbon emissions and a market for pollution credits.
"We understand the gravity of the climate threat," Obama said. "We are determined to act. And we will meet our responsibility to future generations." (His full remarks are below.)
But with health care backing up legislation in the Senate -- and vehement opposition from Republicans and others to cap-and-trade, it is uncertain at best that Obama will be able to deliver a signed, sealed, and delivered climate change law in time for a major global warming summit in December in Copenhagen, where advocates hope a groundbreaking agreement is approved.
Indeed, Obama is being upstaged at today's UN meeting by news that China will unveil plans to aggressively increase its energy saving programs to combat climate change.
Obama has a busy schedule on the world stage the rest of the week.
Today, he huddles separately with the leaders of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, then brings together Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for a trilateral meeting. Later, he meets with Chinese President Hu Jintao.
Wednesday, Obama delivers his first speech to the UN General Assembly and meets with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev. Thursday, the president presides over a UN Security Council session on nuclear proliferation. And on Friday, Obama hosts the main session of the G-20 economic summit in Pittsburgh.
FULL ENTRYObama yuks it up on Letterman
President Obama and his host mixed the serious with just the plain wacky as Obama tonight becomes the first sitting president to appear on "Late Night with David Letterman."
During the taping in New York, Letterman offered up his top 10 reasons why the president had agreed to do the show, including that Obama said yes without thinking about it, according to the Associated Press account. "Like Bush did with Iraq," Letterman said.
But Obama joked that he showed up because of the unusual prop that an audience member brought to the show: "The main reason I'm here? I want to see that heart-shaped potato."
The woman tossed the potato to Letterman and agreed to let Obama keep it, the AP says.
The 40-minute interview also covered a series of sober topics, including Obama's upcoming decision on whether to send more troops to win the war in Afghanistan.
The president also had his most irreverent answer yet when asked whether the intense opposition to his health care plan stems at least in part from racism.
"First of all, I think it's important to realize that I was actually black before the election," Obama said to big laughs from the audience.
The Letterman appearance followed up interviews on five Sunday talk shows, leading some to suggest that the president is getting overexposed.
"He's been on everything but the Food Channel," Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, joked on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday.
Health care, the four-minute version
The health care bills in Congress run to the hundreds of pages -- not surprising since they would remake a huge chunk of the US economy.
But in a new video today, the White House that suggests that all Americans need to know can be summarized much more briefly.
"The Obama Plan in Four Minutes" shows the president explaining the basic benefits -- both for those with and without insurance -- in his speech this month to a joint session of Congress. The video ends with Obama's clarion calI for action, with him imploring lawmakers, "Now's the time to deliver on health care."
Meanwhile, with Obama busy at the United Nations on Wednesday, giving a major speech to the General Assembly, Vice President Joe Biden will pick up the slack on health care.
Biden, joined by Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius and White House health reform Director Nancy-Ann DeParle, will lead a discussion in Silver Spring, Md., on "how health insurance reform will lower costs, cut waste, and improve health care quality for seniors across the country," the White House announced this afternoon.
With Biden taking a larger role in the health care debate, Republicans gleefully reminded that earlier this month, the vice president joked, "I do foreign policy, I don't do health care."
In his remarks at the Brookings Institution, Biden went on to say that one reason why is that foreign policy is "a lot easier than health care, and a lot less complicated." "And that's not a joke," he said.
Obama promotes innovation jobs
Before taking the world stage the rest of the week, President Obama held one last economy event today, focusing on his hope that innovation will reverse painful job losses.
He toured and spoke at Hudson Valley Community College in Troy, N.Y., the beneficiary of $2 million in federal grants to retrain workers in clean energy work. He is being accompanied by Jill Biden, the wife of Vice President Joe Biden and a long-time community college instructor.
Obama declared that manufacturing cities like Troy have been hit hard during the economic downturn, but innovation jobs hold the promise of rebirth.
"There are those who suggest that nothing government can do will make a difference; that what we’ve seen in places like Troy is inevitable; that somehow, the parts of our country that helped us lead in the last century don’t have what it takes to help us lead in this one," the president said. "I am here today to tell you that this is just flat out wrong. What we have here is a community filled with talented people, entrepreneurial small businesses, and world-class learning institutions. The ingredients are right here for growth and success and a better future."
Citing local projects in nanotechnology and a semiconductor plant, he said that his innovation strategy will lead to "sustained growth and widely shared prosperity."
"Our strategy begins where innovation so often does: in the classroom and in the laboratory – and in the networks that connect them to the broader economy. These are the building blocks of innovation: education, infrastructure, and research," he said.
(His full remarks are below.)
The White House says that Obama's "innovation strategy" builds on more than $100 billion from the stimulus package. "It seeks to harness the inherent ingenuity of the American people and a dynamic private sector to ensure that the next expansion is more solid, broad-based, and beneficial than previous ones. It focuses on critical areas where sensible, balanced government policies can lay the foundation for innovation that leads to quality jobs and shared prosperity," the White House said in its release.
The full release is below:
Obama calls for new consumer agency
Following up on his speech on Wall Street earlier this week warning that financial firms can't return to business as usual, President Obama uses his weekly address to put on the hard sell for his proposal to create a new agency to oversee consumer loans.
The Consumer Financial Protection Agency is a centerpiece of the financial regulation overhaul sought by Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress. But it is strongly opposed by much of the financial industry.
"Part of what led to this crisis were not just decisions made on Wall Street, but also unsustainable mortgage loans made across the country. While many folks took on more than they knew they could afford, too often folks signed contracts they didn’t fully understand offered by lenders who didn’t always tell the truth. That’s why we need clear rules, clearly enforced. And that’s what this agency will do," Obama says in his weekly radio and Internet address.
"Consumers shouldn’t have to worry about loan contracts written to confuse, hidden fees attached to their mortgages, and financial penalties – whether through a credit card or debit card -- that appear without a clear warning on their statements. And responsible lenders, including community banks, trying to do the right thing shouldn’t have to worry about ruinous competition from unregulated and unscrupulous competitors."
Obama notes the opposition, but argues, "We cannot let the narrow interests of a few come before the interests of all of us. We cannot forget how close we came to the brink, and perpetuate the broken system and breakdown of responsibility that made it possible."
In the address, the president also pledges to continue to work on the economic recovery with other world leaders, whom he will meet at the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh next week.
The full remarks are below, and can be viewed here.
Obama says race not the main reason for criticism
President Obama wanted to talk about his health care proposals, but in the early excerpts released of the five interviews he taped today for broadcast Sunday, race was the focus.
Obama was asked about former President Jimmy Carter's assertion this week that much of the most vociferous opposition to the president is based on racism. Republicans slammed Carter, saying that the criticism is over his policies on health care and other issues, not race.
"Are there people out there who don’t like me because of race? I’m sure there are,” Obama said on CNN. “That’s not the overriding issue here.”
“I think there are people who are anti-government,” Obama continued. “I think there’s been a longstanding debate in this country -- that is usually that much more fierce during times of transition or when presidents are trying to bring about big changes. The things that were said about FDR were pretty similar to the things that were said about me. He was a Communist. He was a socialist. Things that were said about Ronald Reagan when he was trying to reverse some of the New Deal programs were pretty vicious as well.”
In his interview with ABC, the nation's first black president also made the argument that the dispute is really over the role of government.
"Look I think that race is such a volatile issue in this society, always has been that, it becomes hard for people to separate out race being a sort of part of the backdrop of American society versus race being a predominant factor in any given debate. And what I’ve said, when we talked during the campaign, Are there some people who don’t like me because of my race? I’m sure there are. Are there some people who voted for me only because of my race? There are probably some of those too.
"The overwhelming part of the American population, I think, is right now following this debate and they are trying to figure out, 'Is this gonna help me? Is health care going to make me better off?' Now there are some who are, setting aside the issue of race, actually I think are more passionate about the idea of whether government can do anything right. And I think that that’s probably the biggest driver of some of the vitriol."
He also did interviews with CBS, NBC, and Univision.
Hillary Clinton predicts success for Obama health plan
On the same day that current first lady Michelle Obama jumped into the fray on health care, the last first lady to take on the issue expressed optimism that President Obama's plan will be approved.
Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose "Hillarycare" was soundly rebuffed in the mid-1990s, promoted her experience on health care in her campaign against Obama in the Democratic primaries, saying she had the scars to prove it.
"It won't be pretty. It's like sausage-making. But we will end up with a bill for the president to sign that will be an advance," Clinton, now Obama's secretary of state, said today at the Brookings Institution. "We all have to calm down here, take two aspirin, go to bed, think about it in the morning."
First lady joins health care fight
President Obama called on his better half today to help make his sales pitch on health care as his overhaul plan faces brickbats from both the left and right.
First lady Michelle Obama spoke to a family-themed event sponsored by the White House Council on Women and Girls after women had told their stories of health care hardship.
According to the press pool report, the testimony came from a widow with a teenage son who had trouble finding affordable coverage, a cancer survivor who had to declare bankruptcy due to her copay and out-of-pocket costs, and a woman who has a non-cancerous lump in her breast but no insurance and who sat in the first lady's box for the president's health care speech to Congress last week.
Similar stories are happening all over the country because women are " being crushed -- crushed -- by the current structure of our health care," Michelle Obama said. "Crushed."
"This is why we are fighting so hard for health insurance reform," the first lady declared. "This is the face of the fight....People are hurting in this country right now."
And women "know the pain, because we are the ones dealing with it," she added, noting that in most families, mothers are dealing with the health care of their children, relatives, and often their husbands, as well, drawing laughter from the audience that included members of the Business and Professional Women, the YWCA, the Women’s Chamber of Commerce, and the National Council of Negro Women.
The first lady also told the story of her daughter Sasha, who at four months old contracted meningitis, and said she often wonders what would have happened if the Obamas didn't have a good pediatrician and generous insurance.
She said it's "still shocking to me" and it keeps her up at night that women are denied coverage or charged more for insurance, and that many policies don't cover basic services that women need.
"The status quo is unacceptable. It is holding women and families back," Michelle Obama said, then going on to explain major elements of the president's plan.
"I think this is a pretty reasonable plan, I don't know about you," she said, urging the audience to "mobilize like you've never mobilized before" over the next few weeks to educate people about the plan and to rebut false allegations.
"No longer can we sit by and watch the debate take on a life of it own. Now, more than ever, we have to channel our passions into change."
Also according to the press pool report, the first lady plans similar health care events, though not in the next two weeks, when she will be busy with United Nations General Assembly gathering in New York, the G-20 economic summit in Pittsburgh, and the International Olympic Committee meeting in Copenhagen, when the executive committee will choose the host for the 2016 Summer Olympics.
The first lady, who previously has made helping military families her signature issue, has a significantly higher favorability rating these days than her husband.
In the most recent poll measuring both, Gallup found in April that 72 percent of Americans had a favorable impression of Michelle Obama and only 17 percent unfavorable, compared to a 69 percent favorable-28 percent unfavorable split for her husband.
The president's favorability rating has dropped since, during the heated battle over health care, to 63 percent in a Washington Post/ABC News survey earlier this month.
Her full remarks today are below:
Calling out health critics
In his recent stump speeches on health care, one of President Obama's big applause lines has been a warning to his opponents:
"I won't stand by while special interests do the same old tricks to keep things exactly the way they are....If you misrepresent what’s in the plan, we'll call you out. We will call you out," he told a rally at the University of Maryland on Thursday.
Today, the Democratic National Committee followed up by launching a new "Call ‘Em Out” campaign to help "set the record straight on GOP lies, scare tactics, and mistruths on health insurance reform" with emails and other missives to activists.
The target of the first call to action is Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, a potential Republican challenger to Obama in 2012, who the DNC says is embracing the "salacious and thoroughly debunked charge of death panels" -- committees of bureaucrats who would decide end-of-life care under the health overhaul. The DNC also put up a web video slamming Pawlenty.
"The message to Tim Pawlenty and the opponents of change who would lie or misrepresent the truth should be clear: you are not going to get away with it," DNC spokesman Hari Sevugan said in a statement. "We are going to respond forcefully and consistently with the facts and you will no longer be able to peddle your lies with impunity. Through tools like 'Call 'Em Out,' you will be met with aggressive push back from our supporters who will be armed with the facts and who will hold you accountable for playing politics with the most important issues facing our country today.”
But even many Democrats acknowledge that Republican and other critics of the health care bills got the upper hand during the August congressional recess, making it more difficult to pass a bill.
Also today, Organizing for America, Obama's grassroots political arm housed within the DNC, launched a new TV ad that uses footage from the Thursday rally where the enthusiastic crowd joins the president's chant of "Fired up, ready to go."
Obama scraps Europe missile shield
President Obama, who vows to "reset" the tense relationship with Russia, announced this morning he is removing a major point of dispute, scrapping plans for an elaborate missile defense system in Europe.
But the decision is being met with disappointment among some NATO allies -- and is sure to lead to more accusations from the president's conservative critics that he is soft on national defense.
In a hastily-called White House announcement, Obama said his new approach will provide "stronger, smarter, and swifter defenses" of US forces and the US mainland.
He said is committed to deploying strong missile defenses -- but those that respond to 21st century threats that are adaptable, utilize proven technology, and are cost effective.
(Obama's remarks are below, followed by the White House "fact sheet" on the new approach.)
Obama's move overturns another Bush administration policy -- it announced in 2007 planned to put 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar system in the Czech Republic. While the US insisted that the system was not aimed at Russia but instead at Iran and other potential rogue nuclear states, Russia adamantly opposed the missile shield and issued bellicose threats against the countries that would have hosted it.
The US also needs Russia's help in diplomatic moves to persuade Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions.
Obama said that a seven-month review concludes Iranian short- and medium-range missiles are a greater threat than long-range missiles, and those missiles could be defended with other systems.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates followed up Obama's announcement by telling reporters that better sensors and interceptors allow the US to more quickly deploy a missile defense system in southern Europe (reports suggest Turkey) and on Aegis ships.
Gates said the new approach is better than the one he recommended to President George W. Bush nearly three years ago and that it means deployment six or seven years earlier, filling in the gap until 2015 when an upgraded missile shield can be deployed in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, backed Obama on the change.
“President Obama’s decision to restructure missile defense in Europe is correct and timely," Kerry said in a statement. "Proven technologies and responsible diplomacy must be at the core of missile defense in Europe, and now is the time to press forward with the more flexible missile defense architecture that the President and Secretary Gates have chosen. NATO is the bedrock of our security, whether a country is at the geographic heart of the alliance or on its frontiers. The President’s new proposal will provide a stronger and more effective defense for American forces and our NATO allies."
Representative Ike Skelton of Missouri, the Democratic chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, also generally endorsed Obama's move.
“While I look forward to reviewing the details of the President’s plan, it appears the new missile defense strategy for Europe is a comprehensive approach that will counter the most immediate missile threats from Iran and protect our allies and our troops in the region," he said in a statement.
“As a practical matter, deployment of the European third site was still a long way away. This new approach, which has the support of both the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, focuses our resources where they will do the most good. The plan is also consistent with NATO’s policy that the deployment of ballistic missile defenses be prioritized according to the imminence of the threat and the level of acceptable risk.”
But Senator Jon Kyl, an Arizona Republican, called the decision "dangerous and short-sighted."
"Not only does this decision leave America vulnerable to the growing Iranian long-range missile threat, it also turns back the clock to the days of the Cold War, when Eastern Europe was considered the domain of Russia. This will be a bitter disappointment, indeed, even a warning to the people of Eastern Europe," Kyl said in a statement.
"The message the administration sends today is clear: the United States will not stand behind its friends and views 're-setting' relations with Russia more important. This is wrong!"
Representative John Boehner, the top House Republican, also blasted Obama's decision.
“Scrapping the US missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic does little more than empower Russia and Iran at the expense of our allies in Europe," Boehner said in a statement. "It shows a willful determination to continue ignoring the threat posed by some of the most dangerous regimes in the world, while taking one of the most important defenses against Iran off the table. Since taking control of Congress, House Democrats have cut our missile defense budget by $1.2 billion, undermining our commitment to our allies and weakening our national security. I urge the President to reconsider this ill-advised decision, stand with our allies, and do what’s right for the safety and security of the American people.”
Another Republican, Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, went as far as to accuse Obama of appeasement.
“Seventy years ago today, the Soviet Union invaded Poland. And, today, at the Russians’ request, the Obama Administration has agreed to abandon the missile defense shield developed to protect our close allies in Eastern Europe," Blunt said in a statement.
“The administration’s decision to scrap the missile defense plan is incredibly shortsighted and comes at the expense of our allies in the War on Terror....Appeasement of dangerous nations does not inspire peace. We must stand firm and send the signal that we will not back down when the safety of Americans and our allies is at stake.”
Obama tries to rally young behind health care
President Obama took his health care pitch to a college campus today, telling a cheering crowd at the University of Maryland that he is keeping his promise to not just clean up the messes he inherited, but build a better future.
In a message tailored for the young people who powered his campaign, Obama said his domestic agenda is designed to "ensure your generation" has the same opportunities as his.
He specifically mentioned that Congress is on the cusp of overhauling the student loan system to make it simpler and cheaper for students. "That's the change you worked for, that's the change you voted for, that's the change I will deliver," he said.
The president said another defining struggle for the younger generation is his push for sweeping changes to the nation's health care system. While young people might think they're immune from health problems, one third have trouble paying their medical bills, he said.
Despite all the machinations on the details of the health care bills, Obama said the bottom-line issue is simpler:
"It's about what kind of country you want to be. You gave time to this campaign because you believe America can still do great things.
"I may not be the first president to take up the cause of health care reform," he said. "I am determined to be the last -- with your help."
His full remarks are below:
FULL ENTRYAn experiment on malpractice reform
The part of President Obama's health care speech last week that many Republicans liked most was when he suggested he'd be open to changes on medical malpractice.
"I don't believe malpractice reform is a silver bullet, but I've talked to enough doctors to know that defensive medicine may be contributing to unnecessary costs," Obama told Congress. "So I'm proposing that we move forward on a range of ideas about how to put patient safety first and let doctors focus on practicing medicine."
Today, the White House followed up, announcing a $25 million demonstration project to help states and health care systems test models with the following goals: "Put patient safety first and work to reduce preventable injuries; foster better communication between doctors and their patients; ensure that patients are compensated in a fair and timely manner for medical injuries, while also reducing the incidence of frivolous lawsuits; and reduce liability premiums."
"This is an area we know we can do better," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told reporters today. "As many as 98,000 Americans die every year from medical errors. And though malpractice premiums themselves count for only a small percentage of total medical costs, many doctors report that they practice costly defensive medicine because they are fearful of lawsuits."
Tort reform has long been a goal of Republicans and doctors -- and long opposed by trial lawyers who are among the most generous donors to Democrats.
The trial lawyers association immediately weighed in with its concerns.
“Any changes to the malpractice system must focus on patient safety and preventable medical errors, not limiting patients’ legal rights," American Association for Justice President Anthony Tarricone said in a statement.
“The goals outlined by the White House – such as reducing the number of injuries, fostering better communication, compensating patients quicker, and reducing doctors’ premiums – move the debate in the right direction. However, 46 states have already enacted tort reform and health care costs continue to hurt the pocketbooks of American families. Because of these tort reforms, patients injured through no fault of their own are often unable to seek justice.
“It is critical that these demonstration projects preserve Americans’ 7th Amendment right to a trial by jury. The details matter significantly, but any efforts to limit patients’ rights are not acceptable. Promoting greater patient safety and reducing preventable medical errors are tenets doctors, attorneys, hospitals, and all Americans can support.”
UPDATE: "I don't think it's a silver bullet, but I want to explore the ideas," Obama told a health care rally today at the University of Maryland.
But Republicans are skeptical, to say the least.
"The half-trillion in Medicare cuts, the tax hikes, expansion of government health care and nearly a trillion dollars in spending—all real, all supported by the administration. But the 'bipartisan outreach” on medical liability reform is a “demonstration project?' Really?" Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell's office said in a statement.
"And looking over their proposal, it’s difficult to find any reference to any of the typical medical liability provisions, such as: limits on punitive damages, appropriate standards for awarding punitive damages, limits on non-economic damages, limits on attorneys’ fees, requirements for proportional or 'fair share' liability (no joint and several liability), reasonable statute of limitations."
Obama's proclamation on the initiative can be viewed here, and the White House background paper is below.
FULL ENTRYWhite House briefs on Afghanistan measurements
By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- Even as President Obama said today that he won't make a quick decision on an expected Pentagon request to send more US troops to Afghanistan, senior White House officials gave a long-awaited confidential briefing to members of Congress on the benchmarks that the administration intends to use to measure the success of the military mission there.
The metrics, which Obama promised in a high profile speech in March, were meant to send the message that the White House has narrowly tailored its objectives in Afghanistan to focus on terrorism. At the time, Obama announced that he was sending 21,000 more US troops, bringing the force to about 68,000 by year's end, and said he would demand measurable progress.
But some of the 40 or so lawmakers who attended today's briefing complained that the administration's benchmarks describe a far more open-ended commitment in Afghanistan.
"The stated goal is rhetorically narrowing the missions but it is anything but that," said Senator Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "There is no question in my mind based on the metrics that have been laid out that this is nation-building."
Senator Robert Casey Jr., a Pennsylvania Democrat who serves on the same committee, offered a more generous assessment, but said he, too is "not yet satisfied."
He also said the White House should make the metrics public as soon as possible. "They need to be out there," he said. "The American people need frequent reporting."
The list of 46 metrics, obtained by the Globe and first posted online by Foreign Policy, includes some obvious measures of success, such as the percentage of the population living under insurgent control and the capabilities and size of the Afghan national army. But the list also contained some nontraditional measures, such as support for human rights, the ability of the Afghan government to collect taxes, and the ability to hold credible elections.
Click here to see the metrics.
Baucus unveils health care bill
He doesn't have any Republican support, and many Democrats aren't all that thrilled, either. But Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus stuck to his deadline and this morning formally unveiled his plan to overhaul the nation's health care system.
The bill would cost about $856 billion over the next 10 years, require all individuals to purchase coverage or pay a fine, and ban insurers from charging more or denying coverage to people with health problems. It does not include the public option -- a government plan along the lines of Medicare -- but does call for nonprofit coops to compete with private insurers.
The bill would create a new exchange where consumers could compare and buy insurance plans. Medicaid, the government health care program for the poor, would be expanded.
Baucus would pay for the expansion of care with $507 billion in cuts to government health programs and $349 billion in new taxes and fees, including a new tax on generous insurance plans -- so-called Cadillac coverage -- and new fees on insurance companies and medical device manufacturers.
Click here to see "America's Healthy Future Act of 2009."
The Senate Finance bill is expected to be the vehicle for the proposals sought by the White House and described by President Obama in his speech to Congress last week.
"We will act and pass health reform legislation this year," Baucus declared as he promoted his bill in a Capitol Hill news conference this afternoon, saying that it would expand coverage, slow the rise in health care costs, and keep insurers honest.
"It follows the criteria laid out by President Obama," Baucus said, adding that the bill will eventually draw bipartisan support.
"This is a good bill, this is a balanced bill," Baucus said, calling it "a common-sense bill that can pass the Senate."
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs called the legislation an "important building block" that "gets us closer to comprehensive health care reform."
The legislation protects Medicare and preserves patients' right to keep their doctor, he continued, while keeping the deficit under control by offering the most generous coverage possible while keeping the price tag under Obama's target of $900 billion over 10 years.
Still, he acknowledged that there are "honest and principled differences" on the proposals and that his plan "may not represent all of our first choices."
UPDATE: The top House Republican wasn't buying the Baucus plan.
“It looks like the same kind of plan we’ve seen in House," said Representative John Boehner of Ohio. "It’s got a little different language, but it’s still a big government plan, it still calls for higher taxes and more spending and I don’t think it is going to get enough support to get very far in the United States Senate.”
Despite months of negotiations, however, Baucus was unable to get the three Republicans in the so-called Gang of Six to sign on. One of them, Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, bemoaned what he called an "artificial deadline."
"I’m disappointed because it looks like we’re being pushed aside by the Democratic leadership so the Senate can move forward on a bill that, up to this point, does not meet the shared goals for affordable, accessible health coverage that we set forth when this process began. In addition to concerns about costs to taxpayers and affordability for individuals, there are still some serious outstanding issues that have yet to be resolved like preventing taxpayer funding of abortion services and the enforcement against subsidies for illegal aliens," Grassley said in a statement.
"On top of all that, there’s no guarantee that a Finance Committee bill, even if it becomes bipartisan, will stay that way after it leaves the committee. An overriding issue for some time has been the fact that members of the Democratic leadership haven’t made a commitment to back a broad bipartisan bill through the entire process," added Grassley, who negotiated along with Republicans Mike Enzi of Wyoming and Olympia Snowe of Maine.
But in an op-ed published in today's Wall Street Journal, Baucus said he couldn't wait any longer.
"Health care is a complicated and deeply personal issue; it takes time and effort to get reform right. Legislating every piece of this puzzle would be impossible and counterproductive," he wrote. "What we can do is seize this opportunity to put America back on a fiscally sustainable path. The Senate Finance Committee proposal builds on what already works and fixes what threatens to break the bank for future generations."
Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina, the No. 3 Democrat in the House, said he considers the Baucus bill "a draft" for subsequent negotiation. He said on MSNBC that the House will pass a bill that offers more protections and more coverage -- and that would also be more expensive than the Senate bill, closer to $1 billion.
UPDATE: A key Democratic group criticized Baucus's plan, saying it "absolutely fails to meet the most basic health care needs of working families and it fails to meet the expectations we have set for our nation."
"It fails to put pressure on private insurers to control health care costs. There is no history or logic behind the claim that health care co-ops would provide real competition for the giant private insurers that have a stranglehold on health coverage today," AFL-CIO president John Sweeney said in a statement.
"If you're an individual who does not purchase private health coverage, it sticks you with a hefty tax penalty even though it fails to provide sufficient subsidies to make plans affordable for low and moderate income families. But if you're an irresponsible employer who does not provide coverage, you get off scot free," he continued.
"Outrageously, the plan imposes a 35 percent tax on high-cost health care plans without prohibiting insurers from passing on the tax to consumers who happen to be in groups that are older or sicker than average or live in high cost areas.
"The Senate Finance proposal, sadly, is little more than a throwback to the failed policies of the last three decades that advantaged corporations over taxpayers and bestowed special breaks on the wealthy while ignoring the middle class. The proposal does include the important insurance reform and health care delivery system improvements adopted by earlier congressional committees, and it builds on these by reforming the way we pay for health services to focus on the quality of services instead of the quantity. But the proposal's strong points are nowhere near sufficient to outweigh its problems. However well intentioned the attempts at bipartisanship, the final product reflects the bankrupt policies of the past more than the forward-looking policies needed to drive meaningful health care reform.
"We are counting on finance committee Democrats to fix the bill and side with working families, not insurance companies."
Obama says he wants to get it right on Afghanistan
President Obama signaled today that he won't make a quick decision on an expected Pentagon request to send more US troops to Afghanistan.
"My determination is to get this right," Obama said after meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, whose country is part of the coalition fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Obama has already sent 21,000 more US troops, bringing the force to about 65,000 by year's end. But the top US commander in Afghanistan is expected to formally seek more reinforcements, and the nation's top military officer told a Senate committee yesterday he will support that request.
But several key Democrats in Congress have said in recent days that they are very wary of sending more troops.
"When I came in, I had to make a series of immediate decisions about sending additional troops to ensure that the election could take place during the fighting season. But I was crystal clear at the time that post-election we were going to need to do an additional assessment," Obama told reporters.
"General McChrystal has carried out his own assessment on the military's strategy, but it's important that we also do an assessment on the civilian side, the diplomatic side, the development side, that we analyze the results of the election, and then make further decisions moving forward."
And if there were any doubt, Obama went on, "I just want to be absolutely clear, because there's a lot -- been a lot of discussion in the press about this, that there is no immediate decision pending on resources.
"Because one of the things that I'm absolutely clear about is you have to get the strategy right and then make the determinations about resources. You don't make determinations about resources, and certainly you don't make determinations about sending young men and women into battle, without having absolute clarity about what the strategy's going to be."
The president also said he was "extremely grateful" to the Canadian armed forces for fighting with staying power and suffering losses.
While welcoming the additional US presence, Harper said he was concerned by the strength of the insurgency.
(Their full remarks are below.)
UPDATE: Senator John F. Kerry, presiding over a hearing today on Afghanistan, voiced the concerns of many Democrats.
"Frankly, I am concerned by where we are today in Afghanistan -- about the rising number of casualties among our troops and those of our allies, about the deeply flawed presidential voting that took place, about the impunity with which drug traffickers operate, and about the rampant corruption undermining the faith of Afghans in their government and ours," he said at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.
"And most of all, I am concerned because at the very moment when our troops and our allies’ troops are sacrificing more and more, our plan, our path and our progress seem to be growing less and less clear."
(His full prepared remarks are below.)
FULL ENTRYAll Obama, all the time
If you're watching TV Sunday morning or late Monday night, it'll be rather difficult to avoid President Obama.
CBS announced today that Obama will be the sole guest Monday on the "Late Show with David Letterman."
"President Obama's appearance will mark the first by a sitting US president on the 'Late Show' and his first visit back to the show since his election. In total, this will be President Obama's sixth visit to the broadcast -- he last appeared on the 'Late Show' September 10, 2008 during the height of his 2008 presidential election campaign," the announcement said.
Also, CNN announced that Obama will be interviewed on its "State of the Union" show on Sunday. He will also appear on Univision.
That follows word Monday that Obama will appear Sunday on "This Week" on ABC, "Meet the Press" on NBC, and "Face the Nation" on CBS.
At this point, Obama is skipping Fox News Channel, which a study released Monday found had been very critical in its coverage, and the Fox broadcast network, which has recently refused to preempt primetime programming to air Obama's speeches. MSNBC does not have a Sunday news interview show.
All the face time on television comes as Obama puts the hard-sell on for his health care overhaul plan, whose fate in Congress could be decided in the next few weeks.
Solomont, White move closer to ambassadorships
By Stephanie Vallejo, Globe correspondent
WASHINGTON -- President Obama's nominees for ambassador to Spain and Norway -- Massachusetts residents Alan Solomont and Barry B. White -- touted their commitment to public service and leadership before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today as they moved a step closer to confirmation.
Democratic fund-raiser Alan Solomont of Weston, nominated as the chief US envoy to Spain, highlighted his roots in community organizing and his experience as the chairman of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, which oversees national service programs.
“I am grateful to have served at a time when support for national and community service has never been greater,” Solomont testified at the confirmation hearing presided over by Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire. “I hope to showcase this important American tradition at embassy Madrid.”
White, the nominee for envoy to Norway and an executive board member of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce and director of the Massachusetts Alliance for International Business, noted his work as chair of Lex Mundi, an association of independent law firms, in developing its pro bono foundation serving social entrepreneurs worldwide.
White also spoke of Norway’s role in promoting human rights and democracy internationally, its healthy trade relationship with the United States, and its potential as a partner in energy and environmental matters.
Obama vows to help workers
President Obama is in union country today to talk up his economic agenda, and get in a plug for his health plan as well.
In a campaign-style speech this morning at the GM plant in Lordstown, Ohio, Obama vowed to stand up for working people who helped put him in office.
He acknowledged the long-running economic crisis in the industrial Midwest, but said he's not willing to accept it.
"There are some who see this pain and suggest that it's all somehow inevitable -- that the only way for America to get ahead is for communities like yours to be left behind. But I know better. We know better," Obama said. "We know that our success on a nation depends on the success of communities just like this one. We know that the battle for America's future is not just going to be won in the big cities, not just on the coasts, but in towns like Elkhart, Indiana, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Warren, Ohio, and Youngstown.
"You deserve better than the attitude that's prevailed from Washington to Wall Street to Detroit for too long; an attitude that valued wealth over work, selfishness over sacrifice, and greed over responsibility. And that's why I want you to know that every day I step into the Oval Office, I am thinking about you, I am working for you, and I am fighting on your behalf," he added.
Obama said his administration has already been doing so, with the government support for GM and other automakers, the cash-for-clunkers program, and the push for more fuel-efficient vehicles.
"There's little debate that the decisions we've made and the steps we've taken have helped stop our economic freefall. In some places, they've helped us turn the corner. Home sales are up, business investment is starting to stabilize, for the first time in 18 months, we are actually seeing growth in American manufacturing instead of decline. I know that's small consolation when so many people you know are still out of work. It's going to take some time to achieve a complete recovery. But I want you to know: I will not rest until anyone looking for a job can find one - and I'm not talking about just any job; but good jobs that give every family decent wages, decent benefits, and a fair shot at the American Dream. That's what I'm fighting for every day," Obama said.
"And yes, just in case you were wondering, we are fighting for an America where no American should have to worry about going without health insurance or fear that one illness could cost them everything. We're going to reform the system to provide more security and stability to those of you who have health insurance; we're going to offer quality, affordable choices to those who currently don't have health insurance; and bring health care costs for our families, our businesses, and our government under control."
(His full remarks are below.)
UPDATE: This afternoon, Obama was greeted with rapturous applause and cheers at the AFL-CIO national convention in Pittsburgh.
"You guys are making me blush," the president said. "The White House is pretty nice, but there's nothing like being back in the house of labor."
Obama paid tribute to outgoing AFL-CIO president John Sweeney and incoming chief Richard Trumka and said that being with union members reminds him of what's important in Washington and why he ran for president.
He wants to help working families reach the American dream, he said, telling of a union member choking up when talking about not being able to afford health coverage for his wife.
"When our middle class succeeds, that's when the United States of America succeeds," he declared.
He won some of his biggest applause when he expressed support for labor's biggest legislative priority -- a bill that would make it easier for workers to organize.
The bill is vehemently opposed by business groups and Republicans, and has languished in Congress. Labor leaders have hinted that they would accept a compromise that would force quicker elections, rather than the original bill that would remove the requirement for secret union elections.
He also gave an impassioned pitch for his health care overhaul, saying that union members know well that many families are one medical emergency away from financial ruin and need coverage that they can count on.
"How much longer do we have to wait?" Obama asked. "We can't wait."
"We can't wait!" the crowd chanted in reply.
(His full remarks to the AFL-CIO are below.)
Big labor was a big reason why Obama won the presidency, and the Republican National Committee sent out a research paper suggesting that he's still beholden to unions with policies that will damage the US economy.
Military chief grilled on Afghanistan
The nation's top military officer, seeking another term in the job, will face some tough questions on Afghanistan before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is preaching patience, telling the Globe recently that it will take 12 months to 18 months to turn around the mission after it received short shrift during the war in Iraq.
But patience appears to be running out in Congress and in the public as the US death toll rises eight years into the war.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Armed Services chairman Carl Levin both made highly public statements last week to express deep skepticism about an expected request to send more US troops, beyond the 21,000 that President Obama has already dispatched.
A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released this morning found public support for the war at its lowest point. In the survey, conducted Friday through Sunday, 39 percent of respondents said they favor the war and 58 percent said they oppose it.
As recently as May, a majority supported the war in the CNN poll. But July and August were each the bloodiest of the war for US forces.
UPDATE: Mullen told the committee that winning in Afghanistan "probably means more forces," though he said he does not know how many troops the top military commander in the country will seek.
"It's very clear to me that we will need more resources," to carry out the new counterinsurgency strategy, Mullen said, according to the Associated Press.
Liberals not giving up on public option
The much fought-over public option -- a government-run plan along the lines of Medicare that would be widely available -- is looking less likely as part of a sweeping health care overhaul.
But a liberal group is not giving up.
Health Care for America Now launched a new ad airing on national cable today slamming insurers for getting rich by jacking up premiums and denying treatment and overpaying CEOS -- and urging supporters to tell Congress that a public plan is the only way to keep insurance companies in check.
"If the insurance companies win, you lose," the announcer says.
President Obama has been walking a thin line on the public option, trying to reassure his allies that it is his preference, but also bowing to political reality by suggesting it's not a deal-breaker. In a Washington Post/ABC News poll published Monday, support for a health care overhaul rose significantly if a public option was deleted.
A public option is not in the plan that Senate Finance chairman Max Baucus is putting together -- and that is likely to be the vehicle for Obama's plan in Congress.
Also today, a faith-based coalition that is helping Obama make the "moral" case for health reform -- he spoke to them in a webcast last month -- is urging its members to call their members of Congress today. And on Wednesday, clergy, advocates, and others will lobby lawmakers personally.
In recent weeks, the coalition said, "the faith community demonstrated widespread support for affordable quality health care for all — 300,000 people listened to the August 19th health care web-cast and call-in with faith leaders and President Obama, clergy in congregations across the country preached about health care reform and called for a civil and honest debate, and the faith community held large public events to build support for affordable health reform nationwide."
Kerry joins skepticism on Afghan troop increase
By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- After a string of high-profile skepticism from Democrats in Congress about the war in Afghanistan, Senator John F. Kerry will also express concern in an interview airing Tuesday on PBS and in hearings he will preside over on Wednesday ("Countering the Threat of Failure") and Thursday ("Exploring Three Strategies for Afghanistan") as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Key Democrats have done their best to preempt any potential request for more troops from Obama. At a press conference on Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she did not believe there was much support for sending more troops. In a floor speech on Friday, Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Carl Levin said he wants to see an increase in Afghanistan's armed forces before committing more US troops.
Tuesday on "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," Kerry will express his own "long-standing concerns" about whether the current military footprint in Afghanistan is the best way to achieve US goals, according to Kerry communications director Frederick Jones.
But Jones said that Kerry, who first made his name opposing the Vietnam war, will "reserve final judgment on troop levels and our policy writ large until he hears from the administration and military leaders."
Public still divided on health care
A liberal-labor coalition is up with a new TV ad arguing that opposition President Obama's health care overhaul could cost members of Congress at the polls next November.
The spot from Americans United for Change shows a political consultant apologizing to a losing candidate at 11:03 p.m. on Election Day, Nov. 2, 2010.
"Congressman as your political consultant," he says to the camera. "I’m sorry you lost. I was wrong. Turned out the voters hated the stranglehold the insurance companies have on health care, raising premiums, cutting off people with pre-existing conditions, making health care decisions instead of doctors. And they didn’t much like the millionaire insurance CEO’s you were hanging with either. Guess your vote against health insurance reform turned out to be bad politics.”
But a new poll shows why some lawmakers are so skittish about jumping aboard the Obama health care bandwagon.
The Washington Post-ABC News survey published today found that while opposition has eased somewhat since the August town halls, Obama still faces deep skepticism about key elements of the Democratic plan.
In the poll, 48 percent oppose the proposals, while 46 percent favor them, and 48 percent of respondents approve Obama's handling of the issue, while 48 percent disapprove.
The public is also evenly divided -- 51 percent in favor, 47 percent against -- on whether people should be required to have health insurance.
UPDATE: A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released this afternoon also showed the public still largely divided on Obama's health care plan: 51 percent said they favored it and 46 percent opposed it, a slight improvement for the president from 48 percent in favor and 51 percent against in late August.
The survey also showed an uptick in how Americans view Obama's handling of the issue to 51 percent approval and in his overall job performance to 58 percent approval.
The CNN survey, conducted Friday through Sunday, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Obama honeymoon with press over, study says
President Obama's honeymoon with the public ended a while back -- and it has with the press as well.
According to a new study out today, Obama has received generally negative coverage since his first 100 days in office ended in April, reversing generally positive coverage for his early administration.
Researchers at George Mason University in Virginia and Chapman University in California found that every major policy of the administration has received more criticism than praise from the press.
The study, coordinated by the Center for Media and Public Affairs, covered nearly 2,500 news stories about the Obama administration that appeared on the ABC, CBS, and NBC evening newscasts, the front page of the New York Times, and Time and Newsweek magazines from his inauguration on Jan. 20 through Aug. 19, in the middle of the congressional recess when critics of Obama's health care plan showed up in force.
Stories during the first 100 days of his presidency were 59 percent positive but dropped to only 43 percent positive from May through mid-August. Overall, coverage is still slightly more positive than negative, by 53 percent to 47 percent.
According to the analysis, Obama has received mainly favorable coverage in the New York Times (61 percent), evenly balanced (50 percent positive) at the broadcast networks, and slightly negative (48 percent positive) in the news magazines.
A separate analysis of nearly 1,200 stories on the Fox News Channel “Special Report” found that he received far more negative coverage, only 23 percent positive.
The president’s economic stimulus plan garnered the best press – 47 percent positive – and the war on terror the worst – only 26 percent positive. On other issues, Obama's health care policies received 44 percent positive coverage, financial bailouts 35 percent positive, policies on Israel and the Middle East 30 percent positive, and Afghanistan policies 29 percent positive.
Obama calls for new financial regulations
Speaking one year to the day from when the collapse of Lehman Brothers threatened the entire US financial system, President Obama declared today that it's time for the federal government to extract itself from rescue efforts.
But he also asserted that to prevent a similar meltdown, the government needs to impose stricter and more sweeping regulations.
He started what the White House billed as a "major" speech by reminding Americans how close the economy came to the brink.
"This was no longer just a financial crisis; it had become a full-blown economic crisis, with home prices sinking, businesses struggling to access affordable credit, and the economy shedding an average of 700,000 jobs each month," Obama said.
Thanks to the government support to Wall Street, the loosening of credit, and the $787 billion economic stimulus package, the economy is on the road to recovery, the president said.
"Eight months later, the work of recovery continues. And though I will never be satisfied while people are out of work and our financial system is weakened, we can be confident that the storms of the past two years are beginning to break," Obama said.
"In fact, while there continues to be a need for government involvement to stabilize the financial system, that necessity is waning," he added. "After months in which public dollars were flowing into our financial system, we are finally beginning to see money flowing back to taxpayers. This doesn’t mean taxpayers will escape the worst financial crisis in decades entirely unscathed....While full recovery of the financial system will take a great deal more time and work, the growing stability resulting from these interventions means we are beginning to return to normalcy."
"But here's what I want to emphasize is this: normalcy cannot lead to complacency," Obama argued.
And that means new and improved regulation -- what he called "the most ambitious overhaul of the financial system since the Great Depression" -- that includes a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency to enforce new rules safeguarding the public and an oversight council to bring together regulators from across markets so problems don't slip through the cracks.
His audience at Federal Hall in the heart of New York's financial district included Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the president's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, leaders of consumer advocacy groups, Wall Street CEOs, and members of Congress, including Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, who with Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut is shepherding financial regulatory reform.
"We will not go back to the days of reckless behavior and unchecked excess that was at the heart of this crisis, where too many were motivated only by the appetite for quick kills and bloated bonuses," Obama vowed. "Those on Wall Street cannot resume taking risks without regard for consequences, and expect that next time, American taxpayers will be there to break their fall."
The president said he believes in free markets and wanted to work with the financial industry to come up with the regulations. But he also said the firms receiving help owe a debt to American taxpayers and that those who oppose government intervention do so at their own peril.
"I certainly did not run for president to bail out banks or intervene in the capital markets," he said. "But it is important to note that the very absence of common-sense regulations able to keep up with a fast-paced financial sector is what created the need for that extraordinary intervention. The lack of sensible rules of the road, so often opposed by those who claim to speak for the free market, led to a rescue far more intrusive than anything any of us, Democrat or Republican, progressive or conservative, would have proposed or predicted," he said.
"What took place one year ago was not merely a failure of regulation or legislation; it wasn't just a failure of oversight or foresight. It was also a failure of responsibility -- it was fundamentally a failure of responsibility -- that allowed Washington to become a place where problems – including structural problems in our financial system – were ignored rather than solved," he chided. "It was a failure of responsibility that led homebuyers and derivative traders alike to take reckless risks they couldn’t afford. It was a collective failure of responsibility in Washington, on Wall Street, and across America that led to the near-collapse of our financial system one year ago....
"One year ago, we saw in stark relief how markets can spin out of control; how a lack of common-sense rules can lead to excess and abuse; how close we can come to the brink. One year later, it is incumbent upon us to put in place those reforms that will prevent this kind of crisis from ever happening again; reflecting the painful but important lessons that we’ve learned; and that will help us move from a period of recklessness and one of crisis to one of responsibility and prosperity. That is what we must do. And I’m confident that is what we will do."
(His full remarks are below.)
Republicans immediately warned against a bigger government role in the markets, saying that taxpayers will ultimately pay.
“For the average American, the best measure of the economy is whether or not they have a job so they can pay the mortgage, make the car payment and put food on the table. For more than 3 million Americans who have lost their jobs this year, the president’s policies have been a failure," Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele said in a statement.
"His $787 billion stimulus bill has led to wasteful spending but hasn’t created the jobs he promised. And every time he has wanted to expand the government’s influence over the economy and our daily lives, from his takeover of GM and banks to his proposed government-run takeover of our health care, it has meant spending more money we don’t have and digging America deeper into debt. Those are the real results of the president’s experiments on our economy, and no amount of speeches will convince the American people otherwise.”
The top House Republican, Representative John Boehner of Ohio, faulted Obama for not saying more clearly how taxpayers will be taken off the hook for the financial bailouts.
"Missing from the President’s remarks today was a clear exit strategy for the federal government’s involvement in the private sector. American taxpayers have had enough of open-ended bailouts that have left them stuck with an eye-popping tab in the form of trillions in new debt. This generational theft must end. If the President wants to restore consumer and investor confidence, he should work with Republicans in Congress to craft policies that help hard-working families and small businesses weather this storm and get back to creating good-paying jobs," Boehner said in a statement.
“With consumer spending just about frozen and unemployment near double-digit levels, the last thing we need are new layers of bureaucracy and burdensome regulations that restrict access to financial products and discourage economic growth. House Republicans have delivered a to reform our financial system smartly by bolstering anti-fraud protection efforts, streamlining the hodgepodge of confusing federal agencies, and strengthening transparency and accountability so that consumers can make informed choices. We hope Democrats will work with us on responsible solutions as Congress moves forward on this issue.”
Obama faces worries on economy
Displaying once again the close coordination between policy and politics, the Democratic National Committee released a web video this morning to buttress President Obama's "major" speech marking the one-year anniversary of the Lehman Brothers collapse that precipitated the Wall Street crisis.
The web ad starts with the words "One year ago" on screen, then shows a series of news reports on the financial meltdown, with commentators talking about crisis, crash, perhaps another Great Depression. "Lest we forget," it ends.
In his speech at Federal Hall in New York, scheduled for shortly after noon EDT, Obama is expected to talk about the steps he has already taken to rescue the economy from the brink and to call for sweeping new financial regulations to avert another crisis.
But Republicans question the value of the $787 billion stimulus bill and warn about more government intervention in the markets.
And a new Associated Press-GfK poll found that the public remains deeply concerned about the economy. About 80 percent said the economy is in poor condition and about 70 percent said they are not confident that the federal government has taken safeguards to prevent another financial meltdown. Only 17 percent of those surveyed said the stimulus has improved the economy, though that's up 10 percentage points from July.
The poll, conducted Sept. 3-8, has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
President warns of more uninsured -- without health overhaul
President Obama points today to a new Treasury report to warn that many Americans could face the loss of health insurance -- a plight that could be prevented with his health care overhaul plan.
In his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama says he's continued to hear from worried Americans since his speech to Congress on Wednesday night -- and for good reason since during the last year of economic turmoil, "nearly six million more Americans lost their health coverage – that’s 17,000 men and women every single day.
"We’re not just talking about Americans in poverty, either – we’re talking about middle-class Americans. In other words, it can happen to anyone," says Obama. "And based on a brand-new report from the Treasury Department, we can expect that about half of all Americans under 65 will lose their health coverage at some point over the next ten years. If you’re under the age of 21 today, chances are more than half that you’ll find yourself uninsured at some point in that time. And more than one-third of Americans will go without coverage for longer than one year."
(Click here to read the report.)
"I refuse to allow that future to happen," declares the president, who holds a health care rally later today in Minneapolis. "In the United States of America, no one should have to worry that they’ll go without health insurance – not for one year, not for one month, not for one day. And once I sign my health reform plan into law – they won’t."
Obama then runs down his plan, and vows again to get a bill passed this year.
"Affordable, quality care within reach for the tens of millions of Americans who don’t have it today. Stability and security for the hundreds of millions who do. That’s the reform we seek," he says.
"We have had a long and important debate. But now is the time for action. Because every day we wait, more Americans will lose their health care, their businesses, and their homes – but also the dreams they’ve worked for and the peace of mind they deserve. They are why we have to succeed."
Click here to watch the address. The full remarks are below:
Obama takes health care pitch on road
Fresh off his health care speech to Congress that polls suggest reassured the public and that reenergized some fellow Democrats, President Obama takes his health care pitch on the road.
Saturday, he will hold a rally at the Target Center in Minneapolis. On Tuesday, he will speak in Pittsburgh to the convention of the AFL-CIO, one of his biggest backers on health care. And on Thursday, Obama will hold another health care rally in College Park, Md., the White House announced this evening.
When he arrives in Minneapolis, he will be greeted by a TV ad from the Minnesota GOP.
The spot shows Obama vowing to "change the world" at a campaign rally last year in the same arena -- before the announcer says he is proposing a "risky" health care plan, citing news reports to assert that Obama's plan would cut Medicare, ration care, raise taxes, and explode the federal deficit.
"Mr. President, let's slow down and do health care reform the right way," the announcer says.
The bipartisan "Gang of Six" -- three Democrats and three Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee -- are trying to reach a compromise by early next week.
The Senate Finance bill appears to be the most likely legislative vehicle for the blueprint Obama laid out to Congress on Wednesday night. Chairman Max Baucus's plan dovetails with Obama's on most major issues and has the same general cost of $900 billion over 10 years, while bills passed by House Democrats include measures the president has not embraced.
Obama sets busy schedule at UN
By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- President Obama has planned a whirlwind 2 1/2 day schedule at the United Nations later this month, going well beyond the traditional routine for US presidents.
In addition to the annual speech at the opening of the UN General Assembly on Sept. 23, the same day Obama will host a luncheon for African heads of state and hold a separate gathering for the largest contributors to peacekeeping. The next day, he will preside over an unusual summit meeting of the Security Council on arms control. In addition, Obama will speak at the Secretary General's Climate Change Summit.
"We are taking a new approach to the United Nations," UN ambassador Susan Rice told reporters today, adding: "We're rolling up our sleeves" to push for changes from within rather than "criticizing from the outside."
But the ambitious schedule is also likely to lead to some moments of discomfort. The Security Council summit will feature heads of state -- rare for the 15-nation body -- and that gives Muammar Gaddafi, the unpredictable leader of Libya, a high-profile platform.
But efforts have been taken to prevent awkward encounters. Obama will not bump into Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the American reception that he is hosting on Sept. 23 because Iran is not invited.
Rice said US officials will meet with their counterparts from Britain, France, China, Russia, and Germany to discuss the appropriate response to a five-page letter from Iran pledging to "embark on comprehensive, all-encompassing and constructive negotiations."
The letter did not name the nuclear program as an issue for the talks, and US officials said Thursday that it did not go far enough to address international concerns.
But Rice took a softer tone.
"We are going to take the time very carefully over the next days an weeks to evaluate the Iranian response," she said. "I don't want to prejudge the outcome of our assessment."
Steele questions Obama's use of Kennedy letter
Republican Party chief Michael Steele is raising eyebrows again -- this time for questioning President Obama's use in his health care speech of a letter the president received from the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy.
Making it public for the first time, Obama quoted from it near the end of his speech Wednesday night to urge lawmakers pass health care as a moral issue that showed the country's character.
But Steele called it a "political tool."
Questioned this afternoon on CNN about that characterization, Steele backtracked a little.
"I'm not slamming the president on this," he said. "I just thought something like that was so personal in many respects, and particularly so soon after the senator's death -- I just didn't think it was the right time to reveal that or have that conversation or to say it. That was all. It was just an opinion."
Acknowledging that Kennedy might have wanted the letter read publicly since he championed health care reform, Steele added, "Be that as it may, the reality of it is, that to me is more of a diversion and a distraction from the underlying speech itself. Which, in my view, the president, I think, missed an opportunity to clearly define in a common-sense, straightforward way, exactly how we should go about the business of reforming those aspects of our health care system that we have particular problems with."
Democratic Congressional Campaign Chairman Chris Van Hollen blasted Steele.
“Last night, President Obama called on us to replace acrimony with civility, yet Republican Chairman Steele’s outlandish comments only serve to increase the acrimony and deny the American people the substantive debate on health insurance reform that this critical challenge merits," Van Hollen said in a statement.
“The late Senator Kennedy devoted his life to reforming health care in America and he would have been proud of President Obama’s eloquent call for action last night. Michael Steele’s time would be better spent condemning Congressman Joe Wilson’s outrageous outburst, rather than further poisoning the political discourse by attacking the heartfelt intentions of a dedicated American who spent his life working on health care reform.”
David Axelrod, a senior adviser to Obama, told the Globe Wednesday night that Kennedy's widow had informed the White House of the letter that the senator wanted delivered after his death and that Obama was so moved by it that he wrote the closing part of the speech mentioning it himself.
Obama continues health care offensive
Following up his more assertive pitch Wednesday night for a sweeping health care bill, President Obama focused this morning on insurance fixes, saying Americans live "at the whims" of insurance companies.
"I will not allow reform to be imperiled or postponed," he told members of the American Nurses Association. "We've talked this issue to death."
Obama cited new Census figures out today that the number of uninsured Americans rose slightly to 46.3 million last year and said that surveys shows that 6 million have joined the ranks of the uninsured during the economic recession.
Then saying, "just in case people weren't tuned in last night," he did a quick rundown of the changes he wants to prevent insurers from denying coverage for preexisting conditions and other changes.
A nonpartisan Massachusetts research group noted this afternoon that the Census estimates showed that Massachusetts had the lowest percentage of uninsured, about 5.4 percent, compared to about 15 percent nationally.
MassBudget credited the state's landmark health care law, which mandated that indivdiduals get coverage and offered state help for those who couldn't afford it. It noted that when the health reform legislation took effect in April 2006, about 9.8 percent of the commonwealth's population did not have health insurance.
Many of the proposals that Obama supports are modeled, at least in part, on the Massachusetts law.
Obama also praised America's nurses for their compassion and skill, noting their care for his daughters Malia and Sasha and for his mother and grandmother in their final days. "I love nurses," he said. "You're the bedrock of our medical profession."
(His full remarks are below.)
He also plans a series of rallies across the country, starting Saturday in Minneapolis, to put more pressure on Congress.
Vice President Joe Biden, making the rounds of morning new shows, predicted that the bill will be done by Thanksgiving, thanks to an emerging bipartisan consensus and the impact of Obama's speech to Congress.
The president "re-centered" the debate and "also debunked a lot of the myths out there, the idea of death panels, that we were going to insure undocumented aliens," Biden said.
Republicans remain unimpressed and unmoved.
“We appreciated having the President here last night. Unfortunately, what the American people got wasn’t a new health care plan, it was just another lecture. He had a chance to really put the government-run plan to bed, but unfortunately he didn’t do it. … When it’s all said and done; when you listen to the President’s speech and thought about it, there was nothing new in the President’s speech last night,” said Representative John Boehner, the top House Republican.
At a Capitol Hill news conference this afternoon, Boehner disputed some of Obama's key assertions. He told reporters that the Democratic bill could force people to change their insurance plans, could offer access to illegal immigrants, and could slash Medicare benefits.
And, Boehner asserted, Americans are angry and worried about sweeping changes to their health care.
Congress, he said, can find "common ground on sensible changes" to the existing system.
UPDATE: Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele followed up this afternoon with an email to supporters urging them to send a "Declaration of Independence" electronic postcard to Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress.
"Once again, President Obama stepped in front of the prime time TV cameras to attempt to sell the Democrats' leftist health care scheme to legislators and anyone else who might still be paying attention," Steele wrote in the fund-raising solicitation. "The charm offensive isn't working. Americans no longer feel the need to give Barack Obama the benefit of the doubt.
"They have seen through the hype and media adoration to understand that the Obama Democrats are determined to push their far-left agenda on our country whether the American people like it or not," Steele added.
"You can feel the rising mood of freedom-loving Americans across this country. Not afraid, but incensed and determined, that their government not be a menace to our hard-earned liberty and prosperity. They are extremely concerned that the President and his congressional allies are launching an unprecedented assault against the principles upon which America was built."
Obama accepts Wilson apology
President Obama is willing to let bygones be bygones, and so is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
But at least one member of Congress wants Representative Joe Wilson censured for yelling at the president "You lie!" during his health care speech Wednesday night.
Wilson, a South Carolina Republican, quickly apologized for his outburst, which stunned colleagues, prompted boos from some Democrats, and caused Obama to respond by saying "It's not true."
"This evening I let my emotions get the best of me," he said in a statement. "While I disagree with the president's statement, my comments were inappropriate and regrettable. I extend sincere apologies to the president for this lack of civility."
But Wilson stood by the subject for his shout, which he described today as "spontaneous" -- the assertion that illegal immigrants could benefit from the health care overhaul.
Even so, Obama told reporters today that he accepted Wilson's apology.
"Yes, I do," he said after a cabinet meeting. "I'm a big believer that we all make mistakes. He apologized quickly and without equivocation, and I'm appreciative of that.
"I do think that, as I said last night, we have to get to the point where we can have a conversation about big, important issues that matter to the American people without vitriol, without name-calling, without the assumption of the worst in other people's motives.
"We are all Americans; we all want to do best for our country," Obama added. We've got different ideas, but for the most part, we have the same aims, which is to make sure that people who work hard in this country and who act responsibly are able to get good jobs, good wages, raise their families, make sure those kids have a good education; that they are protected from misfortune or accident by having health care and retirement security in place....Our goals are generally the same, whether we're Democrats or Republicans, and in fact, most Americans don't even think about those labels all that much. They are turned off when they see people using wild accusations, false claims, name-calling, sharply ideological approaches to solve problems. They want pragmatism; they want people to stay focused on the job. And I hope that some of the fever breaks a little bit."
Pelosi also told reporters that she's not interested in sanctioning Wilson. "As far as I'm concerned, the episode was unfortunate. Mr. Wilson has apologized. It's time for us to talk about health care and not Mr. Wilson," she said today.
But according to the Washington Post, Senator Arlen Specter, the Republican-turned-Democrat from Pennsylvania, tweeted, "Rep. Wilson apologized immediately afterward but I don't think that's adequate. There ought to be a reprimand or censure of Rep. Joe Wilson to discourage that kind of conduct in the future."
White House economists: 1 million-plus jobs saved or created by stimulus
President Obama's economists asserted today that the economic stimulus package he championed had created or saved "slightly more" than 1 million jobs so far.
The White House Council on Economic Advisers said that the $787 billion stimulus bill has had "particularly strong effects in manufacturing, construction, retail trade, and temporary employment services." While the benefits have been spread across the country, states most hurt by the recession have been helped most, it said.
The council also said that about $151 billion has been spent so far, and that the stimulus added 2.3 percentages to the real growth of the economy during the second quarter. (Click here to read the report.)
The council's first quarterly report to Congress on the stimulus represents the latest salvo in the war of statistics on the $787 billion stimulus bill.
Obama promised it would create or save 3.5 million jobs by the end of next year. But critics have questioned the figures as far too rosy and said that it is extremely difficult to determine whether a job has been "saved."
The administration has acknowledged that the recession was deeper than it believed when it pushed Congress to pass the plan in January. Unemployment is still hovering near 10 percent nationally, and the Labor Department reported last week that since the recession began in December 2007, the jobless rolls grew by 7.4 million Americans.
Republicans kept up their stimulus skepticism in response to the council's report.
“Today’s White House jobs report is one more example of this administration’s use of smoke and mirrors to mask the failure of the Democrats’ costly $787 billion stimulus bill," Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said in a statement.
"The reality for countless Americans whose jobs have not been ‘saved’ is they get to join the ranks of the three million neighbors, friends and family members who have become unemployed since President Obama took office," he added. "We have watched the unemployment rate increase to 9.7 percent and seen more than 216,000 workers lose their jobs in the past 30 days. The president’s economic stimulus experiment clearly isn’t working as promised. Another report to claim phantom jobs have been ‘saved or created’ won’t convince people otherwise.”
Obama: 'Time for bickering is over'
President Obama tried tonight to thread the proverbial political needle on health care: keep enough liberals on board to pass a bill, reach out to moderates and even some Republicans -- and all the while convince an increasingly skeptical public that an overhaul would make their medical care better and less expensive, not worse and more costly.
Delivering a nationally televised, high-stakes speech on his top domestic priority to a joint session of Congress, Obama laid down his markers for what he wants in a bill and to say he will accept ideas from Republicans as well as Democrats -- as long as a bill gets done.
"I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last," he said, drawing a standing ovation from lawmakers.
"Our collective failure to meet this challenge – year after year, decade after decade – has led us to a breaking point," he added. "Everyone understands the extraordinary hardships that are placed on the uninsured, who live every day just one accident or illness away from bankruptcy. These are not primarily people on welfare. These are middle-class Americans. Some can’t get insurance on the job. Others are self-employed, and can’t afford it, since buying insurance on your own costs you three times as much as the coverage you get from your employer. Many other Americans who are willing and able to pay are still denied insurance due to previous illnesses or conditions that insurance companies decide are too risky or expensive to cover. We are the only democracy, the only advanced democracy on Earth -- the only wealthy nation -- that allows such hardships for millions of its people."
"The time for bickering is over," Obama declared. "The time for games has passed. Now is the season for action. Now is when we must bring the best ideas of both parties together, and show the American people that we can still do what we were sent here to do. Now is the time to deliver on health care."
"The plan I’m announcing tonight would meet three basic goals: It will provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance. It will provide insurance to those who don’t. And it will slow the growth of health care costs for our families, our businesses, and our government. It’s a plan that asks everyone to take responsibility for meeting this challenge – not just government and insurance companies, but everybody, including employers and individuals. And it’s a plan that incorporates ideas from senators and congressmen; from Democrats and Republicans – and yes, from some of my opponents in both the primary and general election."
Obama repeated his proposals to ban insurers from denying coverage based on preexisting conditions, to limit out of pocket expenses, and to require insurance companies to cover routine checkups. He also calls for a new exchange where individuals and small businesses can buy affordable coverage.
Obama disputed "bogus claims" by those trying to kill reform that there would be "death panels" of bureaucrats who would decide end-of-life care, that illegal immigrants would receive benefits, and there would be a government takeover of health care.
On one of the most controversial issues -- the so-called public option, a government-run plan along the lines of Medicare, Obama said it was only one part of his plan and "only a means" to the end of creating needed competition to private insurers to hold down costs and improve policies -- "and we should remain open to other ideas that accomplish our ultimate goal."
"Let me be clear – it would only be an option for those who don’t have insurance. No one would be forced to choose it; it would not impact those of you who already have insurance," he said.
Trying to appeal to Republicans, he said while he does not believe that medical malpractice reform is "a silver bullet," "I have talked to enough doctors to know that defensive medicine may be contributing to unnecessary costs" and he's willing to "move forward on a range of ideas about how to put patient safety first and let doctors focus on practicing medicine."
While he said he'll work toward a bipartisan deal, Obama also warned that his patience has a limit.
"I will not waste time with those who have made the calculation that it’s better politics to kill this plan than improve it," he said. "I won't stand by while the special interests use the same old tactics to keep things exactly the way they are. If you misrepresent what's in this plan, we will call you out. And I will not accept the status quo as a solution. Not this time. Not now.
"Everyone in this room knows what will happen if we do nothing. Our deficit will grow. More families will go bankrupt. More businesses will close. More Americans will lose their coverage when they are sick and need it most. And more will die as a result. We know these things to be true. That is why we cannot fail. Because there are too many Americans counting on us to succeed – the ones who suffer silently, and the ones who shared their stories with us at town halls, in emails, and in letters."
Obama called on Edward M. Kennedy's legacy and memory as part of his call to action on health care, especially for bipartisan cooperation for the greater American good.
He said one of the letters he had received recently was from Kennedy, in which the late senator "expressed confidence that this would be the year that health care reform – 'that great unfinished business of our society,' would finally pass. He repeated the truth that health care is decisive for our future prosperity, but he also reminded me that 'it concerns more than material things.' 'What we face,' he wrote, 'is above all a moral issue; at stake are not just the details of policy, but fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country.' ”
"I’ve thought about that phrase quite a bit in recent days – the character of our country," Obama said.
"On issues like these, Ted Kennedy’s passion was born not of some rigid ideology, but of his own experience. It was the experience of having two children stricken with cancer. He never forgot the sheer terror and helplessness that any parent feels when a child is badly sick; and he was able to imagine what it must be like for those without insurance; what it would be like to have to say to a wife or a child or an aging parent – there is something that could make you better, but I just can’t afford it.
"That large-heartedness -- that concern and regard for the plight of others -- is not a partisan feeling. It is not a Republican or a Democratic feeling. It, too, is part of the American character. Our ability to stand in other people’s shoes. A recognition that we are all in this together; that when fortune turns against one of us, others are there to lend a helping hand. A belief that in this country, hard work and responsibility should be rewarded by some measure of security and fair play; and an acknowledgement that sometimes government has to step in to help deliver on that promise."
(His full remarks are below.)
The official Republican response came from Representative Charles Boustany Jr. of Louisiana, a former heart surgeon.
In excerpts released in advance by House Republicans, Boustany said that "Republicans are pleased that President Obama came to the Capitol tonight. We agree much needs to be done to lower the cost of health care for all Americans. On that goal, Republicans are ready -- and we’ve been ready -– to work with the President for common-sense reforms that our nation can afford.”
But Boustany also said it's time to start over, not cobble together the bills already passed by Democratic-controlled committees in the House and Senate.
“It’s clear the American people want health care reform, but they want their elected leaders to get it right," he plans to say. "Most Americans wanted to hear the President tell Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Reid and the rest of Congress that it’s time to start over on a common-sense, bipartisan plan focused on lowering the cost of health care while improving quality. That’s what I heard over the past several months in talking to thousands of my constituents. Replacing your family’s current health care with government-run health care is not the answer. In fact, it’ll make health care much more expensive.”
Boustany repeated the Republican assertion that the Democratic bill would mean bigger government and higher taxes, saying that it " creates 53 new government bureaucracies, adds hundreds of billions to our national debt, and raises taxes on job-creators by $600 billion. And, it cuts Medicare by 500 billion dollars, while doing virtually nothing to make the program better for our seniors.”
(His full prepared remarks are below.)
Democrats spent much of today trying to trash Boustany, pointing out that at one point he seemed to support the "birther" movement that questioned whether Obama was born in Hawaii (despite a verified birth certificate) and thus ineligible to be president, that he supported end-of-life counseling (that have been mischaracterized as "death panels') and that he had been sued for malpractice (though not an unusually high number of times).
Senator Kennedy's legacy invoked, his children, widow watch Obama
Senator Edward M. Kennedy didn't live to see an universal health care bill pass in Washington.
But when President Obama spoke tonight to Congress to plead with them to pass a bill, he was there in spirit.
President Obama called on Kennedy's legacy and memory as part of his call to action on health care, especially for bipartisan cooperation for the greater American good.
He said he had received a letter recently from Kennedy. "He had written it back in May, shortly after he was told that his illness was terminal. He asked that it be delivered upon his death.
"In it, he spoke about what a happy time his last months were, thanks to the love and support of family and friends, his wife, Vicki, and his amazing children who are all here tonight," Obama continued. "And he expressed confidence that this would be the year that health care reform – 'that great unfinished business of our society,' would finally pass. He repeated the truth that health care is decisive for our future prosperity, but he also reminded me that 'it concerns more than material things.' 'What we face,' he wrote, 'is above all a moral issue; at stake are not just the details of policy, but fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country.' ”
"I’ve thought about that phrase quite a bit in recent days – the character of our country. One of the unique and wonderful things about America has always been our self-reliance, our rugged individualism, our fierce defense of freedom and our healthy skepticism of government. And figuring out the appropriate size and role of government has always been a source of rigorous and sometimes angry debate," the president said.
"For some of Ted Kennedy’s critics, his brand of liberalism represented an affront to American liberty. In their mind, his passion for universal health care was nothing more than a passion for big government. But those of us who knew Teddy and worked with him here -- people of both parties -- know that what drove him was something more. His friend, Orrin Hatch, knows that. They worked together to provide children with health insurance. His friend John McCain knows that. They worked together on a Patient’s Bill of Rights. His friend Chuck Grassley knows that. They worked together to provide health care to children with disabilities.
"On issues like these, Ted Kennedy’s passion was born not of some rigid ideology, but of his own experience. It was the experience of having two children stricken with cancer. He never forgot the sheer terror and helplessness that any parent feels when a child is badly sick; and he was able to imagine what it must be like for those without insurance; what it would be like to have to say to a wife or a child or an aging parent – there is something that could make you better, but I just can’t afford it.
"That large-heartedness -- that concern and regard for the plight of others -- is not a partisan feeling. It is not a Republican or a Democratic feeling. It, too, is part of the American character. Our ability to stand in other people’s shoes. A recognition that we are all in this together; that when fortune turns against one of us, others are there to lend a helping hand. A belief that in this country, hard work and responsibility should be rewarded by some measure of security and fair play; and an acknowledgement that sometimes government has to step in to help deliver on that promise."
UPDATE: Obama's senior adviser David Axelrod told the Globe that Victoria Reggie Kennedy called to say the senator had written the letter in May he wanted delivered to Obama after his death.
"The president read it and it became the basis of the closing" section of the speech that Obama wrote himself in longhand, Axelrod said in a brief interview. "It was something that moved him a lot."
The full letter is below.
Several of Kennedy's children and his widow were in places of honor in the House chamber.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced this afternoon that Congressman Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island would escort Obama to the well, then watch from the gallery.
Ted Kennedy, Jr., and Kara Kennedy and her two children, Grace and Max, will watch from the front row of the speaker's box.
Kennedy's widow, Victoria Reggie Kennedy, sat with First Lady Michelle Obama in her box.
Others invited for those primo seats are patients who illustrate the problems of health care and the benefits of an overhaul, along with doctors and other health professionals. Among the latter category is Dr. Wayne Myers, an organic farmer and pediatrician from Waldoboro, Maine, who the White House said "has been active in rural health care for many years" and "understands the health care challenges present in accessing care and affordable insurance in rural areas."
The full guest list is below:
FULL ENTRYObama appeals to grassroots group
President Obama reacted to his own speech by sending out an appeal tonight to the 13-million-strong email list of his grassroots group, Organizing for America.
"I just finished laying out my plan for health reform at a joint session of Congress. Now, I'm writing directly to you because what happens next is critical -- and I need your help," Obama wrote in the email. "Change this big will not happen because I ask for it. It can only come when the nation demands it. Congress knows where I stand. Now they need to hear from you."
"We've come closer to real health reform in the last few months than we have in the last 60 years. But those who profit from the status quo -- and those who put partisan advantage above all else -- will fight us every inch of the way," he added.
"We do not seek that fight, but we will not shrink from it. The stakes are too high to let scare tactics cloud the debate, or to allow partisan bickering to block the path. Your voice, right now, is essential."
UPDATE: In an instant CNN/Opinion Research poll, 56 percent of respondents said they had a "very positive" overall reaction to Obama's speech, and another 21 percent "somewhat positive," while 12 percent said "somewhat negative" and 9 percent "very negative."
Also, 70 percent said Obama's proposals would move the country in the right direction, up from 60 percent in a similar poll conducted Saturday through Tuesday, and 67 percent said they favored Obama's plan to reform health care, up from 53 percent before the speech.
The new poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points, and 18 percent of the respondents identified themselves as Republicans, 45 percent as Democrats, and 37 percent as independents.
Other reaction to his address to Congress divides, not suprisingly, along party lines.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele: “The president has proven his ability again to speak very well and say very little. He continued to try and sell his government-run health care experiment even though it will increase costs, increase taxes and increase the deficit. He said he wants to work with Republicans, but Nancy Pelosi and liberals in the House have opposed Republicans every step of the way. If the Democrats are serious about passing health care reform this year, they should stop pointing fingers and truly start working with Republicans to pass common-sense bipartisan health care reform that Americans want and deserve.”
Brad Dayspring, spokesman for Representative Eric Cantor, the second-ranking House Republican: “Tonight the President failed to say anything different or offer clear specifics, and with that in mind the reason for this overhyped speech is strangely unclear. The President has now delivered over 100 speeches where he’s discussed health care and said the same thing. He's held prime time press conferences, hosted television specials from the White House, and addressed a joint-session of Congress and only thing he’s made explicitly clear is that the status quo is unacceptable, a fact that we all agree on. While the President continues to blame unnamed special interests and Republicans, the fact is that the Democrats overwhelmingly control both the House and the Senate. The President and his party have failed to lead by offering reform that Americans are comfortable with. Families understand that a costly government-run plan will force them to pay more and get less.”
Senator John F. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat: “Tonight President Obama regained the initiative in a debate that must be won this year - not for a party, but for people who desperately need relief. This was a presidential moment and real presidential leadership. Americans need a real debate -- no more distortions, no more political games, no more scare tactics, it’s time for leaders everywhere to find the common ground to do what’s right for our country.
It won’t be easy, it will require tough decisions and hard-fought compromise, but letting another year go by without reforming health care is not an option. Now is the moment to achieve affordable insurance for those who don’t have it, stability for those who do, and cost controls for the businesses struggling to provide it to their workers.
"I was pleased to see the President made a compelling case for one of the ideas I’ve advanced on the Finance Committee – a meeting in the middle to control costs by placing an excise tax on insurers who offer high cost plans – a proposal that should be targeted to protect hard working Americans. Now we need to find Republicans willing to find those kinds of compromises for the greater good. That’s what our friend Ted Kennedy did at times like these, and there’s no greater action we can take now to honor his legacy than to deliver on the cause of his life.”
Representative Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat: “Tonight the President offered a strong case for comprehensive health care reform, and I commend him on an excellent speech,” said Markey. “President Obama’s plan will offer stability and security for those with health insurance. No one should have to fight off a deadly disease while also fighting with their insurance company. The President’s plan puts a stop to denial of coverage based on a pre-existing condition and contains other vital reforms to protect Americans who already have coverage. President Obama’s plan also will finally enable the more than 45 million Americans without health insurance to get quality, affordable health coverage by creating a new insurance exchange where individuals and small businesses can shop for health insurance at competitive prices.
“We are now entering a new phase in the debate. Our current system is broken and in urgent need of an overhaul. Now is the time to heed the President’s call and pass comprehensive health care reform. The stakes are too high and the costs of inaction are too great to delay any longer.”
Expectations high, pressure intense for Obama speech
All sides are furiously trying to set expectations in advance of President Obama's big health care speech tonight to a joint session of Congress.
It's not clear how much the address, scheduled for 8 p.m. EDT, will be highlighted by new specifics -- or will be a more coherent restating of what the president wants in a health care overhaul.
Obama will "speak clearly to the American people about what's in health care reform; for those that are fortunate to have insurance, to demonstrate for them that his plan will bring them security and stability; and for those that don't have health insurance, that we'll provide an affordable way for them to get accessible insurance," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters on Air Force One as Obama headed to New York to speak at a memorial service for revered newsman Walter Cronkite.
On one of the most contentious issues, Obama will make his case for why he believes a government-run option is the best way to create more competition to private insurers, but he isn't expected to say he would veto a bill without it, a senior administration official told the Associated Press.
Obama, himself, in an interview aired today on ABC's "Good Morning America," offered few specifics, but did outline this preview of his address: "So, the intent of the speech on is to, A, make sure that the American people are clear exactly what it is that we are proposing. B, to make sure that Democrats and Republicans understand that I’m open to new ideas, that we’re not being rigid and ideological about this thing, but we do intend to get something done this year.”
The challenge facing Obama tonight -- as he tries to mollify liberals and not give up on a bipartisan deal -- was put in starker relief by a new poll out today.
The Associated Press-GfK survey says that 52 percent of Americans disapprove of Obama's handling of health care, up from 43 percent in July. The poll also shows that 49 percent disapprove of his overall job performance, an increase from 42 percent in July.
Also in the poll, 49 percent said they oppose the bills under consideration in Congress, while only 34 percent favor them, and respondents were evenly split over whether lawmakers should keep trying to pass a bill this year or start over again.
The survey, conducted Thursday through Tuesday, has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
UPDATE: Even before his speech, the White House announced this afternoon that Obama will take his health care pitch on the hustings.
He plans a "rally" -- not the town hall format he has been holding -- on Saturday in Minneapolis where he "will discuss what’s at stake for the American people in this debate – why we need health insurance reform and why we need to act now."
Republicans expect the president not to stake out much new ground tonight.
Representative John Boehner, the House GOP leader, said today the real question is whether Obama has been listening to the American public.
“I think the American people have made it pretty clear that they don’t really want another lecture, they want a new plan. They understand that we have a good system that works well for many people. Everybody understands that we’ve got problems in the current system that can be addressed. But to replace the entire current system with a big government-run plan is not what the American people want and certainly isn’t what I want.”
And the government-run public option isn't the only problem with the Democratic bills, Boehner said.
"It’s not the only bitter pill in their plan," he said. "They have a mandate on every employer to offer insurance and if they don’t there is a big tax. At a time when we are trying to create jobs this will make it more difficult to create jobs, and, as a matter of fact, probably cost our economy jobs. This $3,800 tax that has been proposed in one of the Democrat plans on individuals if you don’t buy health insurance is another non-starter. And so it really is time to stop, hit the reset button, and sit down in a bipartisan way and begin to deal with what we can deal with to help make our current health care system work better.”
Meanwhile, the American Medical Association issued an open letter to Obama and Congress urging them to reach a health care deal. "As our nation's elected leaders, you have an historic opportunity to improve the health and well-being of the American public," wrote J. James Rohack, the AMA's president. (Click here to read the letter.)
But it does not appear that the best hope for a bipartisan compromise will be in place before Obama speaks.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus had set a deadline of sorts of this morning for the "Gang of Six" to weigh in on his proposal, which would cost about $900 billion over 10 years, financed in part by new fees on insurers, drug companies and others in the industry, and does not include the public option.
But the key Republican in the negotiating group -- Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine -- is in no hurry to sign on to the Baucus plan before hearing from the president. "That's the cart before the horse, as they say in Maine," she said, according to the AP.
After Baucus met privately with Democrats on the committee, the chairman told reporters this afternoon that while he still hopes for a bipartisan deal, he will formally introduce his bill next week -- with or without Republican assent -- and have his panel debate it the week after that.
"I very much hope and do expect Republicans will be on board," he told reporters. "I don't know how many, but if there are not any, I will move forward anyway."
Palin warns of 'death panels' again
The idea of "death panels" -- hardhearted government bureaucrats who would decide when to pull the plug on terminally ill patients -- has been rather thoroughly debunked.
But former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin raises their specter again in an op-ed piece published in the Wall Street Journal today, on the eve of President Obama's much-anticipated health care speech.
"In an interview with the New York Times in April, the president suggested that such a group, working outside of 'normal political channels,' should guide decisions regarding that 'huge driver of cost . . . the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives . . . .' Palin writes.
"Given such statements, is it any wonder that many of the sick and elderly are concerned that the Democrats' proposals will ultimately lead to rationing of their health care by—dare I say it—death panels? Establishment voices dismissed that phrase, but it rang true for many Americans. Working through 'normal political channels,' they made themselves heard, and as a result Congress will likely reject a wrong-headed proposal to authorize end-of-life counseling in this cost-cutting context. But the fact remains that the Democrats' proposals would still empower unelected bureaucrats to make decisions affecting life or death health-care matters."
After the firestorm of controversy over the "death panels" in Democratic bills, bipartisan negotiators on the Senate Finance Committee agreed to drop the end-of-life provision.
But the Democratic National Committee hit back this morning at Palin, last year's Republican vice presidential nominee.
“The way Sarah Palin is trying to scare Americans you'd think it's Halloween already," DNC spokesman Hari Sevugan said in a statement. "But, by continuing to peddle what Pulitzer Prize winning independent fact checkers have found to be ‘pants on fire’ lies and doubling down on the GOP recommendation to end Medicare for future generations, the only thing that's in costume here is Sarah Palin's supposed concern for the health care of Americans. What the American people find truly scary is that insurance rates have doubled this decade and continue to rise at a rate three times faster than their wages, and that rather than take on the insurance industry Republicans have become their biggest defenders. And what Sarah Palin should find truly scary is that her reputation as a serious leader can in fact sink even lower than it already has when she continues to stand by such outlandish claims.”
The rest of Palin's piece is far less controversial -- more of the Republican mantra that too much government would make health care worse, not better.
"Common sense tells us that the government's attempts to solve large problems more often create new ones. Common sense also tells us that a top-down, one-size-fits-all plan will not improve the workings of a nationwide health-care system that accounts for one-sixth of our economy. And common sense tells us to be skeptical when President Obama promises that the Democrats' proposals "will provide more stability and security to every American," Palin writes.
"With all due respect, Americans are used to this kind of sweeping promise from Washington. And we know from long experience that it's a promise Washington can't keep.
An ambitious blueprint for Afghanistan
By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration seems poised to commit significantly more blood and treasure to Afghanistan for the next three years to try to turn the tide of the insurgency there.
A copy of the yet-to-be-officially-released plan submitted to the president by the top US commander in Afghanistan, Army General Stanley McChrystal, and the US ambassador in Kabul, Karl Eikenberry, spells out how the dream team in Kabul hopes to execute their mission over the next three years, with special emphasis on showing measurable success within the "crucial window" of 12 to 18 months.
The report, obtained by Politico (click here to view it), sets out an ambitious agenda of improving local governance in Afghanistan, improving access to jobs, credit and justice, and protecting the population among other things. They plan to fight drug traffickers and corruption as well.
Although no budget numbers or troop levels are attached to the document, the 41-page report dated Aug. 10 mentions that the effort in Afghanistan "requires a commitment to provide military commanders and civilians on the ground with the resources they need to execute the president's strategy. This is based on a strong recognition that the effort in Afghanistan to date has lack unity of effort and the resources for success."
The nation’s top military officer told the Globe on Aug. 25 that due to years of neglect and focus on Iraq, the United States is "starting over" in Afghanistan despite President Obama sending 21,000 additional troops.
Acknowledging that public support for the war is waning, Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the US operation needs “12 to 18 months to turn this thing around.’’ "It is doable, but it is going to take some time,’’ he said, urging Americans to be patient.
Louisiana doctor to deliver GOP prescription
President Obama's health care speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night has many of the trappings of a "State of Union" address, and perhaps more at stake with his top domestic priority in the lurch.
So the opposition party is treating it as such, announcing today that a doctor who is also a congressman will deliver the Republican response immediately afterwards.
Representative Charles Boustany of Louisiana has been tapped to make the speech. The GOP says that he has more than 20 years of medical experience and has long advocated for changes that lower health care costs and maintains the doctor-patient relationship.
“As a doctor, I know we must lower costs and improve care, which we can accomplish by focusing on strengthening the doctor-patient relationship and working in a bipartisan way,” he said in a statement. “Health care is a kitchen table issue that affects all Americans, and I believe we need an honest discussion about how we come together to fix what’s broken, while building on what works. That’s why I’m pleased the President will speak to Congress tomorrow night, and I look forward to presenting commonsense reforms that Republicans and all Americans can stand behind.”
“Dr. Boustany has been a tireless advocate for reform that lowers health care costs and expands access for the American people at a price our nation can afford,” Representative John Boehner, the top House Republican, said in a statement. “He understands why a Washington bureaucrat – as Democrats have proposed – should never get between a doctor and his patient. I’m pleased Charles has agreed to speak to the American people about a Republican vision for reform and the need for both parties to come together to craft a responsible proposal at a time when people across the country are focused on jobs.”
UPDATE: Health professionals, as a group, are the most generous donors to Boustany's campaigns. They gave him $240,250 for the 2008 election and $48,300 so far for the 2010 election, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said Boustany was a "fitting choice" for Republicans opposed to a health care overhaul, noting his votes against expanding the children's health insurance program and funding community health centers.
Boustany is a "credible voice for special interests, but not for hardworking Louisianians who struggle with health insurance companies,” Jessica Santillo, the southern regional spokeswoman for the DCCC, said in a statement. “Louisianians deserve an honest debate on how to rein in health cares costs, improve care, and increase access, not more of Congressman Boustany’s attempts to block solutions and protect the status quo.”
Also, the Republican National Committee plans to respond minute by minute to Obama's speech, announcing this afternoon a "live blog will offer 'real-time' fact-checking during President Obama's address concerning his proposed government-run health care experiment and how it will impact all generations of Americans."
GOP: Start over on health care
Republicans use their Labor Day weekend radio-Internet address to try to pound it into Americans' heads that President Obama's health care plan would be a job killer that would balloon the federal deficit.
Obama, who plans to make his case before a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night, is being buffeted by liberals in his own party as well as Republican opponents on what he should insist be in a health care bill.
Representative John Kline of Minnesota talks about what he heard from constituents in the town halls he hosted during the August congressional recess.
"What I hear from them is what my colleagues are hearing from Americans all across this great nation -- a sense of uncertainty about the health care legislation moving through Congress like a runaway freight train. They ask: 'What will happen to my coverage, and my choice of doctors? Will I have to stand in line to receive treatment? Or get approval from someone in Washington before getting a knee replacement or filling a prescription for the latest diabetes medication?' " Kline says.
"Access to quality care and the comfort of a familiar physician isn’t the only thing on my constituents’ minds. With trillion dollar price tags becoming almost commonplace in Democrat-controlled Washington, American families are worried about what all this spending means for their jobs -- and their children -- and their children’s children.
With so many worries, Kline says it's time to start over -- and to try to draft a truly bipartisan bill.
"Democrats have crafted this legislation behind closed doors, creating a partisan blueprint that – at last count – clocked in at more than 1,000 pages. It’s complicated, it’s convoluted, and it’s quite simply not going to work.
"It’s time to press the ‘reset’ button," Kline says. "Health care reform doesn’t have to be a partisan battle. It doesn’t have to take away coverage from Americans who like what they have. It doesn't have to put federal bureaucrats in charge of what procedure is covered and what medication is not.
"Our goal must be to fix what’s broken in our health care system while preserving those features that work well. We can drive down costs without sacrificing quality. We can expand coverage without orchestrating a government takeover. And we can do all of these things without squeezing small businesses and destroying more jobs at a time when our economy needs them most."
His full address is below and can be viewed here.
Democrats say GOP wants to kill Medicare
Republicans have their senior's bill of rights, trying to win the elderly to their side in the health care debate.
Democrats retaliated this evening with a new TV ad that accuses the GOP of wanting to kill Medicare, the main government health program for seniors.
The Democratic National Committee cited a vote earlier this year in the House in which 137 Republicans voted for a budget proposal offered by the Republican leadership that the DNC says would have ended Medicare for Americans under age 55. Instead, the proposal called for younger workers to enroll in private plans and receive subsidies equal to the average Medicare benefit.
"Republicans want to end Medicare," the announcer says in the spot. "You heard right, Republicans actually voted to abolish Medicare for future generations -- one of the most important programs for seniors.
"America's seniors have relied on Medicare for over 40 years -- and Democrats are working to strengthen Medicare," the narrator continues, over images of smiling seniors. "But the plain truth is, Republicans have opposed Medicare from the start.
"Their leaders have called for cutting Medicare -- and now for killing it. The Republican Party -- no friend of seniors," the announcer concludes over photos of House Republican leader John Boehner and Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele.
The DNC says the ad will air on national cable in and in 10 the districts of 10 Republican members of Congress, including Boehner, his No. 2 Eric Cantor, and favorite liberal target Michele Bachmann of Minnesota.
In unveiling the seniors' bill of rights earlier this week, the RNC vowed to protect Medicare, which it asserted was in jeopardy under the proposals of President Obama and Democrats to find savings and efficiencies.
“Let’s agree in both parties that Congress should only consider health reform proposals that protect senior citizens,” Steele says in his ad. "For starters, no cuts to Medicare to pay for another program. Zero."
Obama grassroots tour hits Boston
President Obama's grassroots group is bringing its health care overhaul push to Boston on Labor Day, with newly minted US Senate candidate Martha Coakley and a possible competitor, Representative Michael Capuano, featured at the rally.
Organizing for America announced this afternoon that the rally will be at 11 a.m. Monday at the Parkman Bandstand on Boston Common. It plans to present 30,000 declarations of support for Obama's proposals from Massachusetts residents to the Bay State congressional delegation.
"The rally will be an opportunity for supporters of reform to show their backing for President Obama’s principles for health insurance reform which have been simple and consistent -- reform will lower costs, protect choice and ensure all Americans have access to quality, affordable health care," the announcement said.
Besides Coakley, now Massachusetts attorney general, and Capuano, Representative John Tierney and leaders of the Service Employees International Union and Health Care for America Now! will attend.
Organizers said there will be a moment of silence for the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy. Coakley announced Thursday she is seeking the seat, and Capuano is also considering a run.
Organizing for America says it held more than 2,000 health care events during August, culminating in a two-week bus tour that ended Thursday and stopped in Phoenix, Albuquerque, Denver, Des Moines, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Columbus, Pittsburgh, and Charlotte.
Republicans jump on jobless rise
Republicans immediately sought today to capitalize on the new unemployment numbers to press their argument that President Obama's economic stimulus package is failing.
The Labor Department reported today that the jobless rate rose to 9.7 percent last month from 9.4 percent in July after 216,000 more Americans lost their jobs. It is the highest rate since 1983, and analysts say it shows that while the economy is improving, a sustained recovery will be difficult at best.
UPDATE: Vice President Joe Biden, who on Thursday led the cheerleading for the $787 billion stimulus package, said this afternoon that the administration will not be satisfied until "we're adding, not losing, thousands of jobs a month."
He cited an analysis that the stimulus package saved or created at least 500,000 jobs in its first 200 days, a milestone that hits Saturday -- or in other words, that another 500,000 jobs would have been lost without the recovery package.
Biden spoke as he announced a $535 million loan guarantee for a Fremont, Calif., company that makes solar panels. “This announcement today is part of the unprecedented investment this Administration is making in renewable energy and exactly what the Recovery Act is all about,” Biden said in a statement. “By investing in the infrastructure and technology of the future, we are not only creating jobs today, but laying the foundation for long-term growth in the 21stcentury economy.”
But Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele beat him to the punch.
“Yesterday, Vice President Biden gave yet another speech to try to convince the American people that President Obama’s stimulus bill is creating the jobs he promised. In fact, Vice President Biden said that he believes the Administration has ‘met or exceeded’ their goal to create or save 600,000 jobs in the past 100 days. Today’s unemployment report proves that this Administration is ignoring reality," Steele said in a statement.
"The unemployment rate jumped to 9.7 percent. More than 216,000 Americans lost their jobs in the month of August alone. That means more than 3 million Americans have lost their jobs since the president took office. The president’s economic experiment simply isn’t working, and Americans shouldn’t expect his government-run health care experiment to work, either.”
Not a single House Republican voted for the stimulus bill, and Representative John Boehner, the GOP leader in the House, chimed in with his own statement that also tried to use the jobless numbers to continue his assault on Obama's health care overhaul plans.
"Where are the jobs? Approximately 2.4 million private-sector jobs have been destroyed since February 2009. In light of these numbers, it is more clear than ever that the President and the leaders of his party in Congress need to abandon their plans for a job-killing government takeover of health care and work with Republicans for a more responsible approach to health care reform. The Democrats' bloated 'stimulus' isn't working, and we can't afford another trillion-dollar mistake on the backs of our children and small businesses," Boehner said.
"It is increasingly clear that as a consequence of this administration's misguided policies, any economic recovery that lies ahead will be a jobless one hampered by massive new debt. This is not what the American people were promised; nor is it what they deserve. Better solutions were offered in good faith by Republicans but rejected by the Administration in favor of what has proven to be a trillion-dollar mistake. The Administration said its bloated 'stimulus' would create millions of jobs and keep the unemployment rate from going above 8 percent. Instead, unemployment has now soared to nearly 10 percent, millions of jobs have disappeared, and massive new debt has been needlessly piled on future generations," Boehner continued.
"Washington Democrats must listen to the American people and abandon their plans to impose a job-killing government takeover of health care and a new job-killing national energy tax. Both will inflict further harm on small businesses and wipe out millions of additional American jobs, compounding the costly mistake of the flawed 'stimulus.’ It’s time for the President to hit the reset button and work with Republicans for better solutions, before more debt is piled on our children and more American jobs are destroyed."
White House dismayed by Israel stand on settlements
The White House expressed its dismay today to Israeli plans to expand settlements on the West Bank -- one of the thorniest issues that is a major irritant in US-Israeli relations.
Aides to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said today he would approve hundreds of new housing units in the settlements before considering a temporary freeze in construction, the Associated Press reports. The aides said any freeze would not encompass building the new units and finishing some 2,500 others currently under construction.
"We regret the reports of Israel's plans to approve additional settlement construction. Continued settlement activity is inconsistent with Israel's commitment under the Roadmap," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in the statement.
"As the President has said before, the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued settlement expansion and we urge that it stop. We are working to create a climate in which negotiations can take place, and such actions make it harder to create such a climate.
"We do appreciate Israel's stated intent to place limits on settlement activity and will continue to discuss this with the Israelis as these limitations are defined. The US commitment to Israel’s security is and will remain unshakeable. We believe it can best be achieved through comprehensive peace in the region, including a two-state solution with a Palestinian state living side by side in peace with Israel. That is the ultimate goal to which the President is deeply and personally committed.
"Our objective remains to resume meaningful negotiations as soon as possible in pursuit of this goal. We are working with all parties – Israelis, Palestinians, and Arab states -- on the steps they must take to achieve that objective."
Democrats hit back on health care
Democrats, ramping up their rebuttal to GOP attacks on health care, unveiled a web video today going after Representatives John Boehner and Michele Bachmann and commentators Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.
The video shows the critics repeating debunked claims, including that the health care bill would create death panels of bureaucrats who would decide who lives and dies, and using terms such as "communist" to describe the plan.
“Since Congressional Republicans and their right wing allies can’t win with the facts on health care, they’ve resorted to using fear, fiction, and scare tactics of the worst kind to shamelessly try and ‘kill’ health insurance reform,” Ryan Rudominer, spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in a statement. “This new web video is just another way that we are exposing their lies and over-the-top rhetoric while empowering our grassroots supporters to hold them accountable for trying to deny families quality, affordable health care.”
The video is part of Democrats' strategy of advertising, phone calls, letters to the editor, fact checks, and telephone town halls in targeted Republican districts to try to regain momentum.
Republicans and other critics have taken the upper hand during the August congressional recess, one reason why President Obama plans to give an unusual "State of the Union"-like speech to a joint session of Congress next Wednesday to make his case for a health care overhaul.
Obama plans to address Congress on health care
President Obama will address a joint session of Congress next Wednesday as he tries to regain momentum on the health care debate.
With a bipartisan deal looking less likely and many Americans confused by the debate, the White House has been signaling that Obama will try to sharpen his message on what exactly he wants Congress to put in a health overhaul.
Obama has held a series of town halls, and a prime time news conference, but senior adviser David Axelrod said in a series of interviews late Tuesday and early today that the president was considering giving a major health care speech soon after he returns from his Camp David vacation and Congress reconvenes next week.
"We're entering a new season," Axelrod told CNN today. "It's time to synthesize and harmonize these strands and get this done."
So far, Obama has left the details of bill drafting to Democrats in Congress. But as the Globe reported today, Democrats are increasingly dismayed by Republican recalcitrance and are considering using the "nuclear option" of a parliamentary maneuver to ram through a health care bill with a simple majority in the Senate. And as the Globe reported last week, Obama has stepped on his own message at times.
A CBS News survey released Tuesday said that two in three respondents said they were confused by the proposals before Congress, and 60 percent said that Obama has not clearly explained his health proposals.
The address, scheduled for prime time Wednesday night, will be only Obama's second as president to a joint session of Congress. His first, in late February, amounted to his "State of the Union" address and focused on the financial crisis and deepening recession.
"The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation," Obama said then. "Those qualities that have made America the greatest force of progress and prosperity in human history we still possess in ample measure. What is required now is for this country to pull together, confront boldly the challenges we face, and take responsibility for our future once more."
President plans back-to-school speech
If parental encouragement isn't enough, America's school kids will get a pep talk next week from the commander-in-chief.
President Obama plans to give a back-to-school speech next Tuesday to stress to students "the importance of taking responsibility for their success in school," the White House announced today.
The president, who has made it a goal to have America lead the world in going to college, will speak from Wakefield High in Arlington, Va., and it will be broadcast live on the White House website and on C-SPAN.
In advance, the Department of Education is offering "resources developed by and for teachers to help engage students and stimulate discussion about persisting and succeeding in school," the White House said.
Obama's numbers drop as partisanship rises
President Obama's job approval rating is at the lowest point in his presidency -- a drop largely caused by erosion in support among the political independents who gave him an electoral landslide, a new poll suggests.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey results released late this afternoon show his overall approval number at 53 percent, down from 76 percent in early February, just after he took office.
The increasingly bitter partisanship, particularly on health care, appears to be taking a toll on the president.
While his approval number among fellow Democrats rose slightly to 90 percent from July, it fell to 43 percent from 53 percent among independents and to 15 percent from 23 percent among Republicans. It's the first time in a CNN poll that a majority of independents gave a thumbs down to Obama.
Majorities now disapprove of Obama's handling of the economy, health care policy, taxes, the federal deficit, and Medicare. He still gets majority support for his handling of foreign affairs, race relations, terrorism, and Afghanistan.
Obama will have plenty of time to mull his situation. The White House announced late today that Obama, just back from a week on Martha's Vineyard (though interrupted for Senator Edward M. Kennedy's funeral), will leave for Camp David on Wednesday morning for more R&R and not return until Sunday.
The new survey, conducted Friday through Monday, has an overall margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, and a margin of error of plus or minus 6 percentage points within each political group.
Obama sees another sign of recovery
President Obama, taking a quick break from week two of his vacation, jumped on the latest economic numbers to declare that his recovery program is working.
A key indicator of manufacturing activity grew last month for the for first time in 18 months.
That shows that companies are making more cars, computers, appliances, and other goods, Obama said.
"It means these companies are starting to invest more and produce more, and it is a sign that we're on the path to economic recovery," the president said, diverting from planned remarks on the H1N1 flu to brag.
But he added, as usual, that there is a "long way to go" and that he and his administration will not let up until Americans -- nearly 10 percent of whom are still unemployed -- can find jobs.
Still, Obama said, "this is another important sign that we're heading in the right direction, and that the steps we've taken to bring our economy back from the brink are working."
Most Americans confused by health plans
The war of words and ads over health care has left most Americans confused, according to a new poll released today.
The CBS News survey found that two in three respondents -- including 69 percent of Republicans and 58 percent of Democrats -- call the proposals before Congress confusing, while only 31 percent said they have a clear understanding of the proposed changes.
Moreover, 60 percent of Americans say that President Obama has not clearly explained his health proposals, though he has held a series of town halls and other events. (Click here to see the entire poll.)
The at-times heated town hall meetings during the August congressional recess didn't help matters, and 49 percent of those who said they heard of the sessions said angry protestors featured on cable TV did not reflect the views of most Americans.
Not surprisingly, there was a partisan division, with 66 percent of Republicans saying the protestors did speak for most of the public, but 73 percent of Democratic respondents said they did not.
The poll, conducted Thursday through Monday, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Republicans immediately jumped on the poll findings. "Over a month ago, President Obama changed his message from 'health care reform' to 'health insurance reform.' Though the message changed, the underlying product didn’t," Brad Dayspring, a spokesman for Representative Eric Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House, said in a statement. "New polling from CBS shows that the American people weren’t fooled."
Girding for war on health care
The truce during the mourning for Senator Edward M. Kennedy is a memory, Congress returns to work in a week, and the calendar has turned to September.
So it's time to rejoin the battle over the health care overhaul.
Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, the top Republican on the Budget Committee, is warning that he has lots of objections ready if Democrats try to push a health care bill through the Senate with a simple majority.
Democrats might need to resort to the procedural maneuver, known as reconciliation, because with Kennedy's seat vacant, they control 59 votes -- one shy of what is needed to overcome potential filibusters.
Gregg told The Hill newspaper in an article published online today that Republicans could file "hundreds" of points of order objections, each one requiring 60 votes to overcome.
"We are very much engaged in taking a hard look at our rights under reconciliation," Gregg told The HiIl. "It would be very contentious."
The Republican National Committee this morning unveiled a new TV ad that promotes its "seniors' bill of rights" for any health care changes -- aiming squarely at a constituency worried what reform would bring and at a voting bloc least supportive of President Obama.
“Let’s agree in both parties that Congress should only consider health reform proposals that protect senior citizens,” RNC Chairman Michael Steele says in the ad. "For starters, no cuts to Medicare to pay for another program. Zero.
"Make it illegal to ration health care based on age,” he continues. "Prevent any government role in end-of-life care. And stop bureaucrats from getting between seniors and their doctors. A few things we should all agree on. The Seniors’ Bill of Rights. Stand with us and stand with senior citizens. After all, they’ve earned it.”
Democrats, however, point out that Steele has seemingly contradicted himself in recent days over whether he supports savings (or cuts, according to critics) in Medicare -- the government health program for seniors -- to help bring health spending under control.
Democrats also note that the AARP declared that “nothing in the bills that have been proposed would bring about the scenarios the RNC is concerned about.”
"Michael Steele and the Republicans are unbelievable," Democratic National Committee spokesman Brad Woodhouse said in a statement today responding to the RNC ad. "After failing to stop the President on the Recovery Act, the budget, equal pay for women and children's health care, Republicans have decided that they have no other choice when it comes to blocking health insurance reform than to lie to the American people and try to scare seniors - all in their admitted effort to 'break' the President on this issue and 'kill' reform for political gain.
"The RNC's 'Senior's Bill Of Rights' is nothing more than a scare tactic built on a foundation of lies about the effort to reform health insurance. Which begs the question, why can't Republicans debate health insurance reform on the merits instead of making stuff up out of whole cloth? Because they know the crux of what President Obama has proposed -- lowering costs, preserving choice, expanding access and reversing decades of unfair insurance industry practices -- is popular with the American people and they don't stand a chance of blocking reform if they deal with the issue honestly."
Democrats -- in the form of President Obama's grassroots group Organizing for America -- are continuing their "Health Insurance Reform Now: Let’s Get it Done!" bus tour today in Columbus, Ohio, and Wednesday in Pittsburgh. The events, in part, are designed to hammer home the message of Obama's eight health "guarantees" for Americans who already have health insurance: "1) no discrimination for pre-existing conditions, 2) no exorbitant out-of-pocket expenses, deductibles, or co-pays, 3) no cost-sharing for preventive care, 4) no dropping of coverage for the seriously ill, 5) no gender discrimination, 6) no annual or lifetime caps on coverage, 7) extended coverage for young adults, and 8) guaranteed insurance renewal."
Will Kennedy's death be catalyst on health care?
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President Obama, in a message overnight to his 13 million-strong grassroots group, said that Senator Edward M. Kennedy "a true leader who challenged us all to live out our noblest values."
"I personally valued his wise counsel in the Senate, where, regardless of the swirl of events, he always had time for a new colleague. I cherished his confidence and momentous support in my race for the Presidency. And even as he waged a valiant struggle with a mortal illness, I've benefited as President from his encouragement and wisdom," Obama added in his message to members of Organizing for America. (His full message is below.)
Obama did not mention the issue that he and Kennedy were most closely working on in the months before his death and that his grassroots group is now crusading on -- a health care overhaul.
But Vice President Joe Biden says that Kennedy's death -- and the outpouring of tributes -- could break the partisan gridlock on Capitol Hill.
"God willing maybe his loss and all about him will be the catalyst to make people come around and, you know, begin to compromise to get something done," Biden said in an interview aired this morning on NBC's "Today" show.
The vice president, however, also acknowledged that the impact could go the other way -- that Kennedy's absence will make a bipartisan deal even more difficult. Several key Republicans, including last year's presidential nominee, Senator John McCain, have argued in recent days that a health care deal would be closer if Kennedy had been in the Senate the last few months.
Biden said that Kennedy's attitude and persistence should be an example.
"Everything was about possibilities. I never, ever, ever in 36 years of being with him ever saw him down in terms of, 'We can't get this done,' 'things aren't going to get any better,' 'the deficit's too big,' 'we can't get this passed' -- never, never, never," Biden said.
"I watched him on the renewal of the civil rights legislation. I watched him on hate crimes legislation. I watched him go back at it and go back at it, and I watched him change people's minds."
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said today that Kennedy's death would "make things more difficult" on health care legislation, MSNBC reports.
Asked about the possibility of naming the bill in Kennedy's honor, she said that would be an appropriate tribute, but said "it would be best to pass health care."
But conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh took a decidedly different stance.
"Placing [Kennedy’s] name on a health-care bill, in memoriam, or using his name as a sympathy ploy to advance a health care bill that would deny Americans the choices Senator Kennedy had is an insult and is supreme hypocrisy,” he said on his show Wednesday. "The senator's passing is going to give them the opportunity to use the sympathy play to get as much done in his name as possible."
Meanwhile, a second group opposing Democrats' health care plan announced today it is withdrawing its TV ads out of respect for Kennedy.
The Associated Press reports that the US Chamber of Commerce said it is suspending its $7.5 million, 21-state campaign, which criticizes the government-run coverage that many Democrats favor, until early next week.
On Wednesday, Conservatives for Patients Rights also said it was temporarily halting its ads, including one running in the Boston area that was aimed at Obama vacationing on Martha's Vineyard.
UPDATE: Asked today about how President Obama looks at some liberal groups' "win one for Kennedy" push on health care, White House spokesman Bill Burton replied, "Our country lost a beloved leader and the politics and implications of that are the last thing on the president's mind right now."
Pressed on whether Kennedy's death is being used in a "political way," Burton said, "We've all experienced a pretty big loss and Americans are going to have different reactions and find different ways to memorialize his life. [The president]'s not going to make a comment on what every single person does to memorialize or remember or talk about Senator Kennedy and his passing. There will be a time when it's appropriate to have discussions on different ramifications, but I don't think anybody thinks that now is it."
FULL ENTRYJoint Chiefs chairman says US 'starting over' in Afghanistan
By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff
The nation's top military officer, in a deeply pessimistic assessment of the war in Afghanistan, said today that due to years of neglect the United States is basically "starting over" in its battle against the radical Taliban movement and its Al Qaeda allies.
Acknowledging that public support for the war is waning, Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the US operation needs "12 to 18 months to turn this thing around."
"It is doable, but it is going to take some time," he said, urging Americans to be patient.
With the intense focus until recently on fighting the war in Iraq -- where the United States plans to keep nearly twice as many troops as in Afghanistan until at least early next year -- he said that the Taliban is far more potent than it was during the US invasion in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Its alliance with Osama bin Laden and other leaders of the Al Qaeda terrorist network, who he said are hiding in neighboring Pakistan's lawless border region, is also stronger than ever, he said.
"This is the eighth year, but there is a newness here," Mullen told Globe reporters and editors today. "There is a starting again, or starting over. Iraq has been the focus, it hasn't been Afghanistan."
Mullen's wide-ranging interview came on a particularly bloody day in Afghanistan. Five car bombs simultaneously hit Kandahar, the country's largest southern city, killing at least 41 people. And four more US troops were killed by another bomb in southern Afghanistan, bringing the August total to 41 and making this year the deadliest yet of the war for American forces.
A Washington Post-ABC News poll this month found that 51 percent of Americans now say that the war is not worth fighting and that only 24 percent support sending more troops. President Obama, in a speech last week to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, conceded that the fighting has become more fierce, but called Afghanistan "a war of necessity."
Military commanders on the ground told Richard Holbrooke, the president's special envoy, over the weekend that the force was not big enough to defeat the Taliban, particularly in southern and eastern Afghanistan. The United States currently has about 68,000 troops dedicated to the war in Afghanistan, including 21,000 additional forces ordered by Obama earlier this year who are still flowing into the country.
Mullen, however, said he is awaiting a new assessment by the top commander in Afghanistan, Army General Stanley McChrystal, before making any recommendations on whether more US troops are needed to take on an increasingly emboldened Taliban.
But Mullen indicated that he believes that, at a minimum, more specialists will be needed to train the Afghan security forces. "We all believe there is going to be a need to accelerate the training of the Afghanistan security forces, army and police, and that is going to take additional trainers," he said.
Mullen, who became the nation's top military officer in October 2007, visited patients at the Veterans Affairs medical center in Jamaica Plain earlier today and plans to speak Wednesday at a Harvard Medical School conference about traumatic brain injuries, which have become much more common among combat troops.
Obama taps Bernanke for second term
Taking a quick break from his Martha's Vineyard vacation, President Obama this morning announced he is nominating Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke for a second four-year term.
Bernanke, who has economics degrees from Harvard and MIT, has played a key role in dealing with the financial meltdown last year and now in lifting the nation out of recession. His current term expires Jan. 31, and Bernanke, a Republican originally picked by George W. Bush, would need reconfirmation by the Democratic Senate to keep his job.
"As an expert on the causes of the Great Depression, I’m sure Ben never imagined that he would be part of a team responsible for preventing another. But because of his background, his temperament, his courage, and his creativity, that’s exactly what he has helped to achieve," Obama said.
"Ben approached a financial system on the verge of collapse with calm and wisdom; with bold action and outside-the-box thinking that has helped put the brakes on our economic freefall."
UPDATE: Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut, chairman of the Banking Committee that will hold Bernanke's confirmation hearing, offered qualified support.
"While I have had serious differences with the Federal Reserve over the past few years, I think reappointing Chairman Bernanke is probably the right choice," Dodd said in a statement. "Chairman Bernanke was too slow to act during the early stages of the foreclosure crisis, but he ultimately demonstrated effective leadership and his reappointment sends the right signal to the markets."
"There will be a thorough and comprehensive confirmation hearing. I still have serious concerns about the Federal Reserve’s failure to protect consumers and I strongly believe these responsibilities should go to an independent consumer financial protection agency. I expect many serious questions will be raised about the role of the Federal Reserve moving forward and what authorities it should and should not have."
While Wall Street appears to be responding well to Obama re-upping Bernanke's tenure, he is not without his critics.
Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, issued a scathing statement:
"As a result of the greed, irresponsibility and illegal behavior of Wall Street our country has experienced the worst economic decline since the Great Depression. Mr. Bernanke was head of the Fed and the nation's chief economist as this crisis, driven by reckless speculation, developed. Tragically, like the rest of the Bush administration, he was asleep at the wheel during this period and did nothing to move our financial system onto safer grounds," Sanders said.
“As the middle class of this country continues to shrink, we need a chairman of the Federal Reserve who is more concerned about expanding the productive economy – increasing decent-paying jobs for all Americans – than continuing to fan the flames of Wall Street greed and outrageous compensation packages.”
AFL-CIO president John Sweeney offered his backing for Bernanke, but said there needs to be more accountability at the Fed and more focus on jobs.
"Ben Bernanke has served ably as Chairman of the Federal Reserve at a time of great challenges. He has been forced to account for the serious failings of his predecessor," Sweeney said in a statement.
"The Federal Reserve must be made into a more publicly accountable body that makes job growth a central focus in the years ahead, particularly given signs that the economic recovery will be weak. We believe it's important that Chairman Bernanke's views on the governance and role of the Federal Reserve system also be a focus of his confirmation hearings. Finally, we must determine whether the Federal Reserve will oppose the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency that will rein in Wall Street's excesses and look out for America's working families.
"We are eager to engage the Administration, Chairman Bernanke and the Congress in the weeks ahead about reform of unregulated financial markets that destroyed millions of jobs and trillions of dollars in investment capital."
The president's full remarks, and those of Bernanke, are below:
FULL ENTRYRed ink as far as the eye can see
The White House, issuing its new budget deficit projection this morning, said the numbers look better in the short term but worse in the long run.
Budget Director Peter Orszag said that the deficit for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30 is now projected to be $1.58 trillion -- or 11.2 percent of gross domestic product -- down $262 billion from a previously projected $1.84 trillion or 12.9 percent of GDP. That's still an all-time record by far.
And the red ink looks worse in the next decade because of updated economic data that show that "we inherited a deeper recession than projected in February," Orszag wrote in his message. (Read it here.)
The White House is projecting that the deficit for 2010-2019 will be $2 trillion higher than it forecast in February, now an eye-popping $9.05 trillion.
"During an economic downturn, one wants to allow the deficit to increase, so deficit reduction should be focused on the out-years -- after the economy has recovered," Orszag writes. "That said, the out-year deficits hover in the range of 4 percent of GDP, which is higher than desirable. Getting the out-year deficit under control is a top priority of the Administration."
Republicans are accusing the administration of fudging the numbers to make the deficit appear smaller for the current year, largely by changing assumptions about the costs of the financial bailout.
"Let’s be clear, this is spin and nothing more," economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin wrote in a memo to House GOP Leader John Boehner. "The lower estimate is strictly the result of the Administration massaging their budget assumptions, not reality. The reality is, putting these gimmicks aside, that the FY 2009 deficit is larger. And, even the Obama Administration will have to admit that the deficit for every year after 2009 is even worse than they admitted earlier this year. (Read his memo here.)
But the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office put out is own figures this morning, and they closely track the White House's in the short term and are actually lower in the long term.
The CBO estimated that the deficit will be $1.59 trillion in fiscal 2009 and $1.38 trillion in fiscal 2010 as the economy recovers. It also lowered its projection of the 10-year budget deficit to $7.14 trillion.
One reason for the CBO's lower 10-year number: It assumes that the tax cuts put into place by the Bush administration will expire as scheduled by 2011, but Obama's projection keeps the tax cuts for families earning less than $250,000 a year.
Republicans are also warning that Obama's agenda will mean even higher deficits, threatening to bankrupt the country.
"The mushrooming federal debt poses a grave danger to America’s prosperity, threatening to plunge our economy and future generations into the abyss of stagnant growth and national decline. But given the reckless way the administration is spending your money, you’d never know that the debt is a cause for concern. Staggering sums of money have been tossed around so casually that the very notion of dishing out 'trillions' of dollars is no longer a shock to many in Washington," Representative Eric Cantor, the No. 2 House Republican, writes in an op-ed for Politico.
American can't afford Obama's health care plan, estimated to cost $1 trillion over the next 10 years, Cantor argues.
"In this economy, as families review their own budgets and adjust accordingly, they expect their government to act in a manner that reflects the challenging times we are in. Much of the public frustration with Washington has been evident in town halls across the country, and many Americans believe the administration’s top priority should be cutting the federal deficit in half by the end of his first term," Cantor writes.
"Instead, the administration seeks to force a massive new government health care program that most people don’t want and certainly cannot afford. And they will do so even if it means imposing new taxes on the middle class and small business job creators. Now is not the time to double down on a deficit that is $2 trillion more than the administration projected, but instead to moderate spending, and move forward responsibly."
Boehner added his criticism in a statement:
“Today’s reports confirm what the White House has been trying to hide: the Democrats’ out-of-control spending binge is burying our children and grandchildren under a mountain of unsustainable debt. Instead of putting the brakes on Washington’s spending habits as they promised they’d do, Democrats have stepped on the accelerator and spent taxpayer dollars with reckless abandon all year, refusing to make tough choices and putting all the sacrifice on future generations. That’s not leadership; it’s negligence.
“The costly government-run health care plan put forth by President Obama and Speaker Pelosi is just the latest in a long line of expensive Democratic experiments that will add to the deficit, raise taxes on families and small businesses, and cost more American jobs. It’s time for the Administration and congressional Democrats to face the consequences of this dangerous fiscal agenda and change course."
UPDATE: Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, however, blamed the Bush administration for running up the deficits and following policies that led to the need for costly rescue measures, including the $787 billion economic stimulus package that passed without a single Republican vote in the House.
"Today's deficit projections are a legacy of Bush Administration fiscal policies that turned our surpluses into deficits and led the way toward an economic and financial crisis that has required historic short-term intervention. If pay-as-you-go principles had been in place for the last 8 years, this deficit would be $5 trillion smaller over the next decade," she said in a statement.
"We are working with President Obama to restore fiscal responsibility and to ensure that statutory pay-go, already passed by the House, is signed into law. Under President Obama's leadership, we have ended the Bush-era practice of hiding the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- gimmicks and accounting tricks that have no place in our budget process. And working with the President, Congress has laid out a budget blueprint that reduces our deficit, lays a new foundation for job creation and economic growth, and invests in more broadly shared prosperity for all Americans. "But we cannot reduce the deficit in the long-term without getting health care costs under control. Nor can health care reform add to the challenge. That is why our health insurance reform is fully paid for and will not increase the deficit.
"These deficit projections send a clear message: fiscal discipline must be the order of the day as we come out of this recession. Our economic recovery efforts are starting to pay dividends for America's families. Today's announcement that consumer confidence and home prices are on the rise represent new signs that our economy is moving in the right direction. And now, we must remain on-track to tackle our fiscal challenges, advance policies to promote job growth, reinforce the foundation of our prosperity, and return the United States to the days of financial stability."
Activists press Obama on Darfur
The Bush State Department declared the horrific violence in Darfur a genocide. President Obama, as a candidate, pledged to do more.
But US policy toward Sudan seems to be in wait-and-see mode, so activists are going public today with their disappointment, trying to light a fire under the president/
A coalition of anti-genocide advocacy organizations launched a campaign called "Sudan Now: Keep the Promise" to challenge the Obama administration to live up to promises by taking strong and immediate action to help end the crisis in Sudan, where as many as 300,000 people have died and 2.7 million have been displaced.
The coalition -- which includes Humanity United, the Enough Project at the Center for American Progress, Stop Genocide Now, and Investors Against Genocide -- bought full-page ads in several newspapers to press home that message.
The ads feature past statements made by President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. The ads are to run in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and two papers on Martha's Vineyard, where Obama is vacationing this week.
(Click here to see an ad.)
The coalition says the situation in Sudan is urgent with nearly 3 million Darfuris living in squalid camps and the possibility of a full-scale civil war before a 2011 vote on splitting the country.
Some of the activists have been critical of Scott Gration, Obama's special envoy to the Sudan, for what they see as too much emphasis on carrots for the Sudanese government to cooperate rather than sticks, or the threat of punitive action.
“On numerous occasions, President Obama has spoken eloquently -- and firmly -- about the urgency of the situation in Sudan and America’s responsibility to help bring lasting peace and stability to the people of that country,” Randy Newcomb, president and CEO of Humanity United, said in a statement. “Such conviction demands strong action.”
A booty shake, but no mulligans
By Matt Viser and Susan Milligan, Globe Staff
OAK BLUFFS -- While President Obama isn't a scratch golfer by any means, he apparently doesn't ask for as many mulligans (do-overs in golf lingo) as Bill Clinton famously did.
He was spotted looking for his ball after an errant tee shot as he played today in a foursome with friends UBS Investment Bank President Robert Wolf and Chicago physician Eric Whitaker and White House aide Marvin Nicholson.
Curious spectators lined the perimeter of the course, some on their bicycles, and the route from the golf club to Blue Heron Farm, where the Obamas are staying.
Bridgette Allen, 49, who has a home in East Chop, couldn't contain her glee when she spied Obama on the course.
"President Obama!" she shouted as Obama was about to work his way out of a sand trap early into his game.
He halted, glanced her way through the trees, and slightly shook his hips.
"I am thrilled. What more could I ask for?" Allen, who volunteered for Obama's campaign, said afterward. "I got a little booty shake."
Settling in on the Vineyard
On his first full day of vacation on Martha's Vineyard, President Obama managed to make some news today anyway, as his spokesman confirmed that Obama has approved a new FBI unit to interrogate terrorist detainees -- duties that had been done by the CIA but with some abuses.
But otherwise, the president is taking it easy, deputy White House press secretary Bill Burton told reporters at Oak Bluffs School.
Obama had dinner Sunday night with friends, including adviser Valerie Jarrett; worked out this morning; and played tennis with Michelle. Later today he plans to play golf with Congressman Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, Burton said. The foursome also includes White House aide Marvin Nicholson and banker Robert Wolf, CEO of UBS Americas and a major donation bundler for Obama's presidential campaign.
Obama also has some vacation reading. He plans to read two serious books: "John Adams," David McCullough's acclaimed biography of the founding father, and "Hot, Flat, and Crowded," New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman's tome about the promise of clean energy and other "green" technology.
His reading list also includes three novels: "Lush Life," Richard Price's take on class and race in the Lower East Side of New York; "The Way Home," a story by George Pelecanos of a juvenile delinquent's journey to redemption in Washington; and "Plainsong," Kent Haruf's meditation on family, romance, and small-town life in Colorado.
Obama has been to Martha's Vineyard a half dozen times over the last decade. "He enjoys it. It's comfortable. The beaches are nice. The people are particularly nice. There's really good food to eat," Burton said. "There's a lot of great things about Martha's Vineyard."
While Bill Clinton, during his presidential visits, met the public on numerous occasions while traipsing around the island, Obama plans, for now, to keep mostly to himself, ensconced at the Blue Heron Farm estate.
"His desire in Martha's Vineyard is to get a little break," Burton said. "He certainly appreciates the hospitality of the folks who are here. But his desire here is to relax and spend time with the family."
Burton repeated that there are no plans for Obama to visit Senator Edward M. Kennedy, and that the White House is not getting involved in Kennedy's request that Massachusetts leaders change state law to accelerate a temporary replacement should it be necessary.
Burton did acknowledge, however, that Kennedy's absence from the health care debate is having consequences.
"I don't think that there are many people in the history of our country who have worked harder toward health care reform than Senator Kennedy. So, obviously, any support from Senator Kennedy is critically important," he said.
Obama is getting daily briefings and talking to advisers on health care, Burton said.
Republicans warn seniors about Obama plans
In their latest assault on President Obama's health care plans, Republicans are aiming for a vulnerable spot -- the fears of seniors that their care will get worse or more costly.
"Republicans want reform that should, first, do no harm, especially to our seniors," Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele writes in an opinion piece in today's Washington Post. "That is why Republicans support a Seniors' Health Care Bill of Rights, which we are introducing today, to ensure that our greatest generation will receive access to quality health care. We also believe that any health-care reform should be fully paid for, but not funded on the backs of our nation's senior citizens."
The bill of rights for seniors includes protecting Medicare from major cuts, preserving the doctor-patient relationship, banning any rationing of care or interference in end-of-life decisions, guaranteeing that seniors can keep their current coverage, and protecting current veterans' health care programs.
Obama and Democrats plan on substantial savings in Medicare, but insist that those changes would not mean less care. They also support more research to determine the most cost-effective treatments, but adamantly deny that would lead to rationing of care -- which they argue is being done by private insurers already.
"Barack Obama campaigned on 'post-partisanship,' " Steele concludes. "As president, however, Obama has shown that he is beholden to his party's left-wing ideologues. It's not too late for him to honor his pledges for bipartisan health-care reform. Reversing course and joining Republicans in support of health care for our nation's senior citizens is a good place to start. Doing so will help him restart the reform process to give Americans access to low-cost, high-quality health care." (Read his full op-ed here.)
The Democratic National Committee responded by saying that the health overhaul would help seniors by holding down costs and closing the so-called donut hole in prescription drug coverage under Medicare Part D. It also said that Republicans are continuing to mislead the public in their attempt to kill the overhaul.
“It should be no surprise that the Republican Party - which whipped many Americans into a frenzy at town hall meetings on health care this month by spreading one lie about reform after another - has now taken to scaring seniors who have nothing to fear and much to gain from reform," DNC spokesman Brad Woodhouse said in a statement. "But what's really incredible is that this feigned interest in Medicare and the plight of seniors is coming from the Republican Party -- the very party which opposed Social Security and only four years ago tried to dismantle it -- and the very Republican Party which opposed the creation of Medicare to begin with. Republicans are fighting against reform for one reason - to 'break' President Obama and gain political advantage. As a result, when it comes to their arguments against reform -- for Republicans it's any port in a storm.”
Obama slams 'outrageous myths' on health care; Republicans say president 'plays fast and loose' with facts
He may be on vacation, but through the magic of prerecorded video and audio, President Obama is keeping up his health care campaign today.
In his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama both tries to debunk what he calls "outrageous myths" and seeks to rally support.
Taking on his critics, he says that while he welcomes a vigorous debate, "it also should be an honest debate, not one dominated by willful misrepresentations and outright distortions, spread by the very folks who would benefit the most by keeping things exactly as they are."
In the Republican response, Representative Tom Price of Georgia, a doctor by trade, says while that the status quo on health care is unacceptable, giving the government too much control -- represented by the "one-size-fits-all approach" of Obama and congressional Democrats -- would make the situation worse.
"Now whether it’s the government choosing what should be in your family’s health care plan, or a bureaucratic board deciding what treatments are appropriate and who should receive them, the president’s plan is a 1,000-page expression supporting the notion that Washington knows best when it comes to your family’s health care," Price says. "And that’s simply not true."
Obama ticks off some false claims by opponents: "Let’s start with the false claim that illegal immigrants will get health insurance under reform. That’s not true. Illegal immigrants would not be covered. That idea has never even been on the table. Some are also saying that coverage for abortions would be mandated under reform. Also false. When it comes to the current ban on using tax dollars for abortions, nothing will change under reform. And as every credible person who has looked into it has said, there are no so-called 'death panels' -- an offensive notion to me and to the American people. These are phony claims meant to divide us.
Obama also says he does not support a "government takeover" of health care, and tries to clarify the "public option" -- a government plan along the lines of Medicare to compete with private insurers. "It would be just an option; those who prefer their private insurer would be under no obligation to shift to a public plan," he says.
The president, who has used his weekly address to state his case on health care for more than a month now, then goes on to list the help that he wants to give people who already have insurance, including protections from being denied coverage for preexisting coverage and being charged exorbitant out-of-pocket expenses.
"Taken together, the reforms we’re seeking will help bring down skyrocketing costs, which will mean real savings for families, businesses, and government," he says, trying to rally more support.
"It has never been easy, moving this nation forward. There are always those who oppose it, and those who use fear to block change. But what has always distinguished America is that when all the arguments have been heard, and all the concerns have been voiced, and the time comes to do what must be done, we rise above our differences, grasp each others’ hands, and march forward as one nation and one people, some of us Democrats, some of us Republicans, all of us Americans," Obama adds, perhaps somewhat more hopefully than realistically.
In rebuttal, Price says that as opposition to Obama's plan has grown, the president says he wants to "stamp out some of the disinformation floating around out there.
"The problem is the president, himself, plays fast and loose with the facts," Price says." So as someone who’s taken care of patients, I’d like to take a moment to clear up a couple of the President’s worst offenses."
He asserts that while Obama says Americans can keep their insurance plan, a provision in the bill would require every plan within five years to meet new guidelines "that your current plan might not match, even if you like it."
Price also says that a public option plan, "when the government is setting the rules and is backed by tax dollars," will "destroy – not compete – with the private sector.
"But perhaps the most striking misinformation the president has put forth is that there are only two options out there for America -- that it's his way or the highway. That it's either the government running the show -- or insurance companies. The truth is there is a third way -- a better way, a patient-centered way to reform health care," Price says.
And Republicans are offering that approach, he says: "We have plans to increase coverage and lower costs without putting a bureaucrat between you and your doctor. We believe that what’s good for patients is good for American health care."
Obama's full address can be viewed here and is below.
Price's full address can be viewed here and is below.
Obama seeks advice from Daschle
Would President Obama's health care push be going more smoothly if his first choice for health reform czar was working for it?
It's a Washington parlor game hypothetical, but it's also interesting that the last person that Obama talked to today on the topic before starting his 10-day vacation was Tom Daschle, the former Senate majority leader who was the nominee to be both health and human services secretary and health czar.
His nomination was derailed by tax issues, and Obama split the job between Kathleen Sebelius as health secretary and Nancy DeParle as health czar. While accomplished in their own right, neither has the combination of congressional clout and political savvy Daschle possesses.
"The president invited Senator Daschle to the White House for a quick check-in on the health insurance reform process and to exchange views on the process moving forward," the White House said in a statement after today's private session.
"Senator Daschle is one of the foremost experts on health care and on the legislative process, and has been a friend and sounding-board for the President for several years. The two agreed that substantive reform that lowers costs, reforms the insurance industry, and expands coverage is too important to wait another year or another administration, and they agreed to stay in touch over the coming weeks and months as this critical effort moves forward.”
Obama: Election a victory for Afghan people
In his first extended comments on the Afghanistan presidential election, President Obama called it "an important step forward" for Afghans taking control of their future in the face of violent extremists.
"This election was won by the Afghan people," he said on the South Lawn of the White House before leaving for Camp David, then a week on Martha's Vineyard starting Sunday.
The balloting Thursday was marred by some violence, but officials asserted that enough voters braved threats from the Taliban to make the election a success.
"We knew the Taliban would try to derail this election," Obama said, arguing that they failed because of the numbers of voters and the record number of women running for office.
Obama has dispatched 21,000 more US troops to Afghanistan to battle the Taliban, root out Al Qaeda elements along the Pakistan border, and to support the Afghan government.
Obama reiterated that his administration did not support one candidate or another, but wanted a free and fair election. (His full remarks are below.)
While the election commission doesn't plan to release partial preliminary results until Tuesday and final preliminary results until Sept. 3, many observers expect President Hamid Karzai and chief challenger Abdullah Abdullah to move on to a second round of voting.
Some worry about that runoff will exacerbate ethnic tensions between Pashtun supporters of Karzai and Tajiks who back Abdullah. Reuters reports that Obama's special envoy to the country, Richard Holbrooke, urged both camps today to control post-election tensions and wait for the official results.
What is 'wee-weed' again?
It was his most curious turn of phrase as President Obama tried to rally the troops on health care.
Speaking Thursday to Organizing for America, his grassroots army, Obama compared the worries that he's lost his momentum on health care to August 2007, when he was well behind in the Iowa caucuses -- which he eventually won as a springboard to the Democratic nomination -- and to last August, when the buzz over Sarah Palin temporarily boosted the Republican ticket.
"The media was obsessed with it, and cable was 24 hours a day, and 'Obama's lost his mojo,' " the president said to laughter. "You remember all that? There's something about August going into September where everybody in Washington gets all wee-weed up. I don't know what it is. But that's what happens."
The "wee-weed up" part raised some eyebrows, and White House spokesman Robert Gibbs was asked for a definition today.
"I don't know if I should do that from the podium. It's a phrase I use, but..." he said, telling reporters he wanted to keep the briefing "family friendly."
"I think wee-weed up is when people just get all nervous for no particular reason," Gibbs continued. "So this is just sort of an August pundit pattern between people getting overly nervous for something that still has a long way to go.
Finally, Obama's chief spokesman gave it up: The PG-rated term for "wee-weed" is bed-wetting.
Koh, Bosworth in delegation for S. Korean leader's funeral
Two New England officials in the Obama administration will be part of the official delegation to the funeral of former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, the White House announced this afternoon.
Harold Koh, the former Yale Law School dean who is now chief legal adviser to the State Department, will attend the services on Sunday. So will Stephen Bosworth, dean of Tufts' Fletcher School of Diplomacy who is now Obama's special envoy to North Korea.
Former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright will lead the delegation, the White House said.
The full delegation is below:
Ad tries to press key Republicans
Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine and the two other Finance Committee Republicans in the "Gang of Six" trying to come up with a bipartisan health bill are under pressure from the right not to give away the store.
The conservative Club for Growth launched TV ads targeted at Snowe, Mike Enzi of Wyoming, and Charles Grassley of Iowa.
The spot notes the key role the three senators are playing. "There's no harm in talking," the announcer says.
But the announcer then warns that what Democrats are talking about includes a government-run health plan, bureaucrats deciding coverage, new regulations that would kill small business, and tax hikes.
"Tell Senator Snowe not to cave in to the liberals on health care," the announcer concludes.
The Gang of Six had a conference call Thursday night, and according to the Washington Post, they agreed to continue working toward a bill that could win support from the rank-and-file in both parties, despite increasing reports that Democrats and President Obama are prepared to go it alone, if need be.
The group agreed to talk again on Sept. 4, three days before Congress reconvenes after its August recess, the Post said.
Conservative ad aims at Obama on Vineyard
If President Obama turns on the TV while on holiday on Martha's Vineyard, he likely won't escape attacks on his health care plan.
Conservatives for Patients' Rights, the group founded by former health executive Rick Scott that has helped organize protests at congressional town halls, is putting up a TV ad called "Surf's Up."
"The beach is nice this time of year," the announcer says over a seaside scene. "But while President Obama vacations, concerns mount about his health care plan."
The announcer criticizes the public option that Obama prefers -- a government plan like Medicare that would compete with private insurers -- and says it would lead to government-run health care, higher taxes, and higher deficits.
"Let's get on with real reform to lower costs and protect patients rights," the announcer concludes.
The group plans to spend $150,000 airing the spot in the Boston-area TV market, including on NESN during games next week between the Red Sox and Obama's beloved Chicago White Sox, CNN says.
Poll: Hits on health care hurting faith in Obama
Another poll out today is cause for concern for President Obama's health care agenda as he leaves for vacation first at Camp David, then Martha's Vineyard.
In the Washington Post/ABC News survey, 49 percent of Americans say they believe Obama will be able to drive significant improvements in the health care system, down nearly 20 percentage points from before he took office.
As Republicans and other critics continue to hammer his health care proposals, confidence in Obama's overall leadership is also eroding, according to the poll: 49 percent of respondents express confidence that he will make the right decisions for the country, down from 60 percent at the 100-day mark in his presidency.
His overall job approval rating, 57 percent, is down 12 percentage points from its April peak, and his disapproval number has risen to 40 percent, its highest yet.
The national survey was conducted Aug. 13-17 and has a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released earlier this week suggested that Obama and Democrats had lost control of the health care message as many Americans believed what critics had been saying about the proposals.
Liberal group hits 'real death panels'
A liberal-labor coalition is trying to turn the contretemps over "death panels" on its head with its latest TV ad that says the real death panels are the insurance company committees that deny coverage.
The ad from Americans United for Change, which it says will start airing next week, points out that opponents' claims that Democratic health bills would create committees of bureaucrats who would decide who would receive life-saving care have been widely debunked. (But a key negotiator in the Senate says it won't be in the bill because of the room for misinterpretation.)
"Unfortunately, there are real death panels in America," the announcer says.
Linda Peeno, a former medical director for both Humana Insurance and Blue Cross/Blue Shield, is shown testifying at a congressional hearing, "In the spring of 1987, as a physician, I denied a man a necessary operation that would have saved his life and thus caused his death…and I am haunted by the thousands of pieces of paper on which I have written that deadly word, 'denial.' "
"We need health insurance reform now," the announcer concludes.
“Conservative politicians and pundits will do anything to keep the 'death panels' fantasy alive and well as part of an unscrupulous and concerted effort to kill health insurance reform. But where’s the hysteria from these same conservatives over the real death panels that exist right now in America with the big insurance companies denying millions of Americans the care they need by citing 'pre-existing'’ conditions?” Jeremy Funk, Americans United for Change's communications director, said in a statement today.
It is among the groups supporting President Obama and congressional Democrats in their health overhaul push -- and fighting Republican and conservative groups running ads and organizing protests as members of Congress hear from their constitutents during the August recess.
Obama ramps up again on health care
President Obama is making his health care pitch today to two very different audiences -- one friendly, one not so much.
Obama is on the air with Philadelphia-based talk radio host Michael Smerconish, who is broadcasting his program from the Diplomatic Room in the White House. Smerconish's audience is generally conservative and will likely include quite a few foes of the president's health care proposals, though the host endorsed Obama last year.
Smerconish, who said he has received more than 5,000 emails in the last 24 hours, asked whether Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of health and human services, misspoke when she said on
"She didn't really misspeak," Obama replied, asserting that his message has stayed the same -- that a public option is one way, but not the only way, to control costs. "The press got a little excited and some folks on the left got a little excited."
Obama also disputed that he favors a government takeover of health care. "I would love the private marketplace to handle this without any government intervention," he said. "The problem is, it's not working."
The president said he wants to preserve the private market, but add consumer protections.
In response to a listener's question, Obama strongly disputed claims that the Democratic health care bills would provide coverage to illegal immigrants.
"No one has talked about giving health insurance to illegal immigrants. I want to make that absolutely clear," he said.
But he said it will continue to be the case that if an illegal immigrant shows up in the emergency room, he or she will get treated.
Obama said he doesn't want a situation that a child with tuberculosis isn't treated, then returns to the playground and threatens to infect "our kids."
Plus, he said, there should be "a basic standard of decency" to provide care when someone faces a life-threatening illness or injury.
Another listener asked whether Obama's "knees were buckling a little bit" even with Democrats controlling Congress and the White House.
"I guarantee to you Joe that we're going to get health care reform done," Obama declared, bemoaning what he called "hand-wringing" and media fascination with every legislative twist and turn. "Passing a big bill like this is always messy."
He also said he wants to give Republicans a chance to be part of a compromise, but won't compromise his core principles on health care. (The full transcript of the interview is below.)
Representative Eric Cantor's office responded to Obama's interview by questioning the sincerity of his bipartisan push.
"We would love to know when, exactly – time, date, place – the President or his staff reached out to Republican Leaders?" Brad Dayspring, spokesman for the No. 2 House Republican, said in an email.
"In fact, the White House blatantly ignored our outreach effort. In May, House Republican Leaders sent the President a letter detailing Republican principles, asking to work together on meaningful, bipartisan reform that Americans could support. And the President’s response? Meeting? Nah. Work together? No thanks. Further discussion? Nope. Instead, they went with, ' Thanks for the letter.' ”
Later this afternoon, Obama held an online-phone strategy meeting with Organizing for America, the current iteration of his presidential campaign that is armed with 13 million or so email addresses.
UPDATE: Obama did the pep rally in a small room at the Democratic National Committee, where about 50 volunteers chanted "Yes, we can," Obama's campaign slogan.
According to the press pool report, Obama talked about the hardships of his longshot campaign, and compared them with his push for health care reform.
"Now, we all know this has been an emotional debate. We've seen tempers flare. Accusations have been hurled. And sometimes it seems like one loud voice can drown out all the civil, sensible voices out there," Obama said.
"But remember one thing: Nothing's more powerful than millions of voices calling for change. That's how we won this election. You know this. And that's why, since OFA launched its health reform campaign in June, you've hosted 11,000 events in more than 2,500 towns in every single state and every single congressional district, which is remarkable."
"We are not going to give up now," Obama said after answering questions. (Listen to the event here.) The full transcript of the event is below.
He needs to rally his troops, whom Democratic officials acknowledge have not been as energized by the complex health care debate as by Obama's "change we can believe in" campaign last year. Valerie Jarrett, a top Obama adviser, warned liberal bloggers last week that the health care push is "an uphill battle, and it won't happen unless we energize our base."
David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager, told supporters in the email invitation for today's huddle that "the special interests and partisan attack groups who oppose reform will not let up, and they will tell whatever lies they can to spread fear. There's a lot more work for all of us to do."
Late Wednesday, the group told backers it has launched its own truth-squadding website (the White House already has one) called "Setting the Record Straight."
"It feels like a new lie about health insurance reform crops up each day. Government taking over all health care? Not true. Euthanasia for seniors? Couldn't be more false. Rationing of care? Reform will stop rationing, not increase it," wrote Organizing for America director Mitch Stewart.
"These lies create fear and anger, and we're seeing the results around the country....It's time to set the record straight -- and, more importantly, expose the special interests and partisan attack organizations behind the lies and misinformation."
Romney: Obama bowing to liberals on health care
Mitt Romney is probably one of the last people President Obama is looking to for advice on how to get a health care bill done.
But the former Massachusetts governor, who sought the GOP presidential nomination last year and could very well run again in 2012, offered some guidance anyway this morning.
Romney said on CBS's "Early Show" that the president is to blame for the slowing momentum on the bill, faulting Obama for giving too much say to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic liberals.
"If the president wants to get something done, he needs to put aside the extreme liberal wing of his party," Romney said.
While Obama has been stumping for a sweeping health care bill, he has left the details of the drafting to Congress, where majority Democrats are divided. Members of the Blue Dog coalition of conservative Democrats have balked at some provisions, and more moderate Democrats in the Senate are still trying to cut a deal with Republicans. The intraparty divisions emerged clearly this week when it appeared that Obama was backing away from insisting that a public option be part of any bill.
Faith groups weigh in on health care
Wanting their voices heard in the health care debate as well, two religious-based groups are holding events today -- but only one will get a cameo appearance by President Obama.
Faith in Public Life had Obama plus a senior administration official for a live webcast call-in this afternoon called “40 Minutes for Health Reform."
UPDATE: The coalition said that an estimated 140,000 people listened in on the call.
In the conference call with the liberal religious leaders, Obama called health insurance coverage for all Americans a "core ethical and moral obligation." He disputed claims that Democratic bills fund abortions, give benefits to illegal immigrants, or create "death panels" that would decide who gets expensive end-of-life treatment.
"I know that there's been a lot of misinformation in this debate and there are a some folks out there who are, frankly, bearing false witness," Obama said. "I need you to spread the facts and speak the truth."
The group says that "people of faith who have experienced the consequences of our broken system will share their stories" and that "clergy working in their own communities to reform health care will highlight ways they are impacting the debate. "
The group, which is sponsored by more than 30 religious denominations and organizations, says it includes lay leaders, clergy, and others from across the political spectrum and from different ideologies, religious traditions, and races.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele put his own spin on the meeting with faith leaders, who talk about the moral dimension of health care.
“President Obama was hoping to be on offense during the month of August to travel the country and put on the hard sell for government-run health care," Steele said in a statement this afternoon. "Instead, President Obama is frantically struggling to shore up his base. The religious left talks about their desire for ‘social justice.’ No bill that funds abortion or strips health care services away from seniors and low-income Americans can or should be considered just, and that is precisely what the president’s plan does.”
Meanwhile, another organization will hold a counter-conference call later tonight to offer an anti-abortion alternative and mobilize its voters on health care. More than 320,000 pro-life voters will be invited to take part in the teleconference.
“Tens of thousands of pro-lifers across America have already contacted their legislators to urge the preservation of our long-standing tradition of limiting taxpayer funds for abortion, but now is the time to turn up the heat," Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser said in a statement. "Without language to explicitly exclude an abortion mandate, the legislation will result in Americans footing the bill for abortion on-demand in the largest expansion of government-backed abortion since Roe v. Wade.”
UPDATE: That group claimed that 160,000 took part in its conference call.
Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life, added in a statement:
“The call for reform as a ‘moral imperative’ rings hollow with Americans because the overwhelming majority firmly oppose taxpayer funding for abortion coverage. Abortion is not healthcare. Real healthcare respects life. As the Hippocratic Oath reminds us, health care grounded in a moral imperative protects the most vulnerable among us including the unborn and the elderly. Real healthcare does not fund the destruction of unborn children and it does not delay or deny care to the sick, elderly and weak among us, but that is the prospect we currently face.”
And Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said in a statement:
“The Religious Left, that has blindly put their faith in this Administration’s attempted takeover of health care, has repeatedly said they do not want to get into the weeds on the policy aspects of health care reform. Instead they say their focus is on the moral mandate that all people have health care. Ensuring that taxpayer are not forced to fund abortions and that the conscience rights of health care workers are protected is not getting into the weeds, but rather it is ensuring that health care reform is kept on a higher moral plain.”
Democrats renew threat to go it alone
There's quite a bit of buzz today that Democrats might go it alone on a health care overhaul, giving up on a bipartisan bill because of Republican intransigence and unwillingness to compromise.
But that prospect isn't all that new.
In April, congressional Democrats reached a deal that would let the Senate pass a bill with a simple majority of 51 votes, rather than the 60 votes needed to overcome a Republican filibuster. Under that agreement, the parliamentary maneuver -- known as reconciliation -- would be used only if the Senate fails to pass a bill by Oct. 15.
The New York Times and CNN, among others, are reporting that there is more focus on just getting enough Democrats' votes to pass a health care bill after the Republican criticism during the town halls being held by members of Congress during the August recess.
But the White House is already pushing back, with spokesman Robert Gibbs telling reporters this morning that it's still only mid-August and there is plenty of time to shape a bill that could win broad support.
Gibbs told reporters this afternoon that the White House still wants a bipartisan deal and believes that key Republicans are still working toward one in good faith.
"The president believes strongly in working with Republicans and Democrats, independents, any that seek to reform health care, that want to see costs cut, coverage increased, insurance reforms implemented that no longer discriminate against families and individuals," he said.
But asked whether that preference trumps Obama's oft-stated goal of getting a bill passed this year, Gibbs replied, "It does not."
And Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus said he's still optimistic that his bipartisan "Gang of Six" is on track to produce a compromise bill by Sept. 15.
Republicans, instead of going ballistic about being frozen out, are treating the possibility as old news. The office of Representative Eric Cantor, the No. 2 House Republican, said today that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has made it clear for a while now that Democrats would pass a bill without GOP support and that the White House has not made much effort at reaching out to Republicans.
“The announcement that Democrats will abandon bipartisanship in order to pass their costly government takeover of health care is nothing new," House Republican leader John Boehner said in a statement today. "From day one, the White House has taken a go-it-alone approach on health care. Months ago, Republicans sent the president a letter noting areas of potential common ground on health care reform and requesting a meeting with him to discuss a bipartisan way forward. The administration rejected our efforts to work together, choosing instead to craft a costly government takeover of health care and to march forward on a partisan basis solely with Democrats in Congress.
“Now, Democratic leaders find themselves all alone in support of a plan that will drive health care costs higher than ever, increase the federal deficit, slash Medicare, and let government bureaucrats make personal medical decisions that only patients and doctors should make," Boehner added. "The more the American people learn about this plan, the less they like it. It’s time for President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and congressional Democrats to scrap this costly plan, start over and work with Republicans on reforms that make health care more affordable and accessible for middle-class families and small businesses.”
Obama's grassroots army gets Mass. general
President Obama's grassroots group's new leader in Massachusetts is a Boston College graduate who worked on the presidential campaign in New Hampshire before that pivotal primary, and helped Obama win Pennsylvania in November.
John Spears will be Bay State director of Organizing for America, the group announced this afternoon. Now housed within the Democratic National Committee, the 13-million-member organization has been actively supporting Obama's agenda.
Its big issue now is health care, and the president will be speaking to volunteers on Thursday to try to ramp up support.
“The work we’re doing at Organizing for America is unprecedented. I'm thankful to be a part of this effort to maintain and build upon the historic grassroots network of support that brought us victory in November,” Spears said in a statement. “Since OFA was formed earlier this year, the President’s supporters in Massachusetts have been active in their community, working in support of the President’s legislative agenda. Right now OFA's supporters are working tirelessly to make their voices heard in their community to ensure that meaningful health insurance reform is passed this year.”
His mini-biography, as provided by Organizing for America, is below:
Poll: Obama gets more blame for partisan fight
As the health care overhaul seems increasingly stuck in partisan gridlock, a new poll shows that the public is down on Washington.
And the survey released today from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press says that more Americans are starting to blame Democrats and President Obama, who promised over and over to change Washington.
In the poll, 63 percent of respondents said that Obama and GOP leaders are not working together on important issues facing the country, up from 45 percent in February soon after he took office. And while a plurality -- 29 percent -- blame Republicans, 17 percent now fault Obama, up from 7 percent in February.
Obama's own job approval rating is down to 51 percent, down from 54 percent last month and 64 percent in February.
The survey also found that Americans have a dimmer view of the Democratic Party, which had a 62 percent favorability rating just before Obama was inaugurated, but now has a 49 percent favorability rating. The GOP, meanwhile, remains stuck at a 40 percent favorability.
The poll was conducted Aug. 11-17.
Frank turns tables on health care critic
A town hall held by Representative Barney Frank has joined the pantheon of at-times rowdy face-offs on health care this month.
But instead of a shouting critic getting the best of the congressman, this time it was a zinger from the Newton Democrat that drew the most notice and was featured on CNN.
His town hall Tuesday night in Dartmouth drew more than 500 people, who asked how the nation could afford a health care overhaul and who protested a bigger government role. He admonished the protestors, saying that shouting prevented a serious debate on the issue.
He reserved his most biting response, however, for one questioner, a woman who went to the microphone carrying a poster of President Obama with a Hitler-style mustache. The exchange has been replayed repeatedly on cable TV today.
"Why do you continue to support a Nazi policy?" she asked Frank.
"On what planet do you spend most of your time?" he shot back, as the crowd applauded.
Blasting the woman -- apparently a supporter of fringe presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche -- for comparing a bid to improve health care to the Nazis, Frank went on to say that it was "a tribute to the First Amendment that this kind of vile, contemptible nonsense is so freely propagated."
And for good measure, he added, "Ma'am, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table. I have no interest in doing it."
Poll: Americans split on 'public option'
With the health care fight focusing on the so-called public option, a new poll shows that Americans are divided on the issue.
According to the NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey released today, 47 percent of Americans oppose a government plan to compete with private insurers, while 43 percent support it. That's the reverse of last month, before it became such a big issue, when 46 percent backed the idea and 44 percent were against it.
The poll also found that 48 percent agreed with opponents' argument that a public plan would reduce choice of doctors and limit treatment options, while 45 percent agree with supporters' description that the public plan would help lower costs and extend coverage to the uninsured.
UPDATE: The poll also found that Obama's marks on the handling of health care are dropping to 47 percent disapproval and 41 percent approval. But that's still better than Republicans, who earned 61 percent disapproval on the issue.
But 54 percent of respondents said they were worried about the health care overhaul "going too far." And majorities said that the overhaul would cover illegal immigrants, mean a government takeover, and lead to tax-funded abortions -- though the bill sponsors dispute that. A minority, 45 percent, said the changes would mean "death panels" -- the widely debunked notion that a provision would create committees of bureaucrats who would decide when to stop medical care to the elderly.
The poll, conducted Saturday through Monday, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
Obama's grassroots army invited to step up
President Obama's grassroots organization will hold a forum on Thursday with the president on the health care fight and how it can help.
"The President will update us on the fight to pass real health insurance reform -- what's happening in D.C. and what's happening around the country. He'll lay out our strategy and message going forward and answer questions from supporters like you. And we'll unveil the next actions we'll organize together," Obama's former campaign manager, David Plouffe, wrote the 13 million members of Organizing for America this afternoon.
"This is a critical time in this President's administration, and in the history of our country. I hope you can join us," he said in the invitation to take part by phone or via the web.
In the email, Plouffe says that Organizing for America has organized nearly 12,000 events since it began its health care push in June and that about 60,000 members visited members of Congress during their recess. But the New York Times reported over the weekend that many members aren't as excited and involved in health care as they were during the campaign.
Angry letters on health care
It's a tale of two letters as the health care debate continues apace today.
Sixty House Democrats have written a letter of protest to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who prompted a rebellion by liberals, by saying Sunday that the "public option" -- a government health plan to compete with private insurers -- was not an "essential element" of a health care overhaul as far as the Obama administration was concerned.
Their letter (first reported by the firedoglake.com and Plum Line blogs) is signed by the co-chairpersons of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus. (Read it here.)
"The opportunity to improve access to health care is a onetime opportunity," they wrote. "Americans deserve reform that is real-not smoke and mirrors. We cannot rely solely on the insurance companies’ good faith efforts to provide for our constituents. A robust public option is essential, if we are to ensure that all Americans can receive health care that is accessible, guaranteed and of high-quality."
UPDATE: Sebelius, herself, tried to get back on message today, repeating the White House line that Obama hasn't changed his position and still prefers a public option, though the administration is open to other ways to offer competition to private insurers.
"All I can tell you is that Sunday must have been a very slow news day because here's the bottom line: Absolutely nothing has changed. We continue to support the public option. That will help lower costs, give American consumers more choice and keep private insurers honest," she said during a speech on Medicare to the US Commission on Aging.
"If people have other ideas about how to accomplish these goals, we'll look at those, too. But the public option is a very good way to do this. I've seen it work for state employees in states like Kansas where a public option is side-by-side with private insurers, offering competition and choice for state employees. It's what it does when it provides choice in markets that are often dominated by one insurance company, a monopoly that can charge what it wants because it has no competition."
On the other side, House GOP leader John Boehner has written to Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) President and CEO Billy Tauzin, urging him to reconsider the powerful drug industry's support of Obama's overall thrust, or as Boehner puts it "Washington Democrats’ government takeover of health care." (Read it here.)
The drug industry agreed to kick in $80 billion in savings over 10 years to help pay for the overhaul and help fund a pro-reform ad campaign. In return, the White House agreed not to push for additional concessions.
"Appeasement rarely works as a conflict resolution strategy," Boehner writes. "This is as true in the arena of policymaking as it is in schoolyards across America. When a bully asks for your lunch money, you may have no choice but to fork it over. But cutting a deal with the bully is a different story, particularly if the “deal” means helping him steal others’ money as the price of protecting your own."
"The simple truth is, two wrongs don’t make a right. And the short-sighted health care deal PhRMA struck with the Obama Administration at your urging provides confirmation of this time-tested maxim on an epic and tragic scale."
"PhRMA would do well to halt this short-sighted, misguided campaign and listen to the American people, rather than continue to collaborate on an effort to spin them," Boehner adds.
Obama huddles with Egypt's Mubarak
President Obama met today with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who made some news by hinting that he will seek another term in office though he's 81 years old.
After their huddle, Obama told reporters that the two discussed the Middle East peace process, Iran's apparent nuclear program, and Iraq, among other pressing issues.
"We obviously have a lot of great challenges that have to be dealt with, and we are continuing to work together to find those areas where we can find common ground and to work in concert to bring peace and security to the region," Obama said.
"I want to thank the government of Egypt for being an Arab country that has moved forward to try to strengthen Iraq as it emerges from a wartime footing and a transition to a more stable democracy," the president added.
Obama said he was encouraged by what he called "movement in the right direction" on Israeli settlements in the West Bank, a thorny issue that is a major source of friction between the US and Israel.
"I'm encouraged by some of the things that I'm seeing on the ground. We've been seeing reports in the West Bank, in particular, that check points have been removed in some situations. The security forces of the Palestinian Authority have greatly improved, and have been able to deal with the security situation on the West Bank in a way that has inspired, not just confidence among the Israeli people, but also among the Palestinian people," he said.
"There's been some increased economic activity on the West Bank. All of this is creating a climate in which it is possible for us to see some positive steps and, hopefully, negotiate towards a final resolution of these long-standing issues."
Obama chose Cairo, Egypt's capital, as the setting for his major speech to the Muslim world in May.
"The importance of the Cairo visit was very appreciated by the Muslim and Islamic world because the Islamic world had thoughts that the U.S. was against Islam, but his great, fantastic address there has removed all those doubts," Mubarak said.
Their full remarks are below:
FULL ENTRYObama marks passing of Korean leader
President Obama offered his condolences today after the death of Kim Dae-jung, the democracy activist imprisoned by South Korea's military dictators who later became the country's president and Nobel laureate.
He died in Seoul today of pneumonia at age 85.
"I was saddened at the passing of former President Kim Dae-jung of the Republic of Korea, a courageous champion of democracy and human rights. President Kim risked his life to build and lead a political movement that played a crucial role in establishing a dynamic democratic system in the Republic of Korea," Obama said in a statement. "His service to his country, his tireless efforts to promote peace on the Korean Peninsula, and his personal sacrifices on behalf of freedom are inspirational and should never be forgotten. On behalf of the American people, I extend my condolences to his family and to the Korean people."
Liberals urge Obama to keep public option
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The liberal backlash is already starting.
Seeking Republican support for its healthcare overhaul, the White House suggested over the weekend that it would be open to dropping the so-called public option -- a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers and keep them honest on price and quality.
The Obama team hinted that it would consider a nonprofit health cooperative -- being proposed by key senators -- as an alternative to a government plan.
Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor and Democratic Party chief during last year's campaign, urged the president today to stay firm with a public option.
"You can't really do health reform without it," Dean, a leader of the party's liberal wing, said on morning news shows. He called a direct government role "the entirety of health care reform."
On MSNBC, Dean said this afternoon that a while a few small coops have worked in places like Washington state, "it doesn't work" nationally.
The problem, he said, is it was tried in the form of Blue Cross/Blue Shield, which started as a nonprofit and which now acts like a private insurer.
Without a public option, the overhaul bill would just funnel more money to an industry that has acted "abominably," Dean said.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi renewed her support for a public option, quoting Obama's own words.
“As the President stated in March, ‘The thinking on the public option has been that it gives consumers more choices and it helps keep the private sector honest, because there's some competition out there.'
“We agree with the President that a public option will keep insurance companies honest and increase competition," Pelosi said in a statement. "There is strong support in the House for a public option. In the House, all three of our bills contain a public option, as does the bill from the Senate HELP Committee. A public option is the best option to lower costs, improve the quality of health care, ensure choice and expand coverage. The public option brings real reform to lower costs over the 10-year period of the bill.”
Representative Anthony Weiner, a New York Democrat who has compared leaving private insurers in charge to "making a pyromaniac the fire chief," predicted that the bill won't win a majority in the House without the public plan.
"I would love to be one of the big supporters of the Obama plan, but I've got to know that it includes a public option." he said this afternoon on CNN.
"Look, the president has to lead on this and he has to say very clearly a public option is important that we could -- that we hold these insurance companies accountable and provide some competition," Weiner added. "I would love to be the one carrying the ball for him, but unless he says a public option is the way to go, I'm going to be a no and so will a lot of people."
Senator Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, weighed in with his own statement:
"A public option is a fundamental part of ensuring health care reform brings about real change. Opposing the public plan is an endorsement of the status quo in this country that has left tens of millions of Americans uninsured or underinsured and put massive burdens on employers. I have heard too many horror stories from my constituents about how the so-called competitive marketplace has denied them coverage from the outset, offered a benefit plan that covers everything but what they need or failed them some other way. A strong public option would ensure competition in the industry to provide the best, most affordable insurance for Americans and bring down the skyrocketing health care costs that are the biggest contributor to our long-term budget deficits. I am not interested in passing health care reform in name only. Without a public option, I don't see how we will bring real change to a system that has made good health care a privilege for those who can afford it.”
The AFL-CIO, the nation's largest labor federation that has been a loyal Obama ally, also said it would "forcefully" urge the White House and Senate to keep the public option in the bill.
"A quality public health insurance option is a crucial part of health care reform to keep private insurance companies honest, hold down costs and ensure that everybody has a health care choice available. Key to holding down costs for families, for businesses, and for the federal budget is forcing insurance companies to compete. And the only way to force real competition on the insurance companies is a strong public plan option," president John Sweeney said in a statement.
"Unfortunately, the usual suspects opposed to reform are trying to hijack the reform process and attacking the public health insurance plan option because they are afraid of competition and they want to keep gouging working families. But unless we take decisive steps to stop the crippling rise of health costs, we will have squandered this moment of opportunity."
UPDATE: Though many observers heard a change in the language that Obama used at a town hall on Saturday and that Sebelius used, the White House insisted today that Obama's position had not shifted significantly.
"His preference is a public option," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters on Air Force One returning from the president's four-day Western trip. "If there are other ideas, he's happy to look at them....I think this is true not only for the issue of health care, but for virtually every other issue that he'll ever deal with in public life is he has goals about what he wants to accomplish and he's not necessarily wedded to only one way of getting there. I think he's said that a hundred times."
Gibbs added, "I challenge you guys all to go back and see what we've said about this over the course of many, many, many, many months, and you'll find a boring consistency to our rhetoric."
Republicans, meanwhile, are not welcoming the possible concession.
Instead, the Republican National Committee sent out a list of comments from Democrats to back up its case that co-ops could be a disguise for another form of the public option.
" 'Public option' by any other name is still government-run health care," the RNC said, adding that the reports of the demise of the public option are "greatly exaggerated."
Still, the issue could divide the Democratic coalition that has been united behind Obama on health care.
Even as Kathleen Sebelius, the health and human services secretary, was saying on CNN Sunday that the public option was not an "essential element" for reform, the Democratic National Committee was all over Dick Armey, a former House Republican leader and now head of the conservative group FreedomWorks, for saying on NBC that a government insurance option would amount to tyranny.
"If you give a government program and let me choose to be in or choose to be out, that's generosity. If you force me in, irrespective of my desires, that's tyranny," Armey said.
DNC spokesman Brad Woodhouse responded, “If Dick Armey thinks government involvement in health care is tyranny, he must be forgetting or ignoring the fact that Medicare is a government plan that has been praised as one of the most successful programs ever -- a plan which is popular among seniors and runs better and with lower administrative costs than virtually any private insurance plan. If Republicans like Dick Armey are going to continue to rail against government involvement in health care, they should come forward to call for the abolition of Medicare and Medicaid and if not, just admit that their rhetoric is just part of their political strategy to 'break' the President and derail reform.”
Obama speaks on Burma, Russia
Staying on foreign policy, President Obama issued statements this afternoon praising the release of an American who got caught up in the internal politics of Burma and expressing concern about an apparent bombing in a restive Russian republic.
On the bombing, he said, "I am deeply troubled about reports of a suicide bombing today in Nazran, Ingushetiya that has resulted in the tragic loss of at least 20 lives and 138 injured. There can be no justification for such an act of terrorism. This latest attack highlights the concerning increase in violence in the region affecting officials and civilians alike. Our condolences go out to the Government of Russia and the families of victims."
And on the release of John Yettaw, whose swim to visit democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi gave Burma's military junta the pretext to extend her house arrest for 18 months, White House spokesman said on Obama's behalf, "The President is pleased that Senator Webb has facilitated the release of American citizen John Yettaw from detention in Burma. He appreciates this decision by the Burmese government. The President also notes that in addition to meeting with head of state Than Shwe, Senator Webb was able to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi, the first meeting by a U.S. official with her for many years. We urge the Burmese leadership in this spirit to release all the political prisoners it is holding in detention or in house arrest, including Aung San Suu Kyi."
Obama addresses veterans
President Obama, all about health care all the time recently, returned his attention today again to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
For the first time, an African-American commander-in-chief addressed the nation's largest group of combat veterans, the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Phoenix.
While Obama has been stumping for his health care plan, renewed violence is threatening the handover of security to the government in Iraq, where 130,000 US troops remain. Obama has pledged to withdraw all combat troops by next August.
"The transition to full Iraqi responsibility for their own security is now underway. This progress is a testament to all those who have served in Iraq, both uniformed and civilian. And our nation owes these Americans -- and all who have given their lives -- a profound debt of gratitude," Obama told 13,000 VFW members.
"As Iraqis take control of their destiny, they will be tested and targeted. Those who seek to sow sectarian division will attempt more senseless bombings, more killing of innocents. This we know," he added. "But as we move forward, the Iraqi people must know that the United States will keep its commitments."
In Afghanistan, US and coalition forces dealt with the bloodiest month yet in July and casualties are piling up this month as well in advance of a key national election. About 62,000 US troops are fighting there, including most of the 21,000 additional forces that Obama dispatched to lead a new strategy to root out al Qaeda and its Taliban allies in the remote border region with Pakistan.
"They've gone into new areas -- taking the fight to the Taliban in villages and towns where residents have been terrorized for years. They're adapting new tactics, knowing that it's not enough to kill extremists and terrorists; we also need to protect the Afghan people and improve their daily lives. And today, our troops are helping to secure polling places for this week's election so Afghans can choose the future that they want," Obama said.
"These new efforts have not been without a price. The fighting has been fierce. More Americans have given their lives. And as always, the thoughts and prayers of every American are with those who make the ultimate sacrifice in our defense. As I said when I announced this strategy, there will be more difficult days ahead. The insurgency in Afghanistan didn’t just happen overnight. And we won’t defeat it overnight. This will not be quick nor easy," the president added.
"But we must never forget. This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans. This is not only a war worth fighting. This is fundamental to the defense of our people."
In his speech, the president also reprised "a vision American leadership" that amounts to the "Obama doctrine" on the use of military force: "I have made it a priority to enlist all elements of our national power in defense of our national security -- our diplomacy and development, our economic might, and our moral example. Because one of the best ways to lead our troops wisely is prevent the conflicts that cost American blood and treasure tomorrow."
"I will only send you into harm's way when it is absolutely necessary," he added. "When I do, it will be based on good intelligence and guided by a sound strategy. I will give you a clear mission, defined goals, and the equipment and support you need to get the job done."
The Obama doctrine also includes a top-to-bottom review of Pentagon spending and weapons procurement to root out waste and fraud. "We cannot build the 21st century military we need -- and maintain the fiscal responsibility that Americans demand -- unless we fundamentally reform the way our defense establishment does business," he said. "It's a simple fact. Every dollar wasted in our defense budget is a dollar we can't spend to care for our troops, or protect America, or prepare for the future."
He threw in a joke about an expensive new presidential helicopter he doesn't want: "Maybe you heard about this. Among its other capabilities, it would let me cook a meal while under nuclear attack. I’ll tell you something. If the United States of America is under nuclear attack, the last thing on my mind will be whipping up a snack."
Obama also stressed his efforts to help returning veterans, including the new GI Bill that includes enhanced educational benefits.
"We will fulfill our responsibility to our forces and our families," he said. "That is why we're increasing military pay, that's building better family housing and funding more childcare and counseling to help families cope with the stresses of war. And we've changed the rules so military spouses can better compete for federal jobs and pursue their careers.
"We will fulfill our responsibility to our wounded warriors. For those still in uniform, we're investing billions of dollars for more treatment centers, more case managers, and better medical care so our troops can recover and return to where they want to be -- with their units."
Many veterans are also wary about what a health care overhaul would mean to them, especially after the Obama administration initially floated the idea of charging vets' private insurance for treatment related to service injuries.
The proposal was designed to generate more than $540 million a year for the Department of Veterans Affairs, but after veterans' groups leaders complained in March, the White House said that the president, after hearing concerns that the proposal "might, under certain circumstances, affect veterans and their families' ability to access health care," has "instructed that its consideration be dropped."
To ease those concerns, Obama made a blanket promise today: "One thing that reform won't change is veterans health care. No one is going to take away your benefits. That is the plain and simple truth."
Obama's full remarks are below:
FULL ENTRYPoll: Americans skeptical of stimulus
The economy appears to be finally on the road to recovery, and on the hustings President Obama has been celebrating that turnaround and crediting the $787 billion economic stimulus plan he championed.
But a new poll out today suggests that most Americans disagree.
Six months after Obama signed the package of tax cuts and spending, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll found that 57 percent of respondents say the stimulus package is having no impact on the economy or making it worse --33 percent said no effect and 24 percent worse. Just 41 percent said the stimulus is making the economy better.
Over the long term, 38 percent of respondents said the stimulus will make things better and 38 percent said it would make it worse.
For respondents personally, only 18 percent said the stimulus has improved their situation while 13 percent said worse and 68 percent said no impact. And more respondents -- 34 percent -- said they expect the stimulus will make things worse for them personally over the long term than better -- 29 percent.
House Republicans -- not a single one of whom voted for the stimulus package -- jumped on the poll results to continue their attack.
“By any objective standard, the Democrats’ trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’ isn’t working," House GOP leader John Boehner said in a statement today. "The administration promised the ‘stimulus’ would provide a ‘jolt’ to our economy and create jobs immediately, but 2.8 million more Americans have lost their jobs since the ‘stimulus’ became law. The American people are asking, ‘where are the jobs?’
"The administration’s insistence on spending, taxing, and borrowing more than ever is not the answer they’re seeking. Instead, it is burying our children and grandchildren under an unmanageable mountain of debt. Families and small businesses expect and deserve far better. Rather than pursuing more job-killing policies like a government takeover of health care and a national energy tax, Democrats should work with Republicans on better solutions that create jobs, curb spending, and control the debt.”
Obama, Hatch tussle on health care
The war of words over health care continues today in dueling radio/Internet addresses.
In one corner, President Obama, who in his weekly remarks, said that with health care overhaul close, the special interests are doing their best to scare and mislead Americans.
In the other corner, Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, who delivering the Republican address, says that Democrats are rushing through a health care bill and that their solution is mostly throwing taxpayers' money at the problem.
They're both trying to win the public as members of Congress spend the month of August at home listening to their constituents before returning next month to resume work on legislation that Obama wants on his desk this year.
Obama directly addresses one Republican claim that a provision to offer counseling on hospice care and other end-of-life issues amounts to government "death panels" that would decide who deserves medical treatment -- and who doesn't . Though the claim has been widely debunked, a bipartisan group of senators have agreed to drop the provision, which is in House Democrats' bill, from the Senate draft.
"That rumor began with the distortion of one idea in a Congressional bill that would allow Medicare to cover voluntary visits with your doctor to discuss your end-of-life care -- if and only if you decide to have those visits. It had nothing to do with putting government in control of your decisions; in fact, it would give you all the information you need – if you want it – to put you in control of your decisions," says Obama, who said "it's disappointing, but it’s not surprising" that reform opponents are resorting to such tactics.
"Those who would stand in the way of reform will say almost anything to scare you about the cost of action," Obama adds. "But they won’t say much about the cost of inaction. If you’re worried about rationed care, higher costs, denied coverage, or bureaucrats getting between you and your doctor, then you should know that’s what’s happening right now. In the past three years, over 12 million Americans were discriminated against by insurance companies due to a preexisting condition, or saw their coverage denied or dropped just when they got sick and needed it most. Americans whose jobs and health care are secure today just don’t know if they’ll be next to join the 14,000 who lose their health insurance every single day. And if we don’t act, average family premiums will keep rising to more than $22,000 within a decade."
But for his part, Hatch pushes back at Democrats who have called the much-publicized protests at some town halls "un-American."
"Although I strongly encourage the use of respectful debate in these town halls, we should not be stifling these discussions," he says. "There is nothing ‘un-American’ about disagreements. In fact, our great nation was founded on speaking our minds."
The reason people are protesting is that they have legitimate worries about the proposals being offered by Obama and congressional Democrats.
"A big reason for this concern is that nearly 85 percent of Americans have coverage and they are really worried about what reform means for them. Especially our seniors," Hatch says.
“Republicans in Congress agree with the majority of Americans who believe that just throwing more taxpayer dollars at a problem will not deliver meaningful reform. Telling the American public that the solution for solving a $2.5 trillion health care system is to simply spend another trillion dollars in our current economy, just does not make sense," Hatch adds.
Instead, any overhaul should focus on making coverage more affordable, banning insurers from denying coverage due to a pre-existing condition, and giving states more flexibility to cover the uninsured, he says.
Obama's speech can be viewed here, and his full address is below. Hatch's speech can be viewed here, and his full remarks are below.
Obama hits insurers in second town hall
President Obama, trying to regain momentum on his health care plan, took to Montana this afternoon to continue his critique of insurers.
In the second of three town halls this week designed to convince Americans who have insurance that an overhaul would benefit them, Obama blasted insurance companies that revoke or water down coverage when patients get seriously ill.
"They get sick, and suddenly that's when they get dropped," he said, saying that responsible Americans are being held hostage by rogue insurance firms.
"It's wrong....We're going to fix it when we pass health insurance reform this year," he told a crowd of about 1,300 in an airplane hangar in Belgrade, just outside Bozeman.
When Americans hear such horror stories, he said, they should think, "There but the grace of God go I."
Obama addressed what he called the emotional debate and the tempers flaring at some congressional town halls.
"TV loves a ruckus," he said. But what people aren't seeing on television and what "makes me proud" are many constructive meetings across the country where people are having difficult conversations about health care issues.
"That's how democracy is supposed to work," the president said.
"For all the scare tactics out there, what is truly scary ... is if we do nothing," Obama said, imploring, "Fight the fear."
Obama made a point of saying none of the questions had been pre-screened for the town hall.
But the initial questions were as friendly as they were in New Hampshire earlier this week.
A young single mother of two, including a disabled son with diabetes and epilepsy, asked whether he would lose Medicaid under Obama's plans.
The president said savings in the Medicaid program would not lower benefits. "You are a heroic mom," Obama added. "Your son's lucky."
The first semi-combative question came from a man who identified himself as a National Rifle Association member and who asked how Democrats plan to pay for health care without a tax increase.
Obama said if the bill costs $800 billion to $900 billion over 10 years, two thirds can come from savings and eliminating subsidies to insurance companies. The other third will have to come from some form of tax increase.
The president said he still prefers his proposal to limit income tax deductions for higher-income Americans. The congressional bills have different ideas, but he said he will keep his campaign commitment not to raise taxes on families making less than $250,000 a year.
For his last questions, Obama asked for a skeptic.
He got an insurance salesman who asserted that insurers have good ideas for health reform, and asked why Obama is "vilifying" insurance companies.
Obama acknowledged that insurers are offering some good proposals, but some insurers are funding campaigns against any kind of reform. He said he wants to keep private insurers, but he also wants to ban certain practices that are unfair to Americans.
Obama, sans tie to be Western casual and since his trip is also partly family vacation to national parks, joked that it was nice to be in a state with moose, elk, and bull: "In Washington, you mostly have just bull. So this is a nice change of pace."
(His full opening remarks and answers to questions are below.)
To emphasize the message of the day, Obama was also introduced by Katie Gibson, a cancer survivor who was told in 1995 that she had less than a year to live and lost her coverage when she and her husband moved to Montana.
Setting up the town hall, Obama's grassroots group from his campaign, Organizing for America, released a web video this morning that details the story of one woman whose coverage was dropped after she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The web video shows Robin Beaton of Waxahachie, Tex., testifying last month before the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations about how her insurer retroactively dropped her coverage three days before she was scheduled to have surgery to remove tumors.
Saturday in Colorado, Obama's message of the day is expected to be insurers that charge exorbitant out-of-pocket costs.
In the first town hall this week, Tuesday in Portsmouth, N.H., Obama highlighted insurers who don't cover preexisting conditions. He was introduced by Lori Hitchcock, a 52-year-old, single, self-employed Portsmouth resident who could not get insurance after being diagnosed with Hepatitis C in 2003.
Obama's healthcare plan, and bills drafted by congressional Democrats, would ban all three insurer practices.
Montana is the home state to a key player in the congressional debate, Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, a Democrat. He spoke breifly before Obama, saying that he's going around the Big Sky state busting myths and telling the truth.
But unlike New Hampshire, which Obama won last November, Montana is a Republican state that went for GOP nominee John McCain.
And Obama will be greeted with a TV ad running in the state and financed by Conservatives for Patients' Rights, an advocacy group led by a former healthcare executive that has been helping organize protests at congressional town halls.
The spot shows a patient talking with her doctor, then a bespectacled, bow tie-wearing government bureaucrat appears with a clipboard labeled, "FEDERAL HEALTH POLICE."
The announcer urges viewers to oppose the public insurance option that Obama and many Democrats in Congress want as part of the overhaul. "It's not too late to put patients first," he says.
FULL ENTRYPower to look out for Iraqi refugees
Samantha Power -- the Harvard professor, human rights activist, and award-winning author -- has a new gig inside the Obama administration: Coordinator of US government efforts to help refugees and other displaced people from the Iraq war.
An intriguing side note: In her new role, Power will work even more closely with the State Department, which is led by Hillary Rodham Clinton.
During the campaign, Power stepped down as an unpaid adviser to Obama after she caused a huge uproar by calling Clinton a "monster" who was "stooping to anything" to win the Democratic nomination.
But after the election, Power reached out to Clinton, she was included in the transition team for the State Department, and she and Clinton have crossed paths.
Here's the statement this afternoon from White House spokesman Robert Gibbs:
"President Obama has long made clear that the United States is committed to working closely with the Iraqi government to aid Iraqis who have been displaced or are otherwise vulnerable as a result of the violence in Iraq. Since April, the United States has made available approximately $196 million in additional support for these populations for a total of $346 million to date in FY 2009.
"Further to discussions that took place during Prime Minister Maliki’s recent meetings in Washington, President Obama is pleased to announce that Samantha Power, Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights at the National Security Council in the White House, will coordinate the efforts of the many parts of the U.S. government on Iraqi refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs), including the Department of State, U.S. Agency for International Development, Department of Homeland Security, and Department of Defense.
"We are also pleased to announce that Mark Storella, a Senior Foreign Service officer who recently served as Deputy Chief of Mission in Geneva, has arrived in Baghdad to take up the post of Senior Coordinator for Iraqi Refugees and Displaced Persons. Storella will coordinate our government’s work in Iraq on refugees and IDPs, and will represent the United States in its dealings with the Iraqi Government, the international community, and non-governmental organizations on these issues."
11-year-old grills Obama
The boy reporter finally snagged his big interview with President Obama.
Damon Weaver, a Florida 11-year-old, became something of a sensation during last year's presidential campaign when he interviewed Vice President Joe Biden and others.
But he really wanted to talk to Obama, showing up to the January inauguration but not getting access to the president.
That finally happened this week, and the in-house TV station at Damon's elementary station posted it on YouTube on Thursday night.
"I was a little nervous waiting for the president, but finally he arrived," Damon says on camera, sitting in a chair in the Diplomatic Room of the White House.
"How are you sir? Nice to meet you," Obama said, walking in. "You look good, man, in your suit."
Damon then asked Obama about bullying, parents, and school lunches, among other topics.
"I remember when I used to get school lunches, sometimes they didn't taste so good, I've got to admit," Obama said. "We are actually seeing if we can work to at least make school lunches healthier. Because a lot of school lunches, there's a lot of French fries, pizzas, tater tots. All kinds of stuff that isn't a well-balanced meal."
Damon had his own proposal: "I suggest that we have French fries and mangos everyday for lunch," he said.
Damon told the president that he notices that he gets bullied and criticized a lot.
"I think that when you're president, you're responsible for a lot of things," Obama replied. "A lot of people are having a tough time and they're hurting out there. And the main thing I just try to do is stay focused on trying to do a good job, and try to be understanding that sometimes people are going to be mad about things."
At the end of the interview, Damon invited Obama to come to his school and play basketball with him and his friends.
The president said he'd try because Damon did so well in the interview.
Then, Damon went further out on a limb. He said that when he interviewed Biden, the V.P. became his "homeboy." Will you be my homeboy? Damon asked the president
"Absolutely," Obama replied.
"President Obama is now my homeboy, too, " Damon said outside the White House.
UPDATE: Damon, interviewed this afternoon on CNN, said that one of highlights of his White House visit was meeting first dog Bo, and getting his photo taken with him.
Senate panel drops end-of-life provision
Though the idea that the health care overhaul bills call for "death panels" that would decide end-of-life care has been widely debunked, the Senate Finance Committee is dropping the controversial provision from its version.
Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, the panel's top Republican and one of six committee members trying to negotiate a bipartisan bill, said in a statement today that the provision "could be misinterpreted and implemented incorrectly."
The provision in the House bill would allow Medicare to pay doctors for voluntary counseling sessions on end-of-life issues, including living wills and hospice as an option for the terminally ill. It is supported by the American Medical Association and the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.
But the provision has generated a huge uproar, particularly after Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, called it "downright evil."
In a Facebook posting late Wednesday night, Palin argued that the elderly and ailing could be coerced into accepting minimal end-of-life care to reduce health care costs. "With all due respect, it's misleading for the president to describe this section as an entirely voluntary provision that simply increases the information offered to Medicare recipients," she wrote. "It's all just more evidence that the Democratic legislative proposals will lead to health care rationing."
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said today that "death panels" are the biggest misconception the administration is trying to rebut.
In an email to Obama supporters and a letter posted on the White House website, senior adviser David Axelrod included the claim that the health care proposals would encourage "euthanasia" among eight "common myths."
"It does not. It’s a malicious myth that reform would encourage or even require euthanasia for seniors. For seniors who want to consult with their family and physicians about end-of life decisions, reform will help to cover these voluntary, private consultations for those who want help with these personal and difficult family decisions," Axelrod wrote.
In his town hall on health care on Tuesday in Portsmouth, N.H., President Obama took on the issue head-on.
"The rumor that's been circulating a lot lately is this idea that somehow the House of Representatives voted for 'death panels' that will basically pull the plug on grandma because we've decided it's too expensive to let her live anymore," he told the crowd.
"It turns out that I guess this arose out of a provision in one of the House bills that allowed Medicare to reimburse people for consultations about end-of-life care, setting up living wills, the availability of hospice, et cetera. So the intention of the members of Congress was to give people more information so that they could handle issues of end-of-life care when they're ready, on their own terms. It wasn't forcing anybody to do anything. This is I guess where the rumor came from.
"And somehow it's gotten spun into this idea of 'death panels.' I am not in favor of that....I want to clear the air here."
In his statement, Grassley said, "On the end-of-life issue, there's a big difference between a simple educational campaign, as some advocates want, and the way the House committee-passed bill pays physicians to advise patients about end of life care and rates physician quality of care based on the creation of and adherence to orders for end-of-life care, while at the same time creating a government-run program that is likely to lead to the rationing of care for everyone.
"On the Finance Committee, we are working very hard to avoid unintended consequences by methodically working through the complexities of all of these issues and policy options. That methodical approach continues. We dropped end-of-life provisions from consideration entirely because of the way they could be misinterpreted and implemented incorrectly. Maybe others can defend a bill like the Pelosi bill that leaves major issues open to interpretation, but I can't."
White House makes its case
The White House asserted again today that the screaming at health care town halls all over cable TV is not representative of what's happening across the country.
To buttress that point, the Democratic National Committee sent out a list of reports in local newspapers about less heated events.
"Outside the echo chamber of 24-hour cable news, Americans all across the country are attending town halls, holding coffee shop conversations and engaging in respectful, honest debates about the best way to achieve health insurance reform. As the president continues to forge ahead, making historic progress in his effort to reform America’s broken health insurance system, please see below for coverage of the conversations you haven’t been hearing," the DNC said.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said today there are more reasoned discussions on health care going on in the town halls.
"I think people are getting the feedback that they're having very good conversations about what's in the legislation -- what people would like to see, what options they want to have, why they think it's important," he said.
"I said this yesterday, I'll say this again: while I appreciate that you all have decided that every town hall meeting ends in pushing, shoving and yelling...they're not completely indicative of what's going on in America."
Still, the administration will continue trying to rebut attacks on Obama's proposals, he said.
"I think he believes very strongly, as we talked about yesterday, that it is important to address misconceptions or misimpressions that have been left out there about the bills. I do believe that the president feels strongly that when he makes his case, it helps the case for overall health care reform," Gibbs told reporters during his daily briefing.
"So he felt very satisfied with what happened in New Hampshire. He was able to address concerns that people had."
Meanwhile, White House senior adviser David Axelrod sent an e-mail to Obama supporters listing eight reasons why an overhaul of the health care system is essential and listing what he called eight “common myths” about the overhaul effort. The e-mail asks supporters to forward the message to someone who “has a question about reform.”
“Let’s start a chain e-mail of our own” to counter “the viral e-mails that fly unchecked and under the radar,” Axelrod wrote.
Obama's promises: 11 down, hundreds to go
The Obama administration's first 200 days has passed with far less fanfare than the much-hyped 100-day milestone.
But PolitiFact, the Pulitzer Prize-winning online truth-squadding service of the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly, continues to track the president's campaign promises.
Of the 500-odd pledges he made to voters, Obama has kept 34, including most recently No. 88 -- getting signed the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
He has broken seven, including most recently No. 24 -- ending the income tax for seniors making less than $50,000 a year.
Obama has compromised on 11 promises, a dozen others are stalled, and 77 are in the works, according to PolitiFact's tally. But the vast majority, 374, have not had any action.
Obama's approval ratings, meanwhile, have softened as the recession shows signs of finally ending and as he gets increasingly embroiled in what looks like a death match with Republicans on health care.
Republicans strike back on health care
President Obama is on the campaign trail for his health care plan, trying to fend off what he calls "wild" accusations and rumors.
But Republicans are trying to turn the tables.
The Republican Naitonal Committee has launched a new website that includes material accusing Obama and Democrats of making inflated claims that under the overhaul anyone can keep their doctor or coverage if they want, and that middle-class Americans won't see higher taxes under the proposals.
"There is no place for outlandish rumor or outrageous rhetoric in the debate for the affordable and accessible health care reform we all want," RNC Chairman Michael Steele wrote supporters today in a fund-raising email.
"The Republicans want an honest and open debate about how to reform health care, but it is the Democrats who do not want to have a legitimate discussion on the issues. Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and their liberal special interest cronies are resorting to calling concerned citizens who have questions about their health care schemes 'astroturf,' 'un-American,' and even 'political terrorists.' "
The RNC also has a web video that asserts that health care is Obama's latest experiment, after the economic stimulus package, and America can't take the risk. "Now we face his most dangerous experiment of all -- government takeover of health care," the announcer says.
Meanwhile, 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin is fighting back against Democrats (and independent fact-checkers) who have assailed her claims that the healthcare bills call for "death panels" that would decide end-of-life care. The bills do offer end-of-life counseling that is voluntary.
"Yesterday President Obama responded to my statement that Democratic health care proposals would lead to rationed care; that the sick, the elderly, and the disabled would suffer the most under such rationing; and that under such a system these ‘unproductive’ members of society could face the prospect of government bureaucrats determining whether they deserve health care,” she wrote on her Facebook page Wednesday night.
"With all due respect, it’s misleading for the president to describe this section as an entirely voluntary provision that simply increases the information offered to Medicare recipients.”
Major new ad for health care overhaul
A powerful, deep-pocketed new coalition is launching a $12 million TV ad campaign today in support of a health care overhaul.
Calling themselves Americans for Stable Quality Care, the group includes three vested interests in the debate: PhRMA, the drug companies' lobby; the American Medical Association, the big doctors' group; and the Federation of American Hospitals. It also includes two groups supportive of President Obama, FamiliesUSA and the Service Employees International Union.
Notably, the coalition does not include the insurance industry, which has been increasingly cast by Obama and Democrats as the bad guy in the debate.
"What does health insurance reform mean for you?” asks the ad’s narrator. “It means you can’t be denied coverage for a pre-existing condition, or dropped if you get sick. It means putting health-care decisions in the hands of you and your doctor. It means lower costs, a cap on out-of-pocket expenses, tough new rules to cut waste and red tape, and a focus on preventing illness before it strikes. So what does health insurance reform really mean? Quality, affordable care you can count on."
Stalemate on healthcare, poll suggests
The battle for public opinion on a healthcare overhaul appears to be at a stalemate.
A new Gallup Poll released today found that support for President Obama's handling of the issue has stayed status quo over the past three weeks -- as conservative activists have swarmed congressional town halls to register their opposition and as the White House has stepped up its sales pitch.
In a poll conducted Aug. 6-9, 49 percent of Americans said they disapproved of the president's handling of healthcare and 43 percent approved -- compared to 50 percent disapproval and 44 percent approval in a survey done July 17-19.
Obama's marks on healthcare are the lowest of four issues, with the others being education, foreign affairs, and the economy. And his approval ratings on issues are lower than his overall job approval rating of 54 percent.
The president held a town hall in Portsmouth, N.H., on Tuesday to hit back at his critics and try to clarify what his healthcare proposals don't include. He has two more scheduled this week, in Bozeman, Mont., and Grand Junction, Colo.
The new survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
UPDATE: A USA Today/Gallup Poll released later today about the protests found that 57 percent of Americans believe genuine concerns were behind them, while 48 percent said organizing by activists was also a factor.
While 51 percent said angry attacks represented "democracy in action," 59 percent said shouting down others attending the town halls was an "abuse of democracy."
All the shouting is having limited impact. Thirty-six percent of respondents said the protests haven't made any difference in how they view the healthcare debate, while 34 percent said they were more sympathetic toward the protesters' views and 21 percent were less sympathetic.
The poll, conducted Tuesday, has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
A sedate town hall raises questions
Why wasn't President Obama's town hall on healthcare in New Hampshire Tuesday as much of a shouting match as some held by members of Congress?
At one point, Obama, himself, sought out a question from someone skeptical or suspicious of his plans, with limited success. Critics have suggested that the audience was, if not hand-picked, heavily stacked in the president's favor, even though anyone could sign up for the free tickets through the White House website and it says the winners were picked randomly by computer.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs gave his own explanation today -- a combination of a skewed picture of how raucous the congressional town halls have actually been, plus respect for the presidency.
"I doubt we're seeing a representative sample of any series of town hall meetings despite the food fight on cable every day," Gibbs said at his daily briefing .
"People want to take the opportunity to find out from the president -- to have him answer their questions about why he's doing what he's doing and the concerns they may have on the legislation," he added. "I think most people took that opportunity as something that was positive.
"I think some of you were disappointed yesterday that the president didn't get yelled at," Gibbs told reporters, chiding them for paying too much attention to the back-and-forth between protestors outside.
"The president wanted to have -- what I think what happened -- which was a rational discussion about health care reform legislation. I think that's what ensued. Did everybody agree? I think the answer to that is obviously no."
UPDATE: Meanwhile, conservative activists are questioning how an 11-year-old girl from Malden was called on by Obama to ask a question -- and noting the political activities of the girl's mother. Read about it on our sister blog.
Asked what the biggest obstacle was to passing a healthcare overhaul bill, Gibbs replied, "The people that want to keep the status quo. The people that believe that somehow what we have is working for the millions of Americans who are watching their healthcare premiums skyrocket every day, who are watching small businesses drop their coverage, who are part of the 12.5 million people over the past three years that have been told by an insurance company in seeking to buy insurance on a private market that they're not eligible because of what somebody has decided there's a pre-existing condition.
"I think that would be what the president would believe is the greatest obstacle and has been for 40 years, are people that -- that have a vested, in some senses monetary interest, in keeping things as they are."
Speaking of which, a new TV ad funded by the US Chamber of Commerce launched today. The business lobby opposes a proposal favored by some congressional Democrats to generate money to cover the uninsured by taxing the most generous employer-provided health benefits.
The spot shows an expanding red balloon as the announcer says, "Inflated taxes, swelling deficits, and expanded government control over your health."
The balloon bursts. "Tell Congress: 'Let’s slow down and reform healthcare the right way,' " the announcer says.
Both sides clamor to be heard at N.H. town hall
By Nandini Jayakrishna, Globe correspondent
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. -- President Obama's town hall on healthcare today -- his first since shouting matches and heckling met lawmakers trying to talk to their constituents -- was civil and sedate in comparison.
But activists on both sides sparred outside Portsmouth High School, some using bullhorns to get heard.
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The hundreds of people were herded by police to either the pro-overhaul side or the anti-reform side. One overhaul supporter yelled, “You’re on the wrong side, you’re confused!”
But Greg Meyer, 39, of Hampton Falls, N.H., did not want to choose a side. He said if he could, he would stand in the middle of the street between the two sparring groups.
"If we did not believe in that separation, maybe we'd find a way to work together," Meyer said. "I'm on the side of the dialogue."
Supporting the proposals from Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress were AFL-CIO members, Planned Parenthood representatives, and others, dancing to the beat of African drummers.
“I am here because fairness and equality dictate it, we need the public option for health insurance, there should be no restrictions for pre-existing conditions," said Stuart Russell, 66, of Concord, N.H., wearing a sticker that said “I am a healthcare voter.”
Terry Lochhead, 62, of Canterbury, N.H., representing the New Hampshire Alliance for Retired Americans, also said that she supports a public insurance option that Obama is pushing and said that prescription drug prices are too high for the elderly. “It’s ridiculous, people can’t get discounts,” she said.
Mark Mackenzie, president of the AFL-CIO's New Hampshire branch, said the price of healthcare is going through the roof. "We need to begin the process of reining in costs that are out of control.”
He said there is a lot of hype and misinformation in the public and the myths about the Democratic proposals need to be debunked. "If it were a program that would destroy healthcare for people in this country, we wouldn’t stand here," he said.
On the other side of the street from the school, Republicans and other opponents played music including "Proud to be an American."
One opponent, William Kostric, who said he was in his 30s and from Manchester, had a handgun strapped to his leg. Kostric -- who was holding up a sign declaring, "It is time to water the tree of liberty," a slogan popular with anti-government activists -- said he was licensed to carry a gun.
"It’s a political statement,” Kostric said, adding "If you don’t use your rights, then you lose your rights.”
Police asked him to move away from school property, where guns are not allowed, but he was not arrested. He moved to church property a short distance from the school.
Portsmouth police spokesman Lt. Frank Warchol said that as long as a weapon is not concealed and is not carried on the school property, a person is not breaking state law.
"We can't do anything about it," he said. "Obviously he's on our radar screen at this time."
UPDATE: Kostric was interviewed later this afternoon on MSNBC, where under questioning from "Hardball" host Chris Matthews he defended his right to bring a weapon to the event.
Asked about the history of presidential assassinations, Kostric said he was not threatening violence by bringing a gun to a presidential event.
David Call, 60, of Scandish, Maine, said that the healthcare system does not need to be overhauled and that Obama is pushing his proposals too fast.
“If it took the president six months to pick a dog, shouldn’t he spend six months on healthcare?" Call asked. "Slow down, what’s the rush?”
Call also reacted against the top two House Democrats asserting in an opinion piece published Monday that it was "un-American" to disrupt the town hall meetings. “We’re not un-American because we speak up against our government," he said.
Laurie A. Turner, 44, of Manchester, N.H., a history teacher, also said she opposes the reform plans. “It’s gonna take a lot of power out of the hands of the people,” she said.
Hal Posselt, 62, of Concord, N.H., for one, is hoping for real dialogue instead of shouting between the two sides.
"I’m so tired of hearing all the noise out there -- too much noise, not enough thinking and reasoning,” he said. The various plans need to be explained to the public better, he said.
UPDATE: After the event, Lisa Gravel, 39, of Manchester, N.H., a foe of Obama's healthcare overhaul plans, said she was disappointed she could not get into the meeting.
“Everyone coming out of there was clearly an Obama supporter,” she said, holding a sign that read ‘Stop Trashing Our Constitution.’ “He’s not having a healthy debate. He really doesn’t want to hear what I have to say or what any of the people on this side of the street have to say. I find that dishonest.”
As he came out of the gym, Bruce Gottlieb , 56, said he favored the overhaul and and thought the president made a strong case for it, but added that he would have liked Obama to delve into specifics about the program he envisions.
"It was too general,” said the West Hartford, Conn. native. “I’m leaving a little disappointed.”
Obama hits Burma on activist's sentencing
President Obama today protested the conviction and sentencing of Burmese human rights activist Aung San Suu Kyi.
"The conviction and sentencing of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi today on charges related to an uninvited intrusion into her home violate universal principles of human rights, run counter to Burma’s commitments under the ASEAN charter, and demonstrate continued disregard for UN Security Council statements. I join the international community in calling for Aung San Suu Kyi’s immediate unconditional release," Obama said in a statement issued through the White House.
"Today’s unjust decision reminds us of the thousands of other political prisoners in Burma who, like Aung San Suu Kyi, have been denied their liberty because of their pursuit of a government that respects the will, rights, and aspirations of all Burmese citizens. They, too, should be freed. Suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. I call on the Burmese regime to heed the views of its own people and the international community and to work towards genuine national reconciliation.
"I am also concerned by the sentencing of American citizen John Yettaw to seven years in prison, a punishment out of proportion with his actions."
Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, added his concern.
“The Burmese dictatorship is making a serious mistake by sentencing Aung San Suu Kyi to additional imprisonment. She never should have been arrested, much less convicted on meritless charges. Aung San Suu Kyi, American John Yettaw, and the other political prisoners held by the junta must be freed immediately. The junta’s actions cast serious doubt on the potential for legitimate elections next year and only reinforce longstanding international concerns about the military junta’s treatment of its own people," Kerry said in a statement.
“The Burmese dictatorship should understand that only a good-faith effort to start a dialogue with the political opposition and improvement of its deplorable human rights record can lead to better relations with the United States and the rest of the world. The junta’s latest unjust and short-sighted actions only serves to move the government further down the path of continued international isolation.”
In N.H., Obama promotes help for insured
President Obama told a civil, restrained town hall meeting this afternoon in Portsmouth, N.H., that his healthcare overhaul will be good for Americans who already have insurance as well as those who don't.
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With polls showing deep skepticism about some of Obama's proposals, he talked in opening remarks about how the plan would prevent insurers from denying coverage for preexisting medical conditions, from dropping coverage when someone gets seriously ill, and from charging exorbitant out-of-pocket costs.
Americans are being "held hostage" by insurers, he told about 1,800 people at Portsmouth High's gym, framed by a huge American flag behind the stage.
"I believe it is wrong," he added, and it is bankrupting families and businesses.
"Your health insurance should be there for you when it counts -- not just when you're paying premiums," he declared, adding that it will be once the health overhaul passes. "Nobody in America should go broke because they get sick."
"This is what reform is about" -- not all the chatter and shouting, the president added.
The long vigorous debate is part of democracy, he said. But, he said, "I hope we talk with each other and not over each other," adding "where we disagree, let's disagree over what's real," not falsehoods and rumors.
Greeted by a cheering crowd, he said it was great to be back in New Hampshire -- though he joked that most of his memories of the state "were cold."
He was introduced by a "real person" embodying the preexisting condition message of the day -- Lori Hitchcock, a 52-year-old, single, self-employed Portsmouth resident who was diagnosed with Hepatitis C in 2003. Because no insurance company will sell health coverage to her because of her pre-existing condition, she has been uninsured for two years, the White House said.
Obama said her story is the same one he reads in letters every day.
Obama reprised his argument that the stimulus package and other steps are lifting the country out of recession and "the jobs picture is beginning to turn," but that healthcare reform is one of the pillars needed to "lay a new foundation for economic growth."
He also repeated his debunking of "myths," saying that Americans won't have to give up their insurance if they like it and that he isn't for a government takeover of the healthcare system.
"I don't think government bureaucrats should be meddling, but I also believe that health insurance bureaucrats shouldn't be meddling," he said to applause.
No one, he asserted, is holding insurers accountable for unfair practices. So while an estimated 46 million uninsured Americans need help, it's just as important to achieve reform for those with insurance, he said.
He said that health reform is closer than ever, but the special interests are gathering force to try to stop it.
"Now is the hard part," he said.
Asking for help knocking on doors and convincing neighbors, Obama said, "I never said change would be easy....Change is hard. And it doesn't start in Washington. It starts in places like Portsmouth."
"Yes we can," the crowd chanted, a reprise of Obama's campaign rallies.
"I remember that," Obama replied.
Asked by a state legislator whether he would pass a healthcare bill over Republican objections if necessary, Obama said some Republican friends on Capitol Hill are sincerely trying to find a bill that they can support, naming Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine, among others.
But given Americans' plight and the healthcare's impact on the federal budget deficit, he said, "We have to get it done."
While he hopes for a bipartisan bill, "the most important thing is getting it done for the American people," the president said.
He used humor to dispute claims by 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin and others that "death panels" will decide end-of-life care that will basically "pull the plug on Grandma." The truth, he said, is that there is a provision in the House bill to offer end-of-life counseling, but only for those who want it.
The first sort-of unfriendly question came from a Maine man who identified himself as a Republican and who said he was worried about a public insurance plan putting private insurers out of business.
"I think it's an excellent question, so I appreciate the opportunity to respond," the president replied, before explaining his opposition to a single-payer system like in Canada and to his support for improving the current system of employer-based coverage.
He asked for a question from someone who is "skeptical or suspicious" of his plans, saying he didn't want people to think that the crowd was full of plants.
It took until the very last query before the town hall ended after nearly an hour of questions.
A Derry, N.H., man said he had turned himself in on the portion of the White House website where people could report false emails and rumors.
Obama jumped to say that was another example of the media distorting what was happening. The reporting feature is not a way to compile an enemies list, the president said.
"Come on guys," he said. "All we're trying to do is answer questions.
The man's question was why Obama hadn't chastised Congress because there are two forms of healthcare -- one for members of Congress and one for the public.
Obama replied that without healthcare reform, the gap between the plan members of Congress get and what most Americans get will continue to be wide. But the health overhaul would give Americans an option of a plan very similar to the one that members of Congress get, he said.
"The status quo is not working for you," Obama said. (His full remarks, and the question-and-answer session is below.)
The town hall was Obama's first since the raucous spectacles during events that members of Congress have been having -- including one that Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania is hosting this morning, where one man has already been escorted out and there has been shouting and heckling.
The Democratic National Committee is backing up Obama's slightly retooled message with a new national cable TV ad. Showing images of happy families, the announcer says, "Your family's care comes first....There's something in it for all of us."
Organizing for America, Obama's grassroots group from the campaign, also echoed his message, releasing a web video this afternoon entitled "Coverage Denied."
In the video, Kristen Palmer of Minneapolis, who was featured in a previous video by the group, tells of how she has been denied health insurance coverage due to a pre-existing medical condition -- polycystic kidneys, a genetic disease she shares with her father -- despite the fact that she is healthy and currently suffers no consequences as a result of her medical history.
The White House release on the town hall is below:
FULL ENTRYProtests planned for Obama N.H. visit
President Obama's town hall meeting on healthcare on Tuesday in Portsmouth, N.H., will almost certainly be far less of a free-for-all than the raucous ones that members of Congress have been having, filled with shouting matches, pushing and shoving, and even some arrests.
It is the president's first public healthcare event since the protests at town halls became big news -- and it is happening in the birthplace of the American ideal of town meetings and small-d democracy. (The White House this evening confirmed the start time as 1 p.m. EDT)
As usual for such events, the White House controlled the distribution of the free tickets to get into the gym at Portsmouth High School. And, per usual, the Secret Service will take care of any unruliness.
But that won't stop protestors outside the event.
According to an invitation obtained by NBC News, a group called the New Hampshire Republican Volunteer Coalition is urging members to make sure the other side gets heard and noticed by the media.
"Barack Hussein Obama will be arriving in Portsmouth on Tuesday to hold a STAGED "Town Hall Meeting", where he will essentially hand pick who the guests will be and what types of questions will be asked of him," the call to arms reads. "A MASSIVE protest rally is being organized just outside of the facility where Obama will be holding his 'Town Hall Meeting' to promote his plan for a government takeover of your healthcare decisions."
"There will be news media from all over the world at this event and it will be the ideal opportunity for us to tell the rest of the country exactly how NH voters feel about Obamacare (taxed/rationed healthcare). It will be the most important pro-liberty event of the year in NH and it is critically important that every one of us attend," the invitation continues. "If you can, bring a sign that says something like, 'OBAMACARE=TAXED/RATIONED HEALTHCARE', etc."
Supporters of the Democratic healthcare bills also plan to show their strength outside the town hall.
The AFL-CIO said today that New Hampshire workers "will respectfully make the case for major health care reform and speak out against the ‘mob rule’ tactics of the opposition."
“New Hampshire workers desperately need major health care reform and we will not let our voices be silenced by the corporate funded mobs on the other side,” state AFL-CIO President Mark MacKenzie said in a statement.
Asked about the current discourse at a joint news conference this afternoon at the summit with the leaders of Canada and Mexico, Obama said, "We are having a vigorous debate in the United States, and I think that's a healthy thing."
He repeated that healthcare overhaul is closer than at any time in 40 years and addressing whether there were parts of the more government-heavy Canadian health plan to emulate, said the US must come up with an uniquely American solution.
Opponents, the president said, seem to want to talk about Canadian healthcare.
"I suspect that you Canadians will continue to get dragged in by those who oppose reform, even though I've said nothing about Canadian healthcare reform. I don't find Canadians particularly scary, but I guess some of the opponents of reform think that they make a good bogeyman.
"I think that's a mistake. And I suspect that once we get into the fall and people look at the actual legislation that's being proposed, that more sensible and reasoned arguments will emerge. And we're going to get -- we're going to get this passed."
Speaking of the contentious town halls, Democrats have been complaining that the conservative activists and their Republican allies have been hijacking them.
In an opinion piece in today's USA Today, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her wingman Representative Steny Hoyer went further, calling the disruptions downright un-American.
"It is now evident that an ugly campaign is underway not merely to misrepresent the health insurance reform legislation, but to disrupt public meetings and prevent members of Congress and constituents from conducting a civil dialogue," they wrote. "These disruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views — but of the facts themselves. Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American."
Republicans strongly dispute that, arguing that opponents are only venting their frustrations and objections to the Democratic bills.
UPDATE: Asked about the town hall, White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton said today that there will be about 1,800 people in the audience, including members of the general public and those who received tickets through members of Congress.
"New Hampshire is a place where people are really feeling the pinch of healthcare reform, and it's a place where he can talk specifically about getting real consumer protections in place, like making sure people can get covered if they have a preexisting condition," Burton said.
"We expect that there will be a vigorous debate, as there have been at plenty of town halls that President Obama has had as president and as candidate, and we look forward to it," Burton told reporters on Air Force One this afternoon.
Asked about Pelosi and Hoyer calling some of the protests "un-American," Burton said, "Well, I think there's actually a pretty long tradition of people shouting at politicians in America. The president thinks that if people want to come and have a spirited debate about health care, a real vigorous conversation about it, that's a part of the American tradition and he encourages that, because people do have questions and concerns."
"Now, if you just want to come to a town hall so that you can disrupt and so that you can scream over another person, he doesn’t think that that's productive," Burton added. "And as a country, we've been able to make progress when people actually talk out what our problems are, not try to shout each other down. So he thinks that we're going to be able to have a constructive conversation tomorrow and he'll continue to do that at the town hall later in the week and throughout this effort."
"There's obviously a lot of passion on one side of this, and that's why people are showing up and screaming. And again he doesn't think that that's constructive. But, you know, there's passion on the other side, too -- the people who want health care reform and who think that it's wrong that health insurance companies can stop you from getting coverage just because you have a preexisting condition, or drop you from coverage just because you get sick," Burton said.
"There's obviously been some orchestration of some of the folks who go out there, but I don't think that that is as important as the fact that, A, there are people who do have legitimate concerns and questions about health care reform and the President wants to have an opportunity to answer those folks and wants members of Congress to have the opportunity to answer those questions, as well. And that's why it's important that when people go to town hall meetings, if you want to have a tussle over an issue, that's fine; but screaming so that you can't hear the answer to whatever the complaint isn't moving the ball forward for anybody."
N. American leaders pledge cooperation
The White House this afternoon put out the joint communique from President Obama, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and Mexican President Felipe Calderon.
The statement says that the response to the swine flu was a good example of teamwork, promises greater cooperation on trade and crime, and vows to address climate change.
Obama said at a joint news conference that in the 21st century, North American is not as much about borders between the three countries, as the bonds among them.
The transcript of the news conference is below, followed by their full joint statement and their declarations on climate change and the swine flu:
Palin: Obama health plan 'evil,' but town halls shoud be civil
Sarah Palin, getting in her two cents on the healthcare overhaul debate, has been of two minds lately.
The former Alaska governor and 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee turned up the volume late last Friday with a posting on her Facebook page that suggested that President Obama's plan would lead to a "death panel" that would ration care.
"And who will suffer the most when they ration care?" she wrote. "The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil."
That claim was immediately and loudly disputed by Democrats. (A fact-checking website, Politifact.com, also disputes Palin's characterization.)
"She just made that up,” Howard Dean, the former Democratic National Committee chairman and Vermont governor who is a doctor, said Sunday on CNN. “Just like the ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ that she supposedly didn't support.
“There's nothing like euthanasia in the bill," he added. "I practiced medicine for a long time, and of course you have to have end of life discussions — the patients want that.”
Later Sunday, Palin posted another comment on her Facebook page, urging opponents of Obama's healthcare proposals to be civil at the town hall meetings that members of Congress are having, lest their message be lost in the controversy.
"There are many disturbing details in the current bill that Washington is trying to rush through Congress, but we must stick to a discussion of the issues and not get sidetracked by tactics that can be accused of leading to intimidation or harassment," Palin wrote. "Such tactics diminish our nation’s civil discourse which we need now more than ever because the fine print in this outrageous health care proposal must be understood clearly and not get lost in conscientious voters’ passion to want to make elected officials hear what we are saying. Let’s not give the proponents of nationalized health care any reason to criticize us."
Health reform advocates fight back
President Obama's allies are ramping up their efforts for healthcare overhaul as the battle moves full bore back into local congressional districts and out of Washington.
Opponents of the healthcare bills being pushed by congressional Democrats have been raging at town hall meetings held by members of Congress, protests organized in part by conservative and business groups and cheered on by Republicans.
So Obama's grassroots group from the campaign, Organizing for America, sent an email out to the millions on its list, urging supporters to visit their members of Congress in their offices. The email names each supporter's representative and offers help on the message.
"All throughout August, our members of Congress are back in town. Insurance companies and partisan attack groups are stirring up fear with false rumors about the President's plan, and it's extremely important that folks like you speak up now," writes Mitch Stewart, director of the group.
"So we've cooked up an easy, powerful way for you to make a big impression: Office Visits for Health Reform. All this week, OFA members like you will be stopping by local congressional offices to show our support for insurance reform. You can have a quick conversation with the local staff, tell your personal story, or even just drop off a customized flyer and say that reform matters to you."
Community activists, organized by Massachusetts Communities Action Network, also plan to go Tuesday to home offices of six members of Congress: Senators Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry, and Representatives Michael Capuano, Barney Frank, Stephen Lynch and Jim McGovern.
Even though Massachusetts has its own landmark healthcare law that has extended coverage to 97 percent of residents, the network says a national healthcare overhaul could still help the Bay State by providing federal assistance to allow the state to cover more moderate-income families, by improving Medicare for seniors, and by helping subsidize coverage for 30,000 legal immigrants.
Meanwhile, faith groups backing a health overhaul that provides universal care are launching a 40-day lobbying campaign.
The effort by People of Faith for Health Reform includes a new national cable TV ad in which several clergy talk about special interests fighting reform. "But God has given us a spirit not of fear, but of love and action," says the Rev. Stevie Wakes of Olivet Institutional Baptist Church in Kansas City, Kan.
"Millions of people of faith are supporting health insurance reform," adds the Rev. John Hay of Indianapolis. "Members of Congress: Will you?"
The campaign also includes prayer events in local districts, sermons on healthcare Aug. 28-30, and events in Washington in September as Congress resumes work after its August recess.
UPDATE: The White House, itself, officially launched a "reality check" website that features videos of top administration officials debunking "myths" about Obama's proposals. They include the claims from opponents about healthcare overhaul forcing the rationing of care, euthanasia of the critically ill, cuts in care for veterans, burdens on small businesses, and cuts in Medicare benefits.
Obama rallies support on healthcare
In his weekly Internet and radio address, President Obama uses the hopeful jobs numbers to make his case again for a healthcare overhaul.
He says the July unemployment rate of 9.4 percent, the first decline in 15 months, shows "that we’ve begun to put the brakes on this recession and that the worst may be behind us."
"But we must do more than rescue our economy from this immediate crisis; we must rebuild it stronger than before. We must lay a new foundation for future growth and prosperity, and a key pillar of a new foundation is health insurance reform – reform that we are now closer to achieving than ever before," Obama declares.
While Congress did not meet his original timetable of both the House and Senate passing bills before leaving for the August recess, Obama puts the best face on the progress so far. "Four committees in Congress have produced legislation – an unprecedented level of agreement on a difficult and complex challenge," he says.
And with opponents of the healthcare overhaul taking over town hall events that members of Congress are holding in their districts, Obama takes on his critics, saying that they are misleading Americans.
"That is why it is important, especially now, as senators and representatives head home and meet with their constituents, for you, the American people, to have all the facts," Obama says.
"So, let me explain what reform will mean for you. And let me start by dispelling the outlandish claims that reform will promote euthanasia, cut Medicaid, or bring about a government takeover of health care. That’s simply not true. This isn’t about putting government in charge of your health insurance; it’s about putting you in charge of your health insurance. Under the reforms we seek, if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your healthcare plan, you can keep your healthcare plan. And while reform is obviously essential for the 46 million Americans who don’t have health insurance, it will also provide more stability and security to the hundreds of millions who do."
Obama's address can be viewed here, and the prepared remarks are below:
Head west, young man
President Obama and family are headed west late next week, in part to encourage Americans to take advantage of a no-fee weekend at national parks.
On Friday, the Obamas will be in the Bozeman area of Montana; on Saturday, they will go to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, and Grand Junction, Colo.; and on Sunday, they will be at the Grand Canyon and Phoenix, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said today.
He said, the first family's visit to the national parks is "to highlight the weekend where we hope millions of Americans will enjoy the national park system."
Obama: 'Worst may be behind us'
President Obama, armed with welcome -- and somewhat surprising -- evidence of an economic recovery to brandish against his critics, declared this afternoon that "the worst may be behind us."
"Today we're pointed in the right direction," he said in the White House's Rose Garden, asserting that job losses are at half the rate when he took office in the worst recession since the Great Depression.
He also noted that a week ago, the gross domestic product dropped just 1 percent in the second quarter.
The president repeated his defense/explanation of the $787 billion economic stimulus package, saying that it has helped rescue our economy from "catastrophe" and started to lay the groundwork for sustained growth.
But Obama said he won't be satisfied until many more Americans can find good jobs.
"It won't be easy," he said, since change comes with difficulty in Washington. "We have a steep mountain to climb and we started in a very deep valley," he added. (His full remarks are below.)
Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and Cabinet secretaries had been talking up the economic stimulus package this week -- in part to inoculate the White House from unemployment numbers out this morning that many economists predicted would top 10 percent nationally.
Instead, the jobless rate declined slightly to 9.4 percent in July from the 26-year high of 9.5 percent in June -- the first decrease since April 2008. The Labor Department reported that employers cut 247,000 jobs, the fewest in a year.
Still, there were 14.5 million Americans out of work in July, and if those who have given up looking for a job or who have been forced to take part-time work are counted, the rate was 16.3 percent in July.
As the unemployment rate steadily and stubbornly rose month after month, Obama's job approval ratings and Americans' confidence in his handling of the economy dropped. The opposite can be expected to happen if the jobless numbers keep dropping.
Representative George Miller of California and Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, the Democrats who lead the House and Senate Labor Committees, respectively, issued a joint statement:
“When President Obama inherited this economic crisis seven months ago, our nation was shedding 700,000 jobs a month. Today's decline in unemployment – the lowest number of jobs we’ve lost in the last year – is very good news for working families. It shows that President Obama's economic recovery program is working – saving jobs in classrooms, police stations, and firehouses and creating new jobs for Americans in construction and renewable energy fields. While our nation’s road to recovery will take time and patience, there is no doubt that we are moving in the right direction.
“Even in the midst of this promising news, it’s clear we still have a long way to go. More than 5 million Americans have been looking for work for more than six months, without success. We must do more to help these working families keep food on their tables and hope in their hearts. An extension of unemployment benefits should be at the top of Congress’s agenda when we return in the fall.”
AFL-CIO president John Sweeney also attributed some of the unemploymen turnaround to the stimulus package.
"The dip in the unemployment rate in July is a welcome sign that President Obama’s economic recovery package is starting to blunt the impact of the most severe recession in a generation. By refusing to listen to the naysayers, the President and Congress have helped to avert a total financial meltdown -- despite much continuing pain. We still have a long way to go until our economy is growing and creating good jobs at a healthy rate -- and we will need decisive and timely action from our government in the meantime," Sweeney said in a statement.
"It is not good news that we lost 247,000 jobs in July, bringing total job loss since the recession began to 6.7 million. The growth of long-term unemployment by another 584,000 is especially disturbing and cries out for immediate, additional attention. There are now more than 5.7 job seekers for every available job -- up from 1.7 at the start of the recession. The July job figures would have been much worse without the stimulus, which has helped to slow the pace of job loss to less than half of what it was just six months ago. From May to July, job losses averaged 331,000 per month, compared with losses averaging 645,000 per month from November to April."
UPDATE: But Republicans didn't see much encouragement in the jobs report, and continued their criticism of Obama and Democrats for their economic policies.
"While President Obama was taking a victory lap to celebrate the economy's performance, more Americans lost their jobs and the budget deficit soared to a record $1.3 trillion in July," Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele said in a statement. "In the month of July alone 247,000 Americans lost their jobs, which means more than 2.8 million Americans have lost their jobs since the president took office. The president said his stimulus bill would keep unemployment from rising higher than 8 percent. It hasn't. Now he expects Americans to believe his trillion-dollar health care experiment will improve their health care? It won't. America simply can't afford more of the president's costly experiments."
Representative John Boehner, the top-ranking House Republican, chimed in: "Today's unemployment report is yet another reminder that more spending, taxing, and borrowing does not mean more jobs for the American people. Instead of rewriting history on their 'stimulus' promises, Washington Democrats should abandon their job-killing agenda," said Boehner in a release. "Rather than pushing an increasingly unpopular government takeover of health care that will increase costs, drive up the deficit, raise taxes, and destroy jobs, Democratic leaders would be well-served to work with Republicans on real reforms that expand Americans' access to affordable health care and help small businesses create more jobs."
FULL ENTRYObama signs 'clunkers' bill
President Obama this morning signed into law a bill replenishing the "cash for clunkers" program with another $2 billion.
The Senate passed the bill Thursday night to keep the program going, after an unexpected flood of car buyers used up the first $1 billion in rebates, as much as $4,500 for trading in gas guzzlers for more fuel-efficient vehicles.
"Now, more American consumers will have the chance to purchase newer, more fuel efficient cars and the American economy will continue to get a much-needed boost," Obama said in a statement after the Senate vote. " ‘Cash for Clunkers’ has been a proven success: the initial transactions are generating a more than 50% increase in fuel economy; they are generating $700 to $1000 in annual savings for consumers in reduced gas costs alone; and they are getting the oldest, dirtiest and most air polluting trucks and SUVs off the road for good. Businesses across the country – from small auto dealerships and suppliers to large auto manufacturers – are putting people back to work as a result of this program. I want to thank Leader Reid and the members of the Senate who moved quickly to extend a program that benefits our recovery and our auto industry while reducing our economy’s dependence on oil.”
Labor weighs in on healthcare
One of President Obama's biggest allies -- Big Labor -- is coming to his aid on healthcare.
The AFL-CIO, the nation's largest union federation, announced today that it will mount an intensive 30-day grassroots effort to back a sweeping healthcare overhaul, timed during the recess when members of Congress will be home listening to their constituents.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, in a call-to-arms memo to union leaders, put the choice starkly: "The question for us is: will we let them make health care 'Obama's Waterloo' or will we make it the next big step in our march to Turn Around America?"
Sweeney said unions must fight for healthcare legislation that helps working people, not insurance companies. (His full memo is below.)
The AFL-CIO also put out a statement assailing the tactics of conservative groups, which are sending activists to congressional town hall meetings to criticize members of Congress.
"Every American has the inalienable right to participate in our democratic process. Our politics is passionate, heartfelt and often loud -- as was the founding of our nation. But that is not what the corporate-funded mobs are engaging in when they show up to disrupt town halls held by members of Congress," said the federation's secretary-treasurer, Richard Trumka.
"Major health care reform is closer than ever to passage and it is no secret that special interests want to weaken or block it. These mobs are not there to participate. As their own strategy memo states, they have been sent by their corporate and lobbyist bankrollers to disrupt, heckle and block meaningful debate. This is a desperation move, meant to slow the momentum for change," the statement continues.
"Mob rule is not democracy. People have a democratic right to express themselves and our elected leaders have a right to hear from their constituents -- not organized thugs whose sole purpose is to shut down the conversation and attempt to scare our leaders into inaction. We call on the insurance companies, the lobbyists and the Republican leaders who are cheering them on to halt these ‘Brooks Brothers Riot’ tactics. Health care is a crucial issue and everyone - on all sides of the issue - deserves to be heard."
UPDATE: The Service Employees International Union is urging attendees at townhall meetings to sign a pledge not be disruptive and to listen to those with whom they disagree.
“At the same time that America’s families are seeking relief from fast-rising and unaffordable health care costs, extreme radicals and corporate front groups are trying to derail health insurance reform by disrupting public meetings. While SEIU and allies across the country are staging more than 400 events to promote a real discussion on the country’s need for healthcare reform, these ‘Astroturf’ organizations, are spreading ludicrous, discredited myths designed to scare people away from much-needed reform," SEIU Healthcare Chairman Dennis Rivera said in a statement this afternoon.
“America’s families want a serious and civil discourse about health insurance reform. They want to know how health insurance reform will protect them and their loved ones.
“We, therefore, challenge everyone attending public meetings about health insurance reform to sign a pledge that they are prepared to engage in a civil dialogue so that the American people can better understand how reform, and the absence of such reform, will affect their lives.
“We are convinced that such a serious and civil discourse – tied to facts, not myths – will substantially increase the public’s support for reform."
Obama huddles on healthcare with key senators
With time running out before the Senate starts its August recess, President Obama turns his focus back to healthcare today.
He huddled with the so-called Gang of Six -- the bipartisan group of Senate Finance Committee members trying to make a deal on a healthcare overhaul bill.
UPDATE: White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that Obama urged the senators to keep seeking a compromise.
"The president invited the group to come to the White House today to provide an update and a status report of sorts on their negotiations amongst themselves and the committee. The president's message to them is to continue to work and find consensus on an issue that we know they've been working hard on, and is very important to the American people," Gibbs told reporters at his daily briefing.
"The president wants them to continue to work and make progress, and wanted to hear directly from them on where they were. It wasn't a negotiating session."
Finance Chairman Max Baucus has set a Sept. 15 deadline for the negotiators to strike a bargain. The Washington Post reports this morning that an emerging bill would come in at about $900 billion over the next decade and eventually cover 94 percent of Americans.
But it would not include the government insurance option that Obama and House Democrats support and, for the first time, tax healthcare benefits provided by employers under the most generous plans -- an idea Obama so far has shunned.
Obama is also hoping for a bipartisan deal, but if one isn't reached Democrats could use a parliamentary maneuver to move ahead without GOP support in the Senate.
"I am glad that in the Senate Finance Committee there have been a couple of Republicans … who've been willing to negotiate with Democrats to try to produce a bill," Obama told NBC News on Wednesday. "But they haven't yet. And I think at some point, some time in September, we're just going to have to make an assessment."
"I would prefer Republicans working with us on that, because I think it's in the interest of everybody. It shouldn't be a partisan issue," he added in the interview. "The bottom line is the American people, the American economy, and the federal budget, have to have some sort of reforms in the health-care system. And failure is not an option this year."
Three House committees led by Democrats passed healthcare bills before starting their recess last Friday, but Democrats are being hammered in town hall meetings in their districts, shouted down by conservative activists and others.
Democrats have hit back, saying Republicans are inciting "mob rule."
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which is trying to reelect next year those representatives who are being hassled, formally announced today the launch of a new truth-squadding website dedicated, it said, "to exposing the truth-twisting attack by Republicans and their fringe right-wing groups on health insurance reform."
“Republicans are trying to poison the debate on health insurance reform with lies, misleading ads, and scare tactics so we’re launching healthcarefactcheck.com to set the record straight and empower our supporters to fight back with the truth,” Jon Vogel, the committee's executive director, said in a statement. “This website is just another way that we are holding Republicans and their fringe groups accountable for trying anything and everything to protect the profitable status quo for big health insurance companies at the expense of affordable health care for families.”
But the GOP shows no signs of backing down.
Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele sent a "Dear Friend" fund-raising solicitation overnight, telling supporters that "Obama Democrats" are trying to demonize them as "right-wing extremists.
"We saw this sort of vitriolic rhetoric this past April when Democrats smugly dismissed grassroots protests against their out-of-control spending. These Tea Parties were ruthlessly mocked by the liberal elites and the mainstream media," Steele wrote.
"Now as public support for the Obama Democrats' government-run health care plan unravels, they're using this fear-and-smear tactic to silence ANY American who disagrees with their risky scheme to nationalize one-fifth of our economy and limit your health care choices. It's a page out of their standard playbook of name calling and outright lies to stifle all debate."
The thrill is gone
As President Obama hits the 200-day mark, new polls show a further slide in his ratings.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey results released this morning gives him an overall job approval rating of 56 percent, with 40 percent disapproving. That's down from 61 percent approval in late June, and 76 percent in early February.
Still, a majority, 51 percent, said that Obama's first six months have been a success, and only 37 percent said a failure, with 11 percent saying it's too soon to tell.
But two-thirds of respondents say Obama has tried to handle too many issues, though he repeatedly says it wasn't his choice, but forced upon him by inheriting two wars and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
On the economy, while 44 percent said they believed Obama's policies had made things better, 51 percent said they had not, and 79 percent said economic conditions were somewhat poor or very poor.
Asked how they personally felt about Obama as president, 15 percent of respondents replied "thrilled" -- down from 28 percent just before his inauguration; 41 percent said "happy," about the same.
But 31 percent said "unhappy" or "depressed" -- nearly double the 16 percent giving those descriptions before he took office.
The poll, conducted last Friday through Monday, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
A Quinnipiac University poll of registered voters released today gives Obama even lower marks.
In that survey, Obama has a 50 percent to 42 percent job approval rating from voters, down from 57 percent to 33 percent a month ago, and the lowest since Inauguration Day.
The poll also found that voters disapprove 49 percent to 45 percent of the way the president is handling the economy, and disapprove 52 percent to 39 percent of how he is handling healthcare, but approve 52 percent to 38 percent of the way he is handling foreign policy.
The Quinnipiac poll, conducted July 27-Aug. 3 among registered voters, has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
All play, no work for Obamas on Vineyard
President Obama does not plan any public events while vacationing with his family on Martha's Vineyard, the White House said this afternoon.
The Obamas plan to arrive on Sunday, Aug. 23, and depart on Sunday, Aug. 30. Those events will be open to the press.
Obama coming to New Hampshire
President Obama will bring his healthcare-stimulus road tour to New Hampshire next week, the White House just announced.
The town hall will be in the Portsmouth area on Tuesday. More details to come.
It will be Obama's first foray into the Granite State while president. He stumped there in October, just before the November election. In his electoral landslide, he won the state, despite Republican John McCain's popularity there.
But perhaps the highest-profile event he held there was with Hillary Rodham Clinton in the aptly named Unity, N.H., in June 2008 when they held their first joint rally after a sometimes bitter primary campaign that was extended when Clinton pulled a "comeback kid" and won the New Hampshire primary that January.
Democrats slam 'mob rule;' Republicans call it democracy
The Democratic National Committee today launched a web ad slamming the GOP and allied conservative groups for sending activists to healthcare town halls where they are shouting questions and criticisms.
"The right wing extremist Republican base is back," the announcer intones, over scenes of disruptions at gatherings starting over the weekend as the battle over healthcare moves out of Congress and into home districts.
After losing congressional battles on the budget and after eight years of failed economic policies during the Bush administration, the narrator says, desperate Republicans are organizing "angry mobs."
"Their goal: Destroy President Obama and stop the change that Americans voted for overwhelmingly in November," the announcer says. "They have no plans for moving the country forward so they've called out the mob."
Michael Steele, a spokesman for House GOP leader John Boehner, responded to the ad:
"Out-of-touch Washington Democrats would love to blame their problems on Republicans, but they can't. Their problem in Washington is Democrats fighting against Democrats. Their problem across the country is Democrats fighting against the American people, by backing job-killing tax hikes and regulations in the middle of the deepest recession in decades."
UPDATE: The Republican National Committee also responded, sending out a list of polling results showing doubts about the Democrats' healthcare plans, and asserting that what Democrats call "mob rule" is merely small-d democracy.
"Today the White House and Democrats continue their callous and arrogant campaign to reduce the concerns and opinions of millions of Americans as 'manufactured' -- and have labeled them as 'angry mobs' and 'rabid extremists,' for voicing their opposition to President Obama’s government-run health care experiment," the RNC said.
"This 'mob' the Democrats are referring to include millions of American families, small business owners, doctors, veterans, seniors – and even House and Senate Democrats – who have real concerns over the president’s risky and costly government-run health care experiment. And they should be concerned – as this costly experiment will raise taxes without decreasing costs, increase the deficit, will lead to less choice and lower-quality health coverage.
"Before heading into recess, the Democrats should have read the dozens of public opinion polls showing that a majority of Americans believe President Obama’s government-run health care experiment is a bad idea. It’s no secret that Democrats aren’t even on board. Chaos in Washington has reigned over health care in the last several weeks. Are Democrats so out of touch that they are shocked to find concern among their constituents over their $1.6 trillion government-run health care experiment? Or are the Democrats once again waging a campaign of distraction to shift the focus away from their widely unpopular, big government policy?
"The bottom line? Americans, including Independents and some Democrats, do not like President Obama’s government-run health care experiment – and they are going to show up to say so. It’s called democracy."
Recent polls show that Americans are divided about the healthcare plans proposed by Obama and congressional Democrats. A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released this morning found 50 percent backing Obama's plan, but 45 percent opposed.
While 30 percent said Obama's proposals would help them and 40 percent said it would help other families, 20 percent said the proposals would not help anyone.
In the survey, 71 percent said they were very likely or somewhat likely to attend a town hall even on healthcare hosted by their member of Congress.
As part of the counter-offensive, Obama's grassroots groups is organizing its own healthcare events and getting its members to the town halls.
"This is the moment our movement was built for," the president, himself, told Organizing for America supporters in an email this afternoon.
"For one month, the fight for health insurance reform leaves the backrooms of Washington, D.C., and returns to communities across America. Throughout August, members of Congress are back home, where the hands they shake and the voices they hear will not belong to lobbyists, but to people like you.
"Home is where we're strongest. We didn't win last year's election together at a committee hearing in D.C. We won it on the doorsteps and the phone lines, at the softball games and the town meetings, and in every part of this great country where people gather to talk about what matters most. And if you're willing to step up once again, that's exactly where we're going to win this historic campaign for the guaranteed, affordable health insurance that every American deserves.
"There are those who profit from the status quo, or see this debate as a political game, and they will stop at nothing to block reform. They are filling the airwaves and the internet with outrageous falsehoods to scare people into opposing change. And some people, not surprisingly, are getting pretty nervous. So we've got to get out there, fight lies with truth, and set the record straight."
Gibbs revises own remark on Iran
It's usually White House spokesman Robert Gibbs who has to clarify remarks by administration officials when they veer off message -- like when two top economic advisers suggested over the weekend that President Obama might raise taxes on the middle class to pay for healthcare or cut the deficit.
But today, Gibbs had to clarify some of his own words.
In his daily briefing on Tuesday, he called Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the "elected leader" of that country that is one of the diciest foreign policy challenges for Obama. That description raised eyebrows because opposition leaders in Iran have questioned the fairness of the election, and so have US and other Western observers.
Today, Gibbs told reporters on Air Force One that want to "correct a little bit of what I said yesterday. I denoted that Mr. Ahmadinejad was the elected leader of Iran. I would say it's not for me to pass judgment on. He's been inaugurated, that's a fact. Whether any election was fair, obviously the Iranian people still have questions about that and we'll let them decide that. But I would simply say he's been inaugurated and we know that is simply a fact.
Asked whether he recognized him as Iran's leader, elected fairly or not, Gibbs replied, "It's not for -- it's not for me or for us to denote his legitimacy, except to acknowledge the fact."
Does the White House believe the election was fair, Gibbs was asked.
"That's not for us to pass judgment on," Gibbs replied. "I think that's for the Iranian people to decide, and obviously there are many that still have a lot of questions."
White House takes pitch on road
The Obama team is fanning out across the country today with a shared message -- the economic stimulus plan is working.
Really.
President Obama returned to Elkhart County, Ind., where he spoke at a former recreational vehicle plant. The RV industry has been crushed during the recession, so Obama will be bringing some money with him.
He announced that 48 projects in 20 states for advanced battery technology for hybrid and electric-drive vehicles will receive $2.4 billion in grants from the recovery bill, creating tens of thousands of jobs. The money includes a $39 million grant for Navistar International Corp. in Elkhart to manufacture electric trucks. The White House release on the grants, which it bills as the single largest investment in advanced battery technology, is below.
Obama said the area has been hit with a "perfect storm" of economic troubles -- the decline of manufacturing, the problems of the domestic auto industry, and the recession -- that caused a 10-percentage-point increase in the unemployment rate, the second highest rise in the nation.
Such woes test a community and families -- and the future of the nation depends on reviving places such as Elkhart County, the president said.
But before rebuilding the economy and moving forward, the nation has to recover from the recession -- and the stimulus package is playing a key role in doing that, he said.
He cited specific projects in the area that have been financed by the stimulus bill, then he promoted the spending for innovations to create new jobs. Indiana will be the second-biggest recipient of the clean-energy vehicle grants, he said.
"Made in America," Obama repeated, to applause. (His full remarks are below.)
The recipients include A123Systems Inc., a Watertown-based lithium-ion battery maker getting $249 million for two plants in Michigan. Also, H&T Waterbury Inc. in Waterbury, Conn.; SBE Inc. in Barre, Vt.; and the National Fire Protection Association in Quincy, Mass. To read the full list, click here.
At the same time, Vice President Joe Biden is in Detroit, speaking at an alternative energy company. Four Cabinet secretaries are also talking up the grants coming from the $787 billion stimulus package.
Biden previewed the message after meeting with the administration's economic team Tuesday. "I can tell you today, without reservation, the Recovery Act is working," he told reporters.
He ticked off a series of statistics: the economy shrank by a smaller-than-expected 1 percent in the second quarter, spending by state and local governments increased 2.4 percent from April to June, household income grew at a annual rate of almost 5 percent in the same period, and home and car sales are up.
But the big number that the administration has to get over is the jobless rate, which typically lags a recovery.
The national unemployment rate has risen every month since Obama signed the stimulus bill in February. It hit a 26-year high of 9.5 percent in June, and the July number, which will be announced Friday, is expected to breach the 10 percent barrier.
FULL ENTRYClinton pulls off a Richardson-like mission
Some of those closest to former President Bill Clinton have not forgiven Bill Richardson for turning his back on his wife and endorsing Barack Obama instead last year.
But he tried -- and succeeded -- in mimicking his erstwhile buddy on a high-stakes diplomatic mission to North Korea.
Clinton arrived Monday in Pyongyang to try to bring back two American journalists who were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for illegally entering the country while on a reporting trip in March.
Late today, the North Korean official news agency announced that the two journalists had received a "special pardon" and would be released.
As president, Clinton appointed Richardson as UN ambassador and energy secretary and dispatched him on several high-level diplomatic missions while he was in Congress, including direct talks with then-Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Richardson also went on similar private missions to North Korea, negotiating the release of two Americans.
Despite personal arm-twisting, including watching the Super Bowl together, Richardson backed Obama instead of Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is now Obama's secretary of state. Former Clinton adviser James Carville, in accusing Richardson of betraying the Clintons, compared the New Mexico governor to the Biblical Judas.
After news of the expected release, Richardson said Clinton achieved the immediate objective, but the mission also "improves the atmospherics between the two countries."
"The relationship is really in bad shape right now," Richardson said on CNN. "There's enormous tension. There's literally no dialogue. So, maybe what the bonus would be is President Clinton's visit could get both sides just to start talking. But I bet you there are no negotiations on nuclear issues going on."
Asked what the North Koreans won from the trip, Richardson replied, "One, they get international press over the visit of a former president. North Koreans have always wanted President Clinton to come, other American presidents....Also, Kim Jong-il shores up his domestic base. He shows his people that he can deliver a former president to come to North Korea. He helps them also with a succession issue. It's obvious he is not well. He's thinking about leaving power to one of his three sons. So, domestically it gives him that strength."
"Now, what else does North Korea get? They get the fact that the United States sent a very high-level emissary to talk to them. The North Koreans have always wanted to talk to us directly. They don't like the six-party talks of South Korea, Japan, China, Russia. They want to go directly."
The full interview is below:
FULL ENTRYBirthday wishes
It's President Obama's 48th birthday, but he made a surprise appearance at the White House press room this afternoon to celebrate someone else's.
He brought a plate of cupcakes to long-time scribe Helen Thomas, who turned 89 today.
"You've got to blow it out," Obama told her, holding out the cupcake with a single candle.
She wished for world peace, but Obama added one to her list. "We had a common birthday wish," he joked to reporters -- a healthcare bill getting passed by Congress.
Obama also received birthday wishes today from Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
"During the call, the presidents discussed the situation in Georgia and the need to decrease tensions in the region. President Obama reiterated the importance of working through established crisis management mechanisms such as the Joint Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism and underscored the need for international monitors. The presidents also discussed the need to move forward quickly on agreements reached at the July summit in Moscow. In particular, the presidents reaffirmed their commitment to complete negotiations on a follow-on agreement to START by December of this year," the White House said in a statement.
Democrats deride 'astroturf' efforts by healthcare foes
Democrats are striking back at conservative groups that are taking the credit for helping opponents show up at healthcare meetings around the country.
Town halls with constituents hosted over the weekend by Representative Lloyd Doggett in Texas and by Senator Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania were disrupted by opponents of the healthcare overhaul plans promoted by President Obama and congressional Democrats.
The Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent out missives today arguing that groups such as Conservatives for Patients' Rights and FreedomWorks and are creating fake grassroots enthusiasm -- "astroturf" in political circles -- by stacking meetings with outside activists.
"The Republicans and their allied groups - desperate after losing two consecutive elections and every major policy fight on Capitol Hill - are inciting angry mobs of a small number of rabid right wing extremists funded by K Street lobbyists to disrupt thoughtful discussions about the future of health care in America taking place in congressional districts across the country," DNC spokesman Brad Woodhouse said in a statement this afternoon.
"However, much like we saw at the McCain-Palin rallies last year where crowds were baited with cries of 'socialist,' 'communist,' and where the birthers movement was born – these mobs of extremists are not interested in having a thoughtful discussion about the issues – but like some Republican leaders have said - they are interested in ‘breaking’ the president and destroying his presidency," Woodhouse added.
"These mobs are bussed in by well funded, highly organized groups run by Republican operatives and funded by the special interests who are desperately trying to stop the agenda for change the President was elected to bring to Washington. Despite the headline grabbing nature of these angry mobs and their disruptions of events, they are not reflective of where the American people are on the issues – or the hundreds of thousands of thoughtful discussions taking place around kitchen tables, water coolers and in homes. The right wing extremists’ use of things like devil horns on pictures of our elected officials, hanging members of Congress in effigy, breathlessly questioning the President's citizenship and the use of Nazi SS symbols and the like just shows how outside of the mainstream the Republican Party and their allies are. This type of anger and discord did not serve Republicans well in 2008 – and it is bound to backfire again."
The town hall episodes were discussed at a White House lunch today among Obama and Senate Democrats, said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.
He said Obama won several standing ovations and gave a coach-like pep talk that revved up the rank-and-file.
"We're ready to take on the world," Reid told reporters.
Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut, who is shepherding healthcare legislation in the absence of Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, said that while senators want a bipartisan deal, time is of the essence.
During the monthlong recess that starts Friday, 500,000 more Americans will lose their health insurance, Dodd said.
"We need to come back with a renewed sense of purpose," he said.
Biden: Recovery plan is working
Vice President Joe Biden, put in charge of keeping waste and fraud out of the $787 billion economic stimulus package, declared today "without reservation" that the recovery plan is working.
He said in its first six months, the controversial plan has rescued "tens of thousands of people who have fallen into a black hole" of unemployment.
Pointing to a series of better-than-expected measures, Biden told reporters, "Six months ago we gathered here in the White House, worrying about the U.S. economy and whether or not it was falling off a cliff. And today, analysts are trying to determine if -- if an official recovery is already underway."
"Now, don't get me wrong -- we still have a long way to go," Biden said after he and President Obama huddled with the economic team. " 'Less bad' is not the same as 'good.' We know that growth in GDP is necessary but not sufficient. It's not a sufficient marker of recovery. For one thing, it's not going to occur until there are jobs. My grandpop used to have the expression, he said, when the guy up the line is out of work, it's an economic slowdown; when you're brother-in-law is out of work, it's a recession; when you're out of work, it's a depression. Well, it's still a serious problem for millions of unemployed Americans. Too many people are out of work. Too many families are in pain." His full remarks are below.
UPDATE: House Republicans, who unanimously opposed the stimulus package, were not impressed by Biden's declaration.
In an email, Antonia Ferrier, a spokeswoman for House GOP leader John Boehner, pointed out that Biden admitted a month ago that the administration had "misread" the depth of the recession.
She also noted that many economists aren't as optimistic about the latest numbers and that national unemployment is expected to top 10 percent when the July figures come out later this week.
"Now, if you think this is an astonishing statement, well, so do we – after all, we have nationwide unemployment rate of 9.5 percent - and rising - with numerous states already well over 10 percent," Ferrier said.
"But the fact remains that the Administration promised the stimulus would provide IMMEDIATE relief, that it would provide the economy with a JOLT, and that unemployment would NOT climb above 8 PERCENT. None have proven to be true, prompting the Vice President to say just over a month ago that they “misread the economy,” which then morphed into the stimulus was supposed to take a while to work, and NOW it’s working. But the standard to measure its success is the initial benchmarks the Administration used to sell their plan."
Obama grassroots group on the air
With House members back in their districts, President Obama's grassroots group is airing radio ads pushing key representatives on healthcare and thanking others on the economic recovery package.
Organizing for America announced that the health ad, entitled "Standing Up," will run in 19 districts. Listen to it here.
The economic ad, entitled "To the Rescue," will run in four districts, the group said. Hear it here.
"These members have been part of one of the most ambitious, historic and successful opening months of a Congressional session in our nation's history," said OFA Director Mitch Stewart. "From expanding health insurance to millions of vulnerable children, to passing a recovery act that rescued our economy from certain disaster, to passing a budget that halves our deficit over the next decade while making critical investments in health care, energy and education, these members have all helped bring about the change President Obama promised to bring to Washington. They are now standing up to the special interests, the lobbyists and the naysayers and working for big solutions to our nation's toughest problems - including fixing a broken health insurance system that costs too much, leaves too many people lacking coverage and puts insurance industry profits ahead of patient care. Thanks to the support of these members and others like them - we will reform the health insurance system in this country and make other critical policy changes to get our economy back on track."
The group is up against conservative organizations that have been finding activists to attend town halls on healthcare that members of Congress have been having with their constituents.
Web wars on healthcare
The Obama team hit back hard on what it considered lies and disinformation during the presidential campaign, going toe to toe on the Internet with its foes, including by creating its own "Fight the Smears" website.
Now that he's in the White House, the Obama media operation is doing the same to protect his healthcare push.
When a conservative blogger's claim -- backed up by video clips from the campaign trail -- that Obama planned to do away with private health insurance was given wide exposure on the popular Drudge Report website, the White House responded today with a video of its own.
"Hi. I’m Linda Douglass. I’m the communications director for the White House Office of Health Reform, and one of my jobs is to keep track of all the disinformation that’s out there about health-insurance reform. And there are a lot of very deceiving headlines out there right now, such as this one -- take a look at this one. This one says, ‘Uncovered Video: Obama Explains How His Health Care Plan Will Eliminate Private Insurance.’ Well, nothing can be farther from the truth,” the video says.
Douglass goes on to rebut the claim, showing clips and arguing that Obama's remarks were taken completely out of context.
On its blog, the White House also urged supporters to keep an eye out for misleading healthcare fodder. "Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov."
Angry crowds on healthcare
Some members of Congress aren't exactly being welcomed home with open arms as they try to take the temperature of constituents on healthcare.
The New York Times reports that Representative Lloyd Doggett was shouted down by an angry crowd in Texas, who yelled, "Just Vote No."
And the Associated Press reports that Senator Arlen Specter and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius were booed and jeered at a healthcare town hall at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.
Democratic congressional leaders and the White House were pushing for votes in the full House and Senate before the monthlong recess, in part because they knew that opponents would mobilize. The House adjourned last Friday after three committees passed legislation, and the Senate plans to go home this Friday after a second committee passes a plan.
Obama, Senate Democrats to talk healthcare, clunkers
Following up on a retreat with Cabinet officials and others over the weekend at the six-month mark of his new administration, President Obama plans to huddle Tuesday with all 60 Senate Democrats.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the unusual gathering is meant to take stock of where legislative priorities stand -- and two are likely to be at the forefront: healthcare overhaul, since a full Senate vote has been put off until after the August recess, and the "cash for clunkers" bill.
"I don't doubt that healthcare will be discussed," Gibbs said at his daily briefing. "I believe the economy will also be heavily discussed; the numbers that we've been talking about, numbers that we'll see throughout the week, unemployment, manufacturing reports -- just in general where the economy is. I think we'll probably -- they'll go through and discuss energy legislation.
Gibbs also said that a topic will be the House-passed bill to pump $2 billion more into the unexpectedly popular program giving car buyers stipends for trading in gas guzzlers for fuel-efficient vehicles. "Without some help from the Senate, in terms of moving the $2 billion from the Recovery and Reinvestment plan's energy efficiency programs into this account, [it] will likely mean that the program will have to be stopped by the end of the week.
Asked why Republicans weren't invited, Gibbs replied, "I would look at this as the president speaking to the Democratic caucus. They have a regularly scheduled caucus lunch that happens every Tuesday. It's just we're having that lunch here at the White House rather than up on Capitol Hill. So I think that explains talking to the -- to Senate Democrats."
Gibbs: No tax hike on middle class
If two top advisers opened the door to raising taxes on the middle class, the White House is seeking today to slam it shut again.
Pressed repeatedly on the issue, presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs said repeatedly that Obama stands behind his iron-clad campaign pledge that any tax hikes would only hit individuals making more than $200,000 a year and families earning more than $250,000.
"The president has been clear on his commitment on this," Gibbs told reporters.
"I want to just state again clearly here that the President has made a very clear commitment to not raise taxes on middle-class families, period," Gibbs tried again.
"Let me be precise: The president's clear commitment is not to raise taxes on those making less than $250,000 a year."
"The door's not open even a millimeter on raising taxes?" a reporter asked.
"I hope you'll take seriously what I said," Gibbs replied.
He also noted the economic stimulus package included tax cuts for 95 percent of earners.
The questions arose because on TV talk shows Sunday, both Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers refused to rule out possible tax increases.
Geithner said that tax hikes might be needed to reduce the record federal deficit, while Summers said there needed to be funding for healthcare overhaul.
"I don't think we're going to get the deficit under under better control until we get the economy moving again. In order to lay that new foundation, the president strongly believes that health care reform is important," Gibbs said.
"And the president was clear during the campaign about his commitment on not raising taxes on middle-class families. And I don't think any economist would believe that in the environment that we're in raising taxes on middle-class families would make any sense. And the president agrees."
Gibbs noted that the recession is driving down tax revenues, so "the most important thing we can do is get the economy growing again."
UPDATE: Before, or despite, the comments from Gibbs, Americans for Tax Reform said the appearances by Geithner and Summers are the "latest of a string of statements by Obama’s spokesmen and appointees gradually stepping back from the 'firm pledge' made during the campaign."
“Obama should fire Geithner and Summers,” Grover Norquist, the group's president, said in a statement. “Two appointees of President Obama went on national television and implied the president lied his way into office and that he is open to raising taxes.”
“To have the president’s own appointees accuse him of lying his way into office is a betrayal beyond words,” Norquist added. “If, however, Obama has been silent in reaction to these two statements, he does intend to raise taxes, and he should resign because he lied his way into office by making a promise he had no intention of keeping.”
Democratic group targets insurer
With House members already back in their districts and senators in their last week before heading home for a month, a liberal-labor coalition pushing President Obama's healthcare overhaul is squarely on message with Democrats.
A new national cable TV ad unveiled today tries to put the focus on Big Insurance, which Democrats are increasingly targeting as they try to fend off criticism from Republicans about the overhaul's cost and complexity.
While Obama has promoted cooperation from insurers, they are opposing a public insurance option that the president and Democrats say is needed to control costs and offer consumers a choice of coverage.
"Why do the health insurance companies and Republicans want to kill President Obama’s health insurance reform?" the announcer asks in the 30-second spot. "Because they like things the way they are now."
The ad then pictures the CEO of one major insurer, as the announcer says, "Ed Hanway, CEO of insurance giant Cigna, makes $12. 2 million a year. That’s $5,883 an hour. Ed makes more in one day, than the average worker makes all year long."
"Now Ed’s retiring with a seventy three million dollar golden parachute," the announcer adds over an image of Hanway's face attached to a parachute and floating down. "The Republican prescription for the health insurance crisis – be as rich as Ed … you’ll be happy too."
UPDATE: Responding to the criticism from Democrats, namely House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Janet Trautwein, CEO of the National Association of Health Underwriters, issued a statement.
"It's unfortunate that Speaker Pelosi has resorted to petty name-calling in the debate over health care reform. We all have a stake in achieving meaningful reform that both preserves Americans' freedom to choose their doctors and lowers long-term health care costs. A public option will accomplish neither," said Trautwein, whose group says it represents more than 100,000 licensed health insurance agents, brokers, consultants and benefit professionals nationwide.
"A new government-run health plan will raise costs for Americans with private insurance. By systematically underpaying doctors and hospitals, our country's existing public plans -- Medicare and Medicaid -- raise the average family's premiums by $1,800 a year. A public option will only exacerbate this problem -- and make insurance more expensive."
Romney, Pawlenty spar on healthcare
Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney agree in their disdain for the healthcare overhaul plan Democrats and President Obama are trying to push through.
But they have been sparring in recent days over the right approach -- a preview, perhaps, of the 2012 Republican presidential sweepstakes.
The Minnesota governor and former Massachusetts governor, who were both on Senator John McCain's short list for vice president last year, both appear to be laying the groundwork for possible 2012 bids.
Pawlenty, in an opinion piece published in the Washington Post over the weekend and in a letter last week to Minnesota's congressional delegation, not surprisingly promoted his state's plan.
"In Minnesota, our state employee health-care plan has demonstrated incredible results by linking outcomes to value. State employees in Minnesota can choose any clinic available to them in the health-care network they've selected. However, individuals who use more costly and less-efficient clinics are required to pay more out-of-pocket," he wrote.
But more interestingly, he took some pointed swipes at the healthcare overhaul in Massachusetts, one of Romney's biggest accomplishments as governor, though he ran away from the parts most objectionable to conservatives during his presidential campaign.
"Massachusetts's experience should caution Congress against focusing primarily on access. While the Massachusetts plan has reduced the number of uninsured people, costs have been dramatically higher than expected. The result? Increased taxes and fees. The Boston Globe has reported on a current short-term funding gap and the need to obtain a new federal bailout," Pawlenty wrote in the Post. "Imagine the scope of tax increases, or additional deficit spending, if that approach is utilized for the entire country."
Romney, in an op-ed piece in USA Today, even as he accused Obama from rushing through a bad plan, defended the Massachusetts plan against Pawlenty's critique.
"Massachusetts also proved that you don't need government insurance. Our citizens purchase private, free-market medical insurance. There is no "public option." With more than 1,300 health insurance companies, a federal government insurance company isn't necessary. It would inevitably lead to massive taxpayer subsidies, to lobbyist-inspired coverage mandates and to the liberals' dream: a European-style single-payer system. To find common ground with skeptical Republicans and conservative Democrats, the president will have to jettison left-wing ideology for practicality and dump the public option," Romney wrote.
"When our bill passed three years ago, the legislature projected that our program would cost $725 million in 2009. At $723 million, next year's forecast is pretty much on target. When you calculate all the savings, including that from the free hospital care we eliminated, the net cost to the state is approximately $350 million. The watchdog Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation concluded that our program's cost is 'relatively modest' and 'well within initial projections.' "
GOP video warns of government deciding care
In his healthcare pitch, President Obama has been trying to explain in simple terms the benefits to patients and consumers.
But a new Republican web video, released today by House GOP leader John Boehner, tries to use some of his own words against him, raising the specter of government control of the care that people would receive.
Over the strains of the theme song from the long-running daytime soap "Young and the Restless," a pitchman circa 1970s says, "I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV."
The video then shows Obama suggesting that if a blue pill is the half the price of the red pill and does the same thing, maybe patients should take the blue pill. It also shows him positing that drugs might be better than surgery.
On screen at the end is a faux prescription form headlined "Obamacare." "We aren't doctors, but we know what's best for you."
Democratic National Committee spokesman Hari Sevugan responded to Boehner's video:
"John Boehner isn't an insurance company executive, but he sure plays one in the U.S. House of Representatives. That's the only explanation for admittedly working to 'kill' health insurance reform while premiums for the average American family are rising three times faster than their wages, while small businesses are choosing between offering coverage and creating jobs, and when controlling runaway health care costs is necessary to get the economy fully back on track. John Boehner and the Republicans that would follow him may not officially be insurance agents, but in working to 'kill' reform they are proving that they are certainly agents of the status quo."
White House sees hope in economy, races to replenish 'cash for clunkers' fund
President Obama said new, better-than-expected gross domestic product numbers show that the country is headed in the right direction, and that "the recession we faced when I took office was even deeper than anyone thought at the time."
The president also said the massive, $700 billion economic stimulus package "helped pull the nation back from the brink."
The economy "has done measurably better that we had thought -- better than expected. And as many economists will tell you, that part of the progress is directly attributable to the Recovery Act," Obama said this afternoon. "This and other difficult but important steps that we've taken over the last six months have helped us put the brakes on the recession."
But the president added that the good economic news is cold comfort for those withouth jobs and families struggling to make ends meet.
"When we receive our monthly jobs report next week, it's likely to show that we're still continuing to lose far too many jobs. As far as I'm concerned, we won't have a recovery as long as we keep losing jobs," Obama said. "And I will not rest until every American who wants a job can find one."
Nevertheless, "history does show that you need to have economic growth before you have job growth," Obama said. "And today's GDP is an important sign that the economy is headed in the right direction and that business investment, which had been plummeting in the last several months, is showing signs of stabilizing. This means that eventually, businesses will start growing and they'll start hiring again. And that's when it will truly feel like a recovery to the American people."
The Commerce Department reported that the economy shrank by 1 percent in the second quarter of the year, giving hope that the longest recession since World War II is easing.
"Obviously that's the right direction," Christina Romer, one of the president's top economic advisers, said on MSNBC. "We've got a long way to go."
The revised number in the first quarter was down 6.4 percent, the biggest decline in nearly three decades -- showing that the recession was even worse than believed at the time and proving that the $787 billion stimulus plan and other government spending was necessary, said Romer, chairwoman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
"We absolutely had to rescue this economy," she said.
For the economy to truly rebound, she said, there needs to be 2 percent to 3 percent real growth.
Obama and Romer also tried to reassure Americans that one initiative won't be a victim of its own success.
The "cash for clunkers" program has been so popular that consumers have already emptied the $1 billion fund.
"Not more than a few weeks ago, there were skeptics who weren't sure that this "Cash for Clunkers" program would work," Obama said. "But I'm happy to report that it has succeeded well beyond our expectations and all expectations, and we're already seeing a dramatic increase in showroom traffic at local car dealers."
"And I'm encouraged that Republicans and Democrats in the House are working to pass legislation today that would use some Recovery Act funding to keep this program going -- funding that we would work to replace down the road," the president said. "Thanks to quick bipartisan responses, we're doing everything possible to continue this program and to continue helping consumers and the auto industry contribute to our recovery."
"If you wanted to buy a car this weekend, go do it," Romer told Reuters Television. "The program is still there. It has not been suspended, and I can tell you there is a real flurry of activity working with the agencies, the Congress, to ensure we can continue this and get the funds there."
The Associated Press is reporting that Democrats in both the House and Senate are exploring votes as early as today to add $2 billion into the rebate program.
Representative Sander Levin of Michigan revealed the bill after he and other lawmakers were assured by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood that the program would continue at least through today while the Obama administration looked for more money, the AP says.
Obama praises food safety bill
President Obama this evening lauded the House for passing a sweeping food safety bill designed to prevent repeats of the wide outbreak of salmonella in peanuts that killed at least nine Americans.
The legislation approved today over objections from some farm-state lawmakers would require more government inspections of manufacturers, give the Food and Drug Administration new powers to order recalls, and require the FDA to develop a system for better tracing food-borne illnesses.
"This action represents a major step forward in modernizing our food safety system and protecting Americans from foodborne illness," Obama said in a statement. "Those are the goals of the Food Safety Working Group I convened in March and charged with making recommendations to improve our food safety system. And that is why we announced a new rule to control Salmonella contamination in eggs and are working to reduce the presence of harmful pathogens such as E. coli in meat and produce; strengthen our capacity to trace the source of outbreaks; and update our emergency operations procedures.
"I commend the House of Representatives for its action today and look forward to working with the Senate to enact critical food safety legislation.”
House spikes more F-22 jets
The House today confirmed a key victory for President Obama's bid to get a handle on Pentagon spending, joining the Senate to kill additional funding for F-22 fighters.
The 269-165 vote against building more of the top-line Air Force combat jets, on top of the 187 in the pipeline, followed a similar Senate vote last week on the $600-plus billion defense funding bill.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates put the hard sell to persuade lawmakers to reject expanding the F-22 program, over objections from members of Congress who wanted to protect jobs supported by the program. Obama has threatened to veto a defense bill that include the money.
The White House and Pentagon say the F-22 -- designed for aerial dogfights with Soviet jets during the Cold War -- is not suited to the military's current needs, pointing out that it has never been deployed over Iraq or Afghanistan.
But despite veto threats, the $636 billion Pentagon spending bill passed by a 400-30 vote includes money for other programs Obama didn't want, including a much-criticized new presidential helicopter fleet, cargo jets, and an alternative engine for the next-generation F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Associated Press reports.
Obama downplays beer summit; poll shows criticism for Obama's handling of case
The beer summit is much anticipated, but the White House is lowering expectations for this evening's gathering of President Obama and the two principals in the local dispute that the president helped turn into a national debate on race relations.
Obama invited Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Cambridge police Sergeant James Crowley and their families after he raised the stakes by saying that Cambridge police "acted stupidly" by arresting Gates while responding to a break-in report at his own home.
The get-together, scheduled for 6 p.m. EDT and to be at a picnic area outside the Oval Office, will be private.
UPDATE: Obama, himself, told reporters today that the event is "an opportunity to listen to each other."
"That's all it is," he said. "This is not a university seminar. It is not a summit. It's an attempt to have some personal interaction when an issue has become so hyped and so symbolic."
"I notice this has been called a beer summit," he told reporters after meeting in the Oval Office with Philippines President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, according to the Associated Press. "It's a clever term, but this is not a summit, guys. This is three guys having a drink at the end of the day."
Obama said everyone involved -- "including myself" -- is imperfect and he hoped that "instead of ginning up anger and hyperbole, everybody can just spend a little time with some self-reflection and recognize that other people have different points of view."
Earlier, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters today that the president isn't expecting to solve all the problems.
"I don't think the president has outsized expectations that one cold beer at one table here is going to change massively the course of human history by any sense of the imagination, but that he and the two individuals, Sergeant Crowley and Professor Gates, can hopefully provide a far different picture than what we've seen to date of this situation, in hopes again, as I've said both today and before, that this is a conversation and a dialogue that happens not just because it's sponsored by or at the invitation of a participant or the president, but happens in communities large and small all over the country in order to make progress through better understanding. I think that's what the president wants to do today," Gibbs said.
The White House is also saying that Obama, who has said the case could be a "teachable moment" for the country on race relations, does not plan to use the occasion to announce any new initiatives.
Asked about how the event might be a teachable moment, Gibbs said at his daily briefing, "I think many people would have hardly imagined something like this happening this time last week. I think having them get together to talk. The president talked to both of these men last week. They're decent, honorable, good men.
"I think that kind of dialogue is what has to happen at every level of our society if we're going to make progress on issues that we've been dealing with for quite some time," Gibbs added.
"I think all of us are participants in a moment that we hope can teach all in this country that dialogue and communication will always improve a situation. I don't think today is -- I don't think the president looks at himself as, and I don't think today the president believes or the situation will be that one will be the teacher and others will be the students."
UPDATE: Charles Ogletree, who is representing Gates, told the Globe this afternoon that the get-together is expected to go about an hour.
“He’s received a lot of unsolicited advice about what to say tonight,” Ogletree said of Gates. “It’s a private meeting between three people, and they will know among themselves what will be said.”
As Obama tries to smooth over the situation, a poll released today found Americans critical of how he handled the controversy.
In the survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, 29 percent approved of the president's handling of the situation, while 41 percent disapproved.
And his low marks on the Gates case helped drive down his overall approval numbers, Pew reported, to 54 percent, down from 61 percent in mid-June.
Nearly 80 percent of respondents knew about the controversy, and while in interviews conducted Wednesday and Thursday of last week found 53 percent of whites approving of Obama’s job performance, that number dropped to 46 percent interviewed Friday through Sunday, during intense coverage of Obama's remarks, criticism by police, and his mea culpa.
Asked about the poll findings, Gibbs rejected the idea that the Gates incident is pulling down Obama's approval. "I neither believe the premise, nor am I worried about it," he told reporters.
Mixed reviews for Obama in poll
The new polls published today are a case of good news-bad news for President Obama.
In the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, his job approval rating dropped to 53 percent -- which the pollsters note is precisely the percentage of the popular vote he won in November. That drop is largely because the thrill is gone for Obama among independents and Republicans -- his approval among those groups is 49 percent and 16 percent, respectively, which is close to what exit polls suggested he received in the election.
But Obama's favorable-unfavorable split -- 55 percent to 34 percent -- is still head and shoulders above most other national politicians.
In the NBC/Journal poll, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton does about as well as the president at 53 percent-31 percent. Vice President Joe Biden is barely breaking even at 38 percent-36 percent, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is underwater at 25 percent-44 percent.
Among possible Republican opponents in 2012, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is at 28 percent favorable-20 percent unfavorable, much better than former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin at 32 percent-43 percent.
But 50 percent of all respondents and 33 percent of Republicans said they didn't want Romney to become president and 67 percent of Americans and 43 percent of Republicans said they didn't want Palin in the Oval Office.
The NBC/Wall Street Journal survey, along with a New York Times/CBS News poll, also were the latest to show eroding support for Obama's healthcare overhaul plan as more details emerge and as critics assail it.
In the NBC survey, 42 percent opposed the plan, up 10 percentage points from last month, while only 36 percent support it.
Obama stresses consumer protections in healthcare bill
President Obama takes his healthcare road show today to two Southern states that proved pivotal to his election in November.
And with healthcare overhaul bills mired in legislative muck and public support dropping, he's retooling his message to speak directly to consumers.
The president held a town hall at Broughton High School in Raleigh, N.C., then another Q&A with employees at the Kroger supermarket in Bristol, Va. Obama became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win both states in more than a generation, contributing to his electoral landslide.
In his primetime news conference last week and in appearances since, Obama has reached out to Americans who already have insurance or Medicare, trying to reassure them that they won't be hurt by the overhaul, either by losing care or getting smacked by higher costs.
Today, in both stops, he stressed the protections for consumers that he will insist be in any overhaul bill.
"First of all, nobody is talking about some government takeover of healthcare," Obama told the crowd in Raleigh. "I'm tired of hearing that.... Under the reform I’ve proposed, if you like your doctor, you keep your doctor. If you like your healthcare plan, you keep your healthcare plan. These folks need to stop scaring everybody."
"But what a lot of the chatter out there hasn’t focused on is the fact that if you’ve got health insurance, the reform we’re proposing will also help you because it will provide more stability and security," he added. "Because the truth is, we have a system today that works well for the insurance industry, but it doesn’t always work well for you. What we need, and what we will have when we pass these reforms, are health insurance consumer protections to make sure that those who have insurance are treated fairly and insurance companies are held accountable."
(His full remarks and answers to questions are are below.)
The consumer protections include:
-- Banning insurance companies for refusing to offer coverage due to pre-existing medical conditions.
-- Capping how much insurers can charge annually for out-of-pocket expenses, deductibles, or co-pays.
-- Requiring insurers to fully cover regular check-ups and tests, including mammograms and eye and foot exams for diabetics.
-- Prohibiting insurers from dropping or reducing coverage for those who become seriously ill.
-- Banning insurers from charging people based on gender.
-- Stopping insurance companies from placing annual or lifetime caps on benefits.
-- Making sure that young adults as old as 26 can be covered under family insurance policies.
-- Requiring insurers to renew policies as long as premiums are paid in full, even if the policyholder becomes ill.
Obama, en route to Virginia, issued a statement noting the progress in Congress today.
In the Senate, key negotiators said they had pared the costs of a plan to cover 95 percent of Americans by 2015 to about $900 billion over 10 years, putting the price tag under the unofficial $1 trillion target the White House has set. In the House, the leadership, the White House, and fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats worked out a deal that will allow a bill to move forward in committee, but will delay a floor vote until September.
“I want to thank the members of both the Senate and House of Representatives for continuing their work on health reform to provide more stability and security for Americans who have insurance, and quality, affordable coverage for those who don’t," Obama said. "I’m especially grateful that so many members, including some Blue Dogs on the Energy and Commerce Committee, are working so hard to find common ground. Those efforts are extraordinarily constructive in strengthening this legislation and bringing down its cost.”
Another poll out this afternoon says that Americans are divided about Obama's healthcare plan.
In the Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey, 46 percent said they disapprove of Obama’s handling of healthcare, while 41 percent approved and 13 percent weren’t sure.
The Journal says those numbers are similar to former President Bill Clinton's of 52 percent disapproval and 40 percent approval in July 1994 before his healthcare overhaul plan crashed and burned in Congress.
UPDATE: Republicans, however, are still opposed to the Democratic bills, and House Republicans introduced a plan today that relies on tax credits to help people buy insurance and that also addresses medical malpractice reform.
The top House Republican, John Boehner of Ohio, said on CNN this afternoon that the legislation would create "a giant government bureaucracy that's going to drive up the cost of health care, drive up the cost of health insurance, deny millions of Americans their choice of doctor, and eventually lead to rationing of health care in America. This is not the kind of plan that Americans want."
"I believe that it's time to hit the reset button," Boehner added. "Let's scrap this plan. Let's sit down in a bipartisan way. And let's build on the current system, which is the envy of the world.
"You know, 93 percent of the American people have access to high quality, affordable health insurance. Let's help them be able to hold on to that, reduce the cost of it, and expand access to those Americans who don't have good access."
Time to huddle up
The Obama administration is just past the six-month mark, so it's time to take stock and plan ahead.
The president has summoned 22 top officials with Cabinet rank and White House senior staff for a two-day working retreat Friday and Saturday at Blair House, the government's official guest house. Obama and Vice President Joe Biden plan to visit the group on Friday. Biden will return on Saturday.
The White House said the retreat, first reported today on the Washington Post's website, will feature dinner on Friday night and several policy presentations on Saturday.
"Every administration since President Eisenhower's has held a similar meeting and the Obama administration will use this weekend's meeting as an opportunity to collaborate to continue to move forward the agenda of building a new foundation for growth and prosperity in this country," spokeswoman Katherine Bedingfield said.
Obama talks healthcare to AARP
President Obama reached out this afternoon to a key constituency on his healthcare overhaul plan, seeking support from the 55-plus set.
"We've got to get a better bang for our healthcare dollar," he told a town hall hosted by the AARP.
There needs to more preventive care, and unnecessary subsidies need to be taken away from Medicare providers, the president said.
But, he pledged, "We certainly won't cut corners to cut costs. That doesn't work."
(His full remarks and answers are below.)
The town hall was Obama's latest event in an aggressive push to get a healthcare bill signed this year.
UPDATE: Representative Eric Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House, dismissed Obama's pitch.
"I heard what the President was saying, and frankly, he hasn't said anything different today than what he said at last week's press conference," he said on CNN. "The fact is that most Americans are very concerned about what they are learning of the Obama health care reform bill. I don't think that the people of this country feel it is appropriate for us to hear the President say, you know, ‘It's my way or the highway.’ There are plenty of other approaches and I think we can gain a comfort level if we take the time to get it right and not say that we must have full-on this government takeover of our health care system.”
FULL ENTRYConservative groups attack healthcare bill
Liberal and labor groups who favor the healthcare overhaul plans of President Obama and congressional Democrats don't have the airwaves to themselves.
Groups opposed to healthcare "reform" are also airing ads on cable TV, trying to win the hearts and minds of the public as negotiations continue in Congress.
Here's one from the conservative Patients United Now that questions the rush to action in Congress.
And here's one from Conservatives for Patients' Rights, which asserts that Americans could be squeezed by the healthcare bill four different ways: higher taxes, a bigger federal deficit, increased insurance premiums, and more government control of healthcare.
The beer summit
It's a date.
The White House said today that the police sergeant, the professor, and the president will toss back a beer around 6 p.m. Thursday.
President Obama invited Cambridge police Sergeant James Crowley and Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. to share a cold one with him in hopes that it would help settle the dispute that has become a roiling national debate about race and police procedure.
Obama, himself, added fuel to the fire by saying that Cambridge police "acted stupidly" in arresting Gates in his own home. The president called both men on Friday to lower the temperature of the controversy, and that's when the idea for the beer popped up.
The disorderly conduct charge against Gates was dropped, but it's still unclear exactly what happened. And the two principals are still talking about suing each other.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters today that the get-together is "about having a beer and de-escalation."
"The president wants to continue to take down the temperature a bit," said Gibbs, adding that weather permitting, the three men will meet at a picnic table outside the Oval Office.
Obama, the soccer dad
Who knew President Obama was such a soccer fan?
His attachment to basketball is well known -- he greeted the WNBA champion Detroit Shock in the usual White House ceremony today.
But he also spent time with Joseph Blatter, head of soccer's worldwide supervising body, to lobby for the World Cup to return to the United States and to express hope again that he could attend the blockbuster event next year in South Africa.
In White House-speak, this is what happened: "The President welcomed FIFA President Blatter to the White House and urged Mr. Blatter to give strong consideration to the US bid to host the World Cup in either 2018 or 2022. During the half-hour meeting in the Oval Office, President Obama complimented FIFA on their efforts to incorporate community service, education and public health projects into their plans for staging the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. President Obama thanked Mr. Blatter for inviting him to attend next year’s event and said he hoped his schedule would allow him to do so. The President also thanked Mr. Blatter for the soccer balls that he brought with him as gift for the President’s soccer-playing daughters."
Obama reaches out to China
President Obama -- having quelled the controversy over his remarks on the arrest of Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. and still pushing a healthcare overhaul in Congress -- moved on this morning to another major priority, namely US-China relations.
He addressed the first "Strategic and Economic Dialogue" between the two economic and military behemoths, which he called an "essential step" in creating a positive and comprehensive relationship.
"It's important to get our relationship off to a good start," Obama said, citing no less an authority than Yao Ming, the NBA star who is a huge presence in his home country that new or old team members need to time to adjust.
From "Boston to Beijing," the 20th century brought great progress to both countries, but at a "great price," Obama said, sharing the stage with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, and Jon Huntsman, the former Republican governor of Utah who Obama nominated as ambassador to China.
In the 21st century, the relationship between the US and China will be the most important bilateral one and largely determine the world's future -- a burden both nations bear, he said.
He urged the two countries -- who have become rivals economically and militarily though China is helping finance US government borrowing -- to find common ground on the economic recovery, climate change, nuclear nonproliferation, and other issues. (His full remarks are below.)
Senator John F. Kerry, who has made global warming a priority issue as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, weighed in as well on the importance of the US-China partnership on that front.
"Today, the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter and history’s biggest emitter, China and America, must change the world again – and nothing less than a transformation of the energy economy will suffice," he wrote in an op-ed today in the Financial Times. (Read the full op-ed here.)
"The question is, can we forge a partnership bold enough to prevent a climate catastrophe? With December’s make-or-break climate talks in Copenhagen looming, the US-China negotiations are an important test. Because other countries will take their cues from us, a successful global climate deal will depend on America and China signalling our seriousness now."
UPDATE: The Foreign Relations Committee also released a report today urging the Obama administration to pursue a significant climate change agreement with China this week. The report (read it here) outlines the latest science, the latest actions in China, the current areas of US-China energy collaboration, and ways to push the relationship forward.
FULL ENTRYDemocrats blast GOP on healthcare
Democrats kept up their assault on Republicans on healthcare, announcing a new national TV ad today calling them out for trying to stop healthcare overhaul.
The ad asserts that without sweeping change, insurance premiums and out-of-pocket expenses will continue rising and more people will be denied coverage at all.
"Tell Republicans the cost of doing nothing is just too high," the spot concludes.
“For eight years the Republican Party ignored skyrocketing health insurance costs and American families and small businesses paid a devastating price for their negligence. Now, the ‘Party of NO’ admits their true intention is to ‘kill’ health insurance reform, putting their special interest friends over the people they were elected to serve. Already, families across the country are faced with insurmountable burdens: premiums that are rising at a rate three times faster than wages, insurance companies who are free to deny coverage to those who need health care the most, and rapidly rising co-pays that are forcing families to choose between paying their mortgage and paying their health care bills,” Democratic National Committee spokesman Brad Woodhouse said in a statement.
“The status quo that the Republican Party is championing is breaking American families, small businesses and state budgets across the nation and only stands to get far worse in the years ahead if nothing is done - as they propose. And still, the GOP continues to see health insurance reform as an opportunity to score a political win for their ailing party. This time, however, the stakes are too high, the cost of doing nothing too great, for the Republican Party to engage in the same partisan political games we’ve come to expect from them.”
Cambridge sergeant says 'regrettable' that Obama criticized without knowing whole story
By Andrew Ryan, Globe Staff
Cambridge police Sergeant James Crowley declined today to criticize President Obama for saying Wednesday night that police "acted stupidly" in the arrest last week of Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., but did say it was "regrettable" that anyone would speak without knowing the "whole story" of the confrontation a week ago at Gate's home near Harvard Square
Speaking at length this morning on the Dennis & Callahan show on WEEI radio in Boston, Crowley maintained that "I know what I did was right." When the hosts asserted, however, that "Professor Gates and the President of the United States owe you an apology," Crowley refused to bite.
"The president has a lot of other daunting tasks ahead of him," Crowley said. "I wish for the good of the whole country that he is successful in efforts to do the many things that he has to."
The radio show hosts persisted: "Well, hopefully on those other tasks he actually gets his facts straight, because clearly he didn't know what he was talking about when he addressed your little issue."
Crowley said: "I think it is regrettable that anybody on either side of this issue would make comments - and you know I saw some of them of them, but I think its regrettable that anybody either somebody who supports me or somebody who thinks I acted inappropriately -- without knowing the whole story, without talking to those who were there who have first hand knowledge of the events and who saw themselves the way in which Professor Gates acted and what led to his arrest."
UPDATE: In an interview later today with WBZ radio, Crowley said that while he "didn't vote for" Obama, he supports "the president of the United States 110 percent."
"I think he is way off base wading into a local issue before knowing all the facts," Crowley said.
The lawyer for the police union that represents Crowley today predicted that Obama will regret his remark.
"He conceded that he didn't have all the facts, and indeed he didn't," said Alan J. McDonald, the lawyer for the Cambridge Police Superior Officers Association. "I suspect that when the full picture comes out, he will regret the remarks he made."
McDonald, the lawyer for the 50-member police union, said he and members of the union "were disappointed" in Obama's remarks. "I think perhaps the president might have second thoughts about shooting from the hip."
Obama was asked about the incident in the last question of his hour-long nationally televised press conference Wednesday night. After acknowledging that he was "a little biased" because he is friends with Gates and that he didn't "know all the facts," the president nonetheless said police "acted stupidly" in arresting Gates after he showed identification.
"Now, I don't know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that," Obama said. "But I think it's fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge Police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there is a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That's just a fact."
And that fact, Obama added, is an example and a sign that "race remains a factor in this society. That doesn't lessen the incredible progress that has been made. I am standing here as testimony to the progress that's been made.
"And yet the fact of the matter is, is that this still haunts us."
On the road again for healthcare, as Senate delays
President Obama hit the road again today in his healthcare push, going to Cleveland to tour a clinic he calls a model for the nation and meet the public in a campaign-style appearance at a high school.
UPDATE: In his opening remarks before taking questions from the audience at Shaker Heights High, Obama reprised his campaign mantra of change.
"I know there are those who like to focus on the political back-and-forth in Washington," he said. "But my only concern is the people who sent us there: the families feeling the pain of this recession; the folks I’ve met across this country who have lost jobs and savings and health insurance, but haven’t lost hope; the citizens who defied the cynics and the skeptics -- who went to the polls to demand real and lasting change. This change was the cause of my campaign, and it is the cause of my presidency."
He continued trying to reassure Americans who like their current insurance, while promising improvements.
"I want to be clear: reform isn’t just about the nearly 46 million Americans without health insurance.... If you already have health insurance, the reform we're proposing will give you more security. It will keep the government out of your health care decisions, giving you the option to keep your coverage if you’re happy with it....And it will keep the insurance companies out of your health care decisions, too, by stopping insurers from cherry-picking who they cover, and holding insurers to higher standards for what they cover," he said.
"You won’t have to worry about receiving a surprise bill in the mail, because we’ll limit the amount your insurance company can force you to pay out of your own pocket. You won’t have to worry about pre-existing conditions, because never again will anyone in America be denied coverage because of a previous illness or injury. And you won’t have to worry about losing coverage if you lose or leave your job, because every American who needs insurance will have access to affordable plans through a health insurance exchange, a marketplace where insurance companies will compete to cover you, not to deny you coverage."
Obama also took on his Republican critics, including GOP chairman Michael Steele for saying that the healthcare overhaul was happening too soon.
"I think that's a little odd. We’ve been talking about health reform since the days of Harry Truman. How can it be too soon?" Obama asked, increduously.
"I don’t think it’s too soon for the families who’ve seen their premiums rise faster than wages year after year. It’s not too soon for the businesses forced to drop coverage or shed workers because of mounting healthcare expenses. It’s not too soon for taxpayers asked to close widening deficits that stem from rising healthcare costs, costs that threaten to leave our children with a mountain of debt," the president added.
"Reform may be coming too soon for some in Washington, but it’s not soon enough for the American people."
(His full remarks are below, along with the question-and-answer session.)
But it doesn't appear the overhaul will happen as fast as Obama wants.
The top Democrat in the Senate said today that his chamber won't vote until after the August recess -- and beyond Obama's hoped-for timetable.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters that the Senate Finance Committee will act on its portion of the bill before the monthlong break, but the bill won't be combined with separate legislation passed by the Senate health committee and sent to the full Senate until September, after the recess.
Reid said the decision to delay a vote was made Wednesday night in the hopes of getting a final bipartisan bill, the Associated Press reports.
Obama downplayed the Senate delay. "That's OK, I just want people to keep working," he said, departing from his prepared remarks and saying he still wants a bill on his desk this year.
"I don't want a delay just because of politics," he told the town hall crowd.
Earlier, Obama toured the Cleveland Clinic, which in his prime-time news conference on Wednesday he said has "set up a system where patient care is the number-one concern, not bureaucracy, what forms have to be filled out, what do we get reimbursed for.
"Those are changes that I think the American people want to see," he added. "....Cleveland Clinic is simply a role model for some of the kind of changes that we want to see.
He said he wasn't expecting an endorsement from the clinic for his healthcare overhaul plan.
But he also probably doesn't want a slap, either, as Democrats received on Monday from the Mayo Clinic, another
The famous nonprofit clinic in Minnesota said Monday that the House Democratic plan "misses the opportunity to help create higher quality, more affordable health care for patients."
"In fact, it will do the opposite," clinic officials said, because the proposals aren't focused enough on patients and results. "The real losers will be the citizens of the United States."
Republicans eagerly jumped on the statement to bash Democrats, but the clinic signed on Wednesday to a more measured letter to Congress. (Read it here.)
"I think it's important to note that the Mayo Clinic was initially critical and concerned about whether there were enough changes in the delivery system and cost-saving measures in the original House bill," Obama said Wednesday night.
"After they found out that we had put forward very specific mechanisms for this MedPAC idea, this idea of experts getting the politics out of health care and making decisions based on the best evidence out there, they wrote in their blog the very next day that we actually think this would make a difference. Okay?"
Obama repairs US image abroad
President Obama's poll ratings may be slipping at home, but his popularity abroad is already repairing the image of the United States, which took a beating during the Bush administration.
The nonpartisan Pew Research Center reported today that favorability ratings for the US among people around the globe have improved markedly, recovering in many countries to the point before George W. Bush took office and began the highly unpopular war in Iraq.
"Improvements in the U.S. image have been most pronounced in Western Europe, where favorable ratings for both the nation and the American people have soared. But opinions of America have also become more positive in key countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia, as well," says the Pew Global Attitudes Project, which surveyed nearly 27,000 people in 25 nations this spring.
The Pew report found that in 21 of the countries surveyed, an average of 71 percent of respondents had at least some confidence in Obama's handling of world affairs. In 2008, when Bush was in the White House, the figure in those same countries was only 17 percent.
Obama has drawn adoring crowds on most of his stops on foreign trips since becoming president.
"Signs of improvement in views of America are seen even in some predominantly Muslim countries that held overwhelmingly negative views of the United States in the Bush years. The most notable increase occurred in Indonesia, where people are well aware of Obama's family ties to the country and where favorable ratings of the U.S. nearly doubled this year."
But Muslims in the Middle East still hold negative views about the United States.
And there was one notable exception: Israel, where Bush's policies were popular, and where there is concern over Obama's push to stop settlements on the West Bank.
Obama on healthcare, economy, and race
The White House this morning released the full transcript of President Obama's fourth prime-time news conference, which focused on healthcare, touched on the economy, and veered into race relations.
While Obama's goal was to sell the public -- particularly the middle class -- on his healthcare overhaul, he created the biggest buzz by asserting that Cambridge police "acted stupidly" by arrest Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. in his home even after his friend showed his ID.
For posterity, the transcript is below:
Obama makes his case
President Obama, seeking public support for his healthcare plan, is trying tonight to answer a key question on the minds of Americans: What's in it for me?
"I realize that with all the charges and criticisms being thrown around in Washington, a lot of Americans may be wondering, “What’s in this for me? How does my family stand to benefit from health insurance reform?' ” he said, opening his fourth primetime news conference at a pivotal moment early in his presidency.
"Tonight I want to answer those questions. Because even though Congress is still working through a few key issues, we already have rough agreement on the following areas: If you already have health insurance, the reform we’re proposing will provide you with more security and more stability. It will keep government out of healthcare decisions, giving you the option to keep your insurance if you’re happy with it. It will prevent insurance companies from dropping your coverage if you get too sick. It will give you the security of knowing that if you lose your job, if you move, or if you change your job, you will still be able to have coverage. It will limit the amount your insurance company can force you to pay for your medical costs out of your own pocket. And it will cover preventive care like check-ups and mammograms that save lives and money.
"Now, if you don’t have health insurance, or are a small business looking to cover your employees, you’ll be able to choose a quality, affordable health plan through a health insurance exchange -- a marketplace that promotes choice and competition. Finally, no insurance company will be allowed to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing medical condition," Obama said to a nationwide television audience.
"I have also pledged that health insurance reform will not add to our deficit over the next decade -- and I mean it."
The president also asserted that health reform is "central" to rebuilding the US economy "stronger than before."
"This is not just about the 47 million Americans who don't have any health insurance at all. Reform is about every American who has ever feared that they may lose their coverage if they become too sick, or lose their job, or change their job. It’s about every small business that has been forced to lay off employees or cut back on their coverage because it became too expensive. And it’s about the fact that the biggest driving force behind our federal deficit is the skyrocketing cost of Medicare and Medicaid.
"So let me be clear: If we do not control these costs, we will not be able to control our deficit. If we do not reform healthcare, your premiums and out-of-pocket costs will continue to skyrocket. If we don't act, 14,000 Americans will continue to lose their health insurance every single day. These are the consequences of inaction. These are the stakes of the debate that we’re having right now.
He also took on his critics directly, accusing them of putting political games ahead of the country.
"I understand how easy it is for this town to become consumed in the game of politics -- to turn every issue into a running tally of who’s up and who’s down. I’ve heard that one Republican strategist told his party that even though they may want to compromise, it’s better politics to 'go for the kill.' Another Republican senator said that defeating health reform is about 'breaking' me," he said.
"So let me be clear: This isn’t about me. I have great health insurance, and so does every member of Congress. This debate is about the letters I read when I sit in the Oval Office every day, and the stories I hear at town hall meetings….This debate is not a game for these Americans, and they can't afford to wait any longer for reform. They are counting on us to get this done. They are looking to us for leadership. And we can't let them down. We will pass reform that lowers cost, promotes choice, and provides coverage that every American can count on. And we will do it this year."
(His full prepared remarks are below.)
Asked first which specific proposals being talked about in Congress he would support, especially on financing, Obama declined, instead outlining broad principles.
After finding as much savings as possible, he said he proposed what he believed would work best -- limiting income tax deductions for higher-earning families -- but Congress has not accepted that idea. He said he was not foreclosing other options, as long as they don't burden middle-class families. "I want to wait to see what emerges from these committees," he said.
Obama said he understands public skepticism, given the recent history of what Washington has produced.
But if the country just reduced healthcare costs by $2,000 or $3,000 a year -- not the $6,000 difference between the United States and other Western countries -- the help for most families would be significant, he said.
Asked why he was pressing so hard for Congress to act before the August recess, he said he is "rushed" because he gets letters from families every day who say they are being "clobbered by healthcare costs."
"In a country like ours, that's not right," he said.
He also said that without deadlines, nothing happens in Washington. "Inertia is the default position," he added, because change always upsets one special interest or another.
But he also said he won't sign a bill that isn't ready, just to meet a deadline.
"I do think it's important to get this right," he said.
Asked whether the health overhaul will cover all 47 million uninsured, he replied, "I want to cover everybody."
But he acknowledged that without a single-payer system where all Americans are automatically enrolled, some will choose not to get insurance even if they are required to do so and even if there are subsidies, so some will go uncovered.
A good plan should cover 97 or 98 percent of the population, he said.
Asked about infighting among Democrats and whether they would be to blame if a bill isn't passed, Obama said there are legitimate regional differences and concerns. "This is part of the normal give and take of the legislative process," he said.
He also said that Republicans have good ideas that should be incorporated and named in particular Senators Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Olympia Snowe of Maine for their contributions to the bill drafting.
Asked about what sacrifices Americans would have to make to cut healthcare spending, Obama said they would have to give up care that doesn't make them healthier, such as unnecessary tests. "You're wasting money," he said. "We just can't afford what we're doing right now."
He did not touch the controversial issue of healthcare rationing, such as limiting the amount of care for the terminally ill.
He hit back at those who say the healthcare proposals would worsen the record federal deficits. Directly addressing those in the public who he said had been "ginned up" by the accusations, he said that he inherited the vast majority of the deficit and that healthcare reform "is designed to lower it."
Asked about whether he is violating a pledge on openness on the healthcare deliberations and other issues, Obama rejected the charge. He said that the identities of health executives visiting the White House have been public and that the kickoff healthcare event was televised on C-SPAN.
Asked by a reporter for a newspaper in Cleveland, where Obama plans a town hall on Thursday, about the public insurance option, the president said it would be similar to what members of Congress get.
He repeated that the public plan is needed to keep private insurers honest, saying that several firms recently reported record profits even as families pay more for their care.
Asked by the same reporter whether he would accept the public plan, Obama said he would, but pointed out that as president, a White House doctor follows him everywhere.
FULL ENTRYGOP videos slam Obama, Democrats; Dems hit back
The political skirmishes and name-calling over healthcare show no signs of ending.
Senator Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican -- who raised President Obama's hackles by saying that a defeat on healthcare could be the "Waterloo" for his presidency -- didn't back down today. He might have upped the ante, saying it's time to "put the brakes" on Obama because he is on a dangerous spending spree.
"It's not personal," DeMint said this morning on NBC's "Today" show. "We've got to stop his politics."
UPDATE: Going after DeMint, the Democratic National Committee unveiled a hard-hitting TV ad this afternoon that will run in Washington and his home state.
"Jim DeMint will break families & small businesses," the ad says. "Putting special interests first, putting South Carolina last."
"The only health care plan Jim DeMint supports is no plan at all," the ad concludes.
“The politicization of health care reform by Senator Jim DeMint and Republicans is a desperate and shameful ploy by the ‘Party of NO’ to score a political win on the backs of struggling American families and small businesses," DNC Communications Director Brad Woodhouse said in a statement. "What’s worse is that this strategy originates from the same Republican Party who ignored health care reform for the past eight years, letting costs spiral out of control while protecting their special interest friends."
Representative Eric Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House, continued his assault with a web video that accuses Obama and congressional Democrats of jeopardizing the healthcare system.
Democrats "are in a hurry, a reckless rush and still can't answer some fundamental questions," the announcer says, including how much the overhaul would cost. The video also accuses Obama of opening the door to reneging on his pledge not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year, though Democratic plans don't propose that.
“We won't be lectured by Eric Cantor and Republicans on being reckless," responded Democratic National Committee spokesman Hari Sevugan. "While the President is offering a constructive way forward to get something done after we've been trying to reform health care for decades, Eric Cantor and Republicans are offering nothing more than partisan obstruction, the status quo and more cries of ‘NO.’
“What's reckless is saying you want to ‘kill’ health care reform when American families have seen 80 percent hikes in premiums this decade alone. What's reckless is saying you want to ‘break’ the President on health care when small business are going broke paying for insurance. What Eric Cantor and the Republican Party don't understand is that the most reckless thing we can do, as they propose, is nothing.”
The Republican National Committee is up with a web video of its own, a take-off on those TV ads for all kinds of prescription drugs.
With idyllic images of couples frolicking in fields of flowers, the video says that Obama and Democrats are trying to sell "Reforma" on healthcare.
But it warns of dangerous side effects, including government control of healthcare, higher medical costs, and bureaucratic gridlock.
"Not recommended for people who may need actual medical care," it says.
Obama praises House on budget vote
President Obama has been battered in recent weeks by Republicans over the ballooning federal deficit, which this year is already well past the previous record.
So this afternoon he quickly lauded the House vote for so-called pay-as-you-go legislation that would require Congress and the president to offset new tax cuts or new benefit programs with tax increases or spending cuts elsewhere in the budget. If the law is broken, automatic spending cuts would kick in to make up the difference.
“With this vote, the House of Representatives demonstrated strong support for fiscal discipline. I appreciate the House’s quick response to my call for pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) legislation, a central budget-reform priority," Obama said in a statement.
“Let me be clear: all new mandatory initiatives and all new tax cuts must be paid for. It is time to stop the practice of passing today’s costs onto future generations. PAYGO was a driving principle behind the move from deficit to surplus in the 1990s, and must be so again today.
“For several years, the federal government was stalled in a pattern of fiscal irresponsibility. No more. We are making tough decisions on funding priorities. We are tackling the biggest threats to our long-term fiscal stability. And we are restoring greater discipline to how we spend taxpayers’ dollars.
“I thank Speaker Pelosi and Leader Hoyer, Chairman Spratt and Chairman Miller, Representatives Hill, Cooper, Boyd, and Welch, the Blue Dog coalition, and all of the 167 cosponsors of the PAYGO legislation. We will continue to work together to strengthen fiscal discipline. I urge the Senate to approve PAYGO so I can sign this bill into law this year.”
Obama backers in Mass. pointed to Maine
It's like most national elections -- when Massachusetts is a slam dunk for Democrats, so activists instead go to more competitive states to make a difference.
With both Democratic Senators Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry of Massachusetts firmly on board with the healthcare overhaul, President Obama's grassroots supporters in the Bay State are being urged to help sway Maine's two Republican senators, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, who are key moderates in the debate.
Organizing for America sent an email this afternoon with a link and encouragement to call voters in Maine and get them to call Collins and Snowe.
"With the health care debate coming down to the wire in Congress, we need every vote we can get. Both of your Massachusetts senators are fighting hard for reform, but the two senators from nearby Maine -- Senator Olympia Snowe and Senator Susan Collins -- are under tremendous pressure to cave to special interests. They need to hear from constituents who want them to stand with the President -- and you can help," wrote Jeremy Bird, deputy director of Organizing for America.
"There are voters in Maine who want to fix our health care system as much as you do, and they may not know how much power they have to make it happen. Let them know, and help bring our country one big step closer to the reform we need."
A crucial meeting on Iraq
Iraq's prime minister comes calling on President Obama today at another turning point for the war-torn country and the US mission there.
Nuri al-Maliki and Obama met for more than an hour this afternoon at the White House, then held a joint news conference in the Rose Garden.
UPDATE: Obama said he and al-Maliki had a "very productive discussion" and praised substantial progress in recent months. "Iraqis are taking responsibility for their future," the president said.
The Iraq-US relationship is in the midst of "full transition" to a partnership that includes broader ties on trade, cultural exchange, and other ties, and the US will keep its commitment to restore full sovereignty to Iraq, Obama said.
He also announced that al-Maliki will visit Arlington National Cemetery to pay his respects to US troops killed in Iraq.
The prime minister said he also wants to deepen Iraq's relationship with the United States into a "strategic friendship."
He paid tribute to the "sons and daughters" of both countries who were casualties of the sectarian violence.
(Their full remarks are below.)
Their huddle comes a day after the worst violence in Baghdad since American combat troops pulled out of the capital and other Iraqi cities on June 30. A series of bombings killed at least 15 civilians and injured more than 100, and there were also attacks on US convoys that killed at least three people.
The withdrawal from the cities is the first major step toward a general US pullout, more than six years after the start of the war. And it is the first major test of the Iraqi government's ability to defend the population against assorted insurgents and to keep a lid on the fractious ethnic rivalries.
In February, Obama announced that combat operations will end by Aug. 31, 2010, though most of the 142,000 US troops on the ground at the beginning of this year will stay through the end of this year to safeguard Iraq's national elections in December.
Pelosi tries to pitch in on healthcare
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, trying to rally her troops and help President Obama on his healthcare push, is holding a news conference this morning to brag on the House Democratic bill.
She brought with her "real Americans," including a cancer patient from Norwood, Mass., who would benefit from the legislation and are telling their personal stories.
House Democrats' bill would pay for extending insurance coverage with a surtax on Americans with annual incomes of $280,000 or more. But fiscal conservatives, known as the Blue Dog coalition, have objected to the financing and have stalled the legislation after it passed two committees last week.
In response, Pelosi is floating the prospect of imposing the surtax starting with those making $1 million or more a year.
UPDATE: House Republicans said this afternoon that by their count, at least 42 House Democrats have expressed qualms or outright opposition to the bill. (Click here to see the list.)
But Representative Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat in the party's leadership, said today that he's "very hopeful" that the House will pass the bill next week.
“Very frankly, every member of the Caucus, every member, from Blue Dog to Progressive and everybody in-between says ‘they want to vote for healthcare reform bill’ and the American public wants to see one,” he said on Fox News Channel.
“We want to get it right, but, we don’t think simply considering it for another next 16 years will necessarily be the solution to getting it right. We need to get it done.”
The Great Explainer
Can President Obama, using his finely-honed rhetorical skills, pull it off again?
He holds a primetime news conference tonight -- the fourth of his presidency -- to try to rebuild public support for his healthcare overhaul. (Come back to this blog for live updates on the event, at 8 p.m. EST.)
Obama's first primetime press conference came on Feb. 9 during the tortured congressional negotiations over his economic stimulus plan.
He made the case for the necessity for such a huge spending bill to deal with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The logjam broke, and four days later, Congress passed the $787 billion recovery bill. Obama signed it on Feb. 17.
While Ronald Reagan became known as the "Great Communicator" during his presidency, Obama might be the "Great Explainer" -- able to distill policy debates into their essentials, to translate issues into the broader American narrative, and to put himself on the right side of the politics of an issue.
But even with all those skills, Obama still might not be able to get Congress to meet his original goal of both the House and Senate passing healthcare bills before the August recess (the House is scheduled to leave Aug. 1, and the Senate Aug. 8).
Even fellow Democrats are expressing doubts about that timetable. The best Obama might get is a vote in the House and a tentative deal, but no actual vote, in the Senate.
Obama: All healthcare, all the time
President Obama is firmly, stubbornly staying wih his persistent push on healthcare.
But for good reason: While the fate of the sweeping legislation might not be the "Waterloo" turning point of his presidency -- as some Republicans hope from defeating him -- Obama has staked a huge pile of his political poker chips on victory.
This afternoon, in his almost daily remarks healthcare, Obama took on his opponents, saying that they would rather "score political points" than help families struggling with healthcare and that some will try to delay health reform until the special interests kill it.
While acknowledging that there is work to do for a final deal, he went on to tick off the areas of agreement in the working Senate and House versions and the broader consensus with health industry groups.
"We have traveled long and hard to reach this point," Obama said, through decades of Washington failing to fix healthcare. (His full remarks are below.)
UPDATE: Backing up Obama, the Democratic National Committee released a new web video today bashing Republican critics of the president's healthcare plan. It juxtaposes Republicans saying they want Obama to fail, with Obama's response.
“Over the last few days we've learned the true intentions of the Republican party when it comes to health care, and those intentions, while not surprising, are disturbing. Let's be clear - the same Republican party that let health care costs spiral out of control over the last eight years while protecting their special interest friends, is now expressly saying that they want to ‘kill’ health care reform and that their interest is to ‘break’ the President politically," DNC Communications Director Brad Woodhouse said in a statement.
“The Republican approach of working to kill health care reform when so many American families are struggling is not only broken, it's also irresponsible. Republicans would be better served if they focused on killing off this callous attitude within their party that puts fixing their own political problems ahead of fixing problems for American families.”
Republicans countered by saying that Obama is trying to move too fast with a plan that could derail the economic recovery. "Healthcare reform is too important to rush through and get wrong," Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky argued in a floor speech today.
They also asserted that House Democrats have been told not to cooperate with Republicans on healthcare legislation and that Democrats are making a mountain out of the molehill of Senator Jim DeMint's quotation that a healthcare defeat could be Obama's Waterloo.
"The White House and Democrats are jumping on one quote to set up Republicans as a straw man to mask over their internal party divisions which are delaying their drive for government-run healthcare," Joe Pounder, spokesman for the No. 2 House Republican Eric Cantor, said in a statement.
"However, we recall one remarkable quote from a key House Democrat, Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN), who wrote that House Democrats are being 'explicitly told not to work with Republicans.' Just to be clear: the White House and Democrats are using a fake straw man argument. Democrats don’t want to work with Republicans but at the same time, want to blame Republicans for their failures."
Obama plans to return to the subject in a primetime news conference Wednesday and a town hall in Cleveland Thursday.
Obama also plans to meet this afternoon with Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which hasn't passed the healthcare bill. Two other House panels approved their portions of the bill last week, but fiscally conservative Democrats on the Energy committee are balking at the bill's financing, among other issues.
The House Ways and Means Committee voted last week to pay for healthcare by imposing an income surtax on couples making as little as $350,000 a year and individuals earning as little as $280,000. To try to get conservative Democrats on board, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is proposing to limit the income tax increases to couples making more than $1 million a year and individuals making more than $500,000.
In an interview aired this morning on NBC's "Today" show, Obama defended his insistence on Congress passing healthcare overhaul legislation before its August summer recess. "If you don't set a deadline in this town, nothing happens," the president said, adding, "And the deadline isn't being set by me. It's being set by the American people."
FULL ENTRYPoll: Obama honeymoon is over
There are more worrisome poll findings for President Obama.
An Associated Press-GfK Poll released this afternoon found that a majority of Americans are back to believing the country is headed in the wrong direction after his inauguration initially boosted hope and optimism. Those thinking the country is going in the wrong direction hit 54 percent, up from 46 percent in June.
Obama's 55 percent approval rating is still better than Bill Clinton and about the same as George W. Bush six months into their presidencies, but those who think Obama can improve the economy is down 19 percentage points since he took office in January, and those who think he can reduce the deficit, withdraw troops from Iraq, and improve respect for the US around the world are all down 15 percentage points. On overhauling healthcare, hopes for success have dropped by 6 percentage points.
The president's other numbers are also down. About two-thirds now believe he understands the problems of ordinary Americans, down from 81 percent in January, while 69 percent think he's a strong leader, down from 78 percent before his inauguration.
The survey, conducted by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Media on July 16-20, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
Democrats scold Obama on signing statements
President Obama is taking a hit from fellow Democrats on another issue -- the use of signing statements on bills passed by Congress.
In a letter today to Obama, four senior House Democrats scolded him, saying he is being too much like former President George W. Bush in using the statements to ignore legislation he thinks oversteps the Constitution, the Associated Press reports.
The House members said they were "surprised" and "chagrined" by Obama's statement in June accompanying a war spending bill that he would ignore restrictions placed on aid provided to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. The letter was signed by Representatives David Obey of Wisconsin; chairman of the House Appropriations Committee; Barney Frank of Massachusetts, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee; and Nita Lowey and Gregory Meeks of New York, who chair subcommittees on those panels.
Congressional Democrats were harshly critical of Bush's signing statements, which they argued violated the constitutional separation of powers. Critics contended Bush used such statements to expand his power, particularly on national security, by ignoring the intent or certain provisions of bills properly passed by Congress. (Charlie Savage, then with the Globe, won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting for documenting Bush's actions."
Obama also assailed Bush on the issue during the presidential campaign.
In March, he vowed not to use signing statements to disregard parts of laws because he disagrees on policy grounds, but only when he strongly believes provisions are unconstitutional. "There is no doubt that the practice of issuing such statements can be abused. Constitutional signing statements should not be used to suggest that the president will disregard statutory requirements on the basis of policy disagreements," wrote Obama.
But he has issued a series of signing statements since, though not nearly as many as Bush.
Obama under fire on healthcare
President Obama continued his full-court press today for sweeping healthcare legislation, holding a roundtable discussion with providers at the Children's National Medical Center in Washington.
Trying to get healthcare overhaul back on track, Obama took a populist bent, asserting that big insurers and pharmaceutical firms and other special interests are reaping huge benefits from the existing healthcare system, while American families struggle.
Unless healthcare is reformed, he said, families will pay more and more of their income for less and less care.
Obama also took on his Republican opponents, incredulously citing South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint's remark last week that a defeat on healthcare would be Obama's "Waterloo" -- undermining his presidency.
"This isn't about me, this isn't about politics, this about a healthcare system that is breaking," the president said
He said the "politics of delay and defeat" should not be allowed to succeed -- and the nation needs a healthcare overhaul this year.
"Let's fight our way through the politics of the moment," he said.
"We've talked this problem to death," he added. (His full remarks are below.)
UPDATE: Senator Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, added his criticism of Obama, saying that the healthcare push looks a lot like the push for the $787 billion stimulus package, which he asserted has been a failure.
“By any standard upon which it was sold to us, not that it would do some good two or three years from now, but now, by that standard it has been a failure,” McConnell said this afternoon on Fox News Channel. “People feel like they got burned on the Stimulus vote, there were a few people that voted for it who feel like they got burned. A lot of the rest of us are saying, you know, we told you this might not have been the right thing to do.”
“The American people are now looking at this healthcare proposal and are saying this sounds a lot like what we were just told a few months ago on the stimulus, 'You got to get it done tomorrow or bad things are going to happen,' ” he added. “There is suspicion that this is a do over from the stimulus that we had just a few months ago, being sold to us as something we have to do immediately, that may not work.”
But as various versions of the bill wend their way through Congress, Obama is spending most of his time on the defensive against critics of the reform proposals even as he stakes the early success of his presidency on passing healthcare this year.
Perhaps for good reason -- a new Washington Post/ABC News poll published today showed that the public's approval of Obama's handling of the issue has dropped below the 50 percent threshold for the first time.
In the poll, 49 percent approve of his healthcare proposals and 44 percent disapprove. The approval number is down 8 percentage points from April and the disapproval number is up 15 percentage points as more attention -- and more criticism -- has focused on the proposals.
The poll also found that the president's approval ratings on other major issues, such as the economy and the federal budget deficit, have also slipped in recent months. His overall approval rating is higher than his marks on specific issues -- 59 percent positive and 37 negative -- but it's still the first time since he took office that his overall rating dropped below 60 percent in the Post-ABC poll, and is down six percentage points from just last month. The survey, conducted July 15-18, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
UPDATE: A second poll out today also found public skepticism about Obama's healthcare plan.
In the USA Today/Gallup survey, conducted Friday through Sunday, Americans by 50 percent to 44 percent disapprove of his handling of healthcare, and by 49 percent to 47 percent disapprove of his handling of the economy.
Sensing some vulnerability, Republicans are on the attack.
GOP Chairman Michael Steele, in a speech this morning at the National Press Club, accused Obama of "risky experimentation" with his healthcare proposals and asserted that Democrats want to impose government-run healthcare.
Asked whether the plans amounted to socialism, Steele said yes.
"Many Democrats outside of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid-Waxman cabal know that voters won't stand for these kinds of foolish prescriptions for our health care. We do too. That's why Republicans will stop at nothing to remind voters about the risky experimentation going on in Washington," Steele said, according to the Associated Press.
Obama wants a public insurance option to compete with private insurers and, he says, keep them honest, but has repeatedly said he does not favor a government-run health care system.
Republicans are backing up Steele's criticisms with a new TV ad that derides Obama's economic stimulus plan as a "massive spending experiment" that has failed to produce jobs. Featuring an ominous voiceover and images of children, the 30-second spot warns that his healthcare plan would "risk everything."
UPDATE: Democratic National Committee chairman Tim Kaine this afternoon issued a lengthy response to Steele, accusing Republicans of being far more interested in scoring political points than helping Americans with their healthcare.
“This morning, Chairman Steele delivered a speech announcing a ‘new’ Republican campaign against the President’s efforts to reform America’s broken health care system. Republican opposition to health care reform, however, is anything but new. In his speech, Chairman Steele spoke at length about the potential risks to reforming our failed health care system. It's sad, but not surprising, that the Republican Party, which for so long has supported the very policies and vested interests that helped get us to this crisis point, are unable to recognize the that the real risk is to do nothing at all, as they propose," Kaine said.
“Despite the crisis that confronts American families, the GOP continues to argue for the status quo on behalf of the special interests. If we do nothing as the Republican ‘Party of NO’ would have us do, we not only will ensure more of the same, but guarantee a growing crisis that will put a burden on our children that they will never overcome," Kaine added.
“It was also stunning - and sad - to hear that Chairman Steele agreed with Senator DeMint's comments that stopping health care reform would ‘break’ the President politically. What's ‘broken’ is a health care system where costs continue to explode, working families can't afford their premiums, small business can't compete, and where the Republican Party is interested in ensuring that we do nothing about these problems purely for their own political gain."
While Republican attacks are to expected, even some of Obama's allies are not happy with the direction the healthcare legislation is going.
Some Democrats, notably Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, want to tax the most generous employer-provided health benefits -- an idea Obama hasn't endorsed. But in an op-ed piece in Sunday's Washington Post, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney rails against the proposal.
Unions oppose the idea, arguing that employees have given up salary increases over the years and accepted better health benefits in return.
"Persistent misconceptions about the 'tax-favored treatment' of employer-sponsored coverage are that it (1) leads to overconsumption of health services and (2) favors the wealthy," Sweeney's piece says.
"With rising health costs burdening businesses and families alike, does anyone really believe that employers or workers lack incentive to hold down costs? The tax treatment of health benefits no more contributes to high health-care costs than the deduction for mortgage interest is responsible for housing costs. Clearly, both are affected by far more complex factors."
Kennedy: 'We can't afford to wait' on healthcare
Senator Edward M. Kennedy -- absent in person during the healthcare debate in Congress, but there "in spirit," as President Obama says -- says in a new first-person magazine article that the push for reform is the "cause of my life."
"Last year, I was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. Surgeons at Duke University Medical Center removed part of the tumor, and I had proton-beam radiation at Massachusetts General Hospital. I've undergone many rounds of chemotherapy and continue to receive treatment. Again, I have enjoyed the best medical care money (and a good insurance policy) can buy," Kennedy writes in the new edition of Newsweek.
"But quality care shouldn't depend on your financial resources, or the type of job you have, or the medical condition you face. Every American should be able to get the same treatment that U.S. senators are entitled to."
The Massachusetts Democrat says the time is now for a comprehensive bill that offers universal coverage. Incremental measures won't suffice anymore. We need to succeed where Teddy Roosevelt and all others since have failed. The conditions now are better than ever. In Barack Obama, we have a president who's announced that he's determined to sign a bill into law this fall. And much of the business community, which has suffered the economic cost of inaction, is helping to shape change, not lobbying against it."
Kennedy takes on the skeptics of the cost of reform: "I've heard the critics complain about the costs of change. I'm confident that at the end of the process, the change will be paid for—fairly, responsibly, and without adding to the federal deficit. It doesn't make sense to negotiate in the pages of NEWSWEEK, but I will say that I'm open to many options, including a surtax on the wealthy, as long as it meets the principle laid down by President Obama: that there will be no tax increases on anyone making less than $250,000 a year. What I haven't heard the critics discuss is the cost of inaction. If we don't reform the system, if we leave things as they are, health-care inflation will cost far more over the next decade than health-care reform. We will pay far more for far less—with millions more Americans uninsured or underinsured," he writes.
And he argues, the perfect should not be the enemy of the good: "Everyone won't be satisfied—and no one will get everything they want. But we need to come together, just as we've done in other great struggles—in World War II and the Cold War, in passing the great civil-rights laws of the 1960s, and in daring to send a man to the moon. If we don't get every provision right, we can adjust and improve the program next year or in the years to come. What we can't afford is to wait another generation."
Obama, Republicans spar on healthcare
The high-stakes battle over healthcare takes today to dueling Internet and radio addresses.
In his weekly address, President Obama tells Americans that the status quo is unacceptable and the chance for fixing healthcare might not come again for years.
"This is an issue that affects the health and financial well-being of every single American and the stability of our entire economy," he says, after a week during which doubts grew in Congress about how to pay for the overhaul, the official budget keeper warned that the legislation would not control public spending on healthcare, and calls became louder for slowing down the process.
"It’s about every family unable to keep up with soaring out of pocket costs and premiums rising three times faster than wages. Every worker afraid of losing health insurance if they lose their job, or change jobs. Everyone who’s worried that they may not be able to get insurance or change insurance if someone in their family has a pre-existing condition.
"This is the system we have today. This is what the debate in Congress is all about: Whether we’ll keep talking and tinkering and letting this problem fester as more families and businesses go under, and more Americans lose their coverage. Or whether we’ll seize this opportunity – one we might not have again for generations – and finally pass health insurance reform this year, in 2009."
Obama also directly takes on his critics, asserting that it's "simply not true" that the overhaul will lead to record government deficits and saying that it's not true that the plan calls for government bureaucrats instead of families picking doctors.
"Finally, opponents of health reform warn that this is all some big plot for socialized medicine or government-run health care with long lines and rationed care. That’s not true either. I don’t believe that government can or should run health care," the president says. "But I also don’t think insurance companies should have free reign to do as they please."
In the Republican response, Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona warned about "a government takeover of the healthcare system," new "job-killing taxes" on small businesses, and "rationing" of care.
He also accused Democrats of trying to rush through legislation "because the more Americans know about it, the more they oppose it. Something this important needs to be done right, rather than done quickly."
"Republicans have put forward common-sense ideas, including rooting out Medicare and Medicaid fraud, reforming medical liability laws to discourage frivolous lawsuits, strengthening wellness and prevention programs that encourage healthy living, and allowing small businesses to band together and purchase health insurance like large corporations do," said Kyl, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate leadership.
“We know Americans would prefer us to work together to ensure access to affordable quality healthcare for all. But Americans do not want a government takeover of health care that will jeopardize their current coverage, ration care, and create mountains of new debt and higher taxes.
Obama's address can be viewed here, Kyl's can be seen here, and both their remarks are below:
A release, a leak, and a tweet
The White House this afternoon announced three events on President Obama's schedule -- two in the usual ways for Washington, and one via a new web tool.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs issued a statement that Obama will go to Mexico next month: "The President will travel to Guadalajara, Mexico, August 9-10 to attend the North American Leaders Summit with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The summit meeting will provide an opportunity for the United States, Mexico, and Canada to engage on a broad range of issues, including economic recovery and competitiveness in North America, our shared interest in energy and the environment, and cooperation among our governments to promote the safety and welfare of our citizens, including continued close cooperation to counter the A/H1N1 influenza pandemic."
The White House leaked to the Associated Press that Obama will host the Apollo 11 crew on Monday, the 40th anniversary of man's first landing on the moon. "A senior administration official confirmed the plans to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they had not yet been announced," it reported.
And, for the first time ever, the White House used the social networking site Twitter to announce a primetime news conference -- 9 p.m. on Wednesday. "Primetime presidential news conference at the White House, Wed. 7/22 @ 9PM EDT,” the tweet said.
Obama circles the wagons on healthcare
Despite a series of setbacks this week, President Obama declared this afternoon that there has been "unprecedented progress" toward a healthcare overhaul.
In a hastily scheduled, then delayed appearance at the White House designed to reseize momentum on his top domestic priority, Obama urged everyone to "step back" from the "24-hour news cycle."
He spoke a day after the official, nonpartisan bean counter in Congress warned that House Democrats' healthcare bill would increase public spending on healthcare and worsen the federal deficit, adding to the sense that the legislation might be in trouble.
But Obama noted that hospitals and drug companies have pledged givebacks to help pay for the bill, and that the American Medical Association and American Nurses Association endorsed legislation this week. He also asserted that there is broad agreement on major elements of health reform.
"Now we've got to get over the finish line," he said, largely by figuring out how to pay the full cost of health overhaul without adding to the federal deficit.
"The last few miles of any race are the hardest to run," he added, but that doesn't mean slowing down or giving up and he remains "absolutely convinced" that legislation will be passed this year.
It must be passed because if healthcare overhaul isn't done, everyone's health coverage is at risk, the president said.
Obama, who met in recent days with key Senate moderates and Republicans, argued that savings in Medicare and Medicaid, and other efficiencies in the healthcare system would pay for about two-thirds of the cost, estimated at $1 trillion over 10 years.
Obama's chief economic adviser, Lawrence Summers, also made the argument in a speech today defending the administration's economic policies. Summers said the savings projected by the administration are based on wellness and prevention programs that are difficult to figure into the Congressional Budget Office's estimates.
While Obama wants a health overhaul that both extends coverage to the nearly 50 million Americans without insurance and cuts healthcare spending, Douglas Elmendorf, director of the CBO, told a Senate committee Thursday that the legislation drafted so far would fall far short on the second goal.
"We do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount. And on the contrary, the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for healthcare costs," he said.
Despite that warning, two House committees advanced the Democratic bill early today on party-line votes.
The Ways and Means Committee voted to help pay for the measure by imposing a surtax on higher-income taxpayers to raise $544 billion over 10 years. The vote was 23 to 18, with three Democrats joining all Republicans in opposition, the Associated Press reports. The Education and Labor Committee approved its portion of the bill on a vote of 26-22.
In the Senate, however, a group of six Democrats and Republicans urged the White House to pull back from its schedule to get a bill through Congress before its August recess. "We believe that taking additional time to achieve a bipartisan result is critical," the group wrote in a letter obtained by the AP.
The letter was signed by Democratic Senators Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Ron Wyden of Oregon, and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Republicans Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, an independent who usually caucuses with Democrats.
Summers defends Obama's economic policies
President Obama's chief economic adviser, Lawrence Summers, is the latest top administration official to defend its efforts to revive the economy, even as unemployment inches toward double digits.
"Though only a half a year ago, the distance we have traveled these past six months is remarkable," Summers said at the Peterson Institute, according to advance excerpts released by the White House. "The economy was in free-fall at the start of the year with no apparent limit on how much worse things could get. Fear was widespread and confidence was scarce.
"We were at the brink of catastrophe at the beginning of the year but we have walked some substantial distance back from the abyss… Substantial progress has been made in rescuing the economy from the risk of economic collapse that looked all too real 6 months ago."
According to federal data released this morning, the jobless rate has already topped 10 percent in 15 states and the District of Columbia, and surpassed 15 percent in Michigan, the first time any state reached that mark since 1984.
Summers argued that rising unemployment does not mean that the $787 billion stimulus package championed by Obama is not working, since the jobless rate lags other indicators of recovery.
Summers, the former Harvard president and treasury secretary, also reiterated Obama's assertions that his policies are not only lifting the country out of recession, but building the foundation for long-term growth.
"To address the deep and severe crisis he inherited, President Obama started from two main premises," he plans to say. "First, the most immediate priority was to rescue the economy by restoring confidence and breaking the vicious cycle of economic contraction and financial failure. Second, the recovery from this crisis would be built not on the flimsy foundation of asset bubbles but on the firm foundation of productive investment and long-term growth.
"The President was clear from the beginning that these two tasks needed to be dovetailed—that confidence in our ability to rescue the economy depended on a sense of our commitment to reform and a vision for rebuilding."
"The rebuilt American economy must be more export-oriented and less consumption-oriented, more environmentally oriented and less fossil-energy-oriented, more bio- and software-engineering-oriented and less financial-engineering-oriented, more middle-class-oriented and less oriented to income growth that disproportionately favors a very small share of the population."
His full remarks are below:
Obama condemns hotel bombings
President Obama this morning condemned the hotel bombings in Jakarta that have killed at least six and wounded more than 50, with at least eight Americans among the casualties.
The State Department says none of the Americans suffered life-threatening injuries, according to news reports that also say that suicide bombers who checked in as guests smuggled explosives into the Western luxury hotels to set off the explosions. Two of the suicide bombers were killed, the reports say.
"I strongly condemn the attacks that occurred this morning in Jakarta, and extend my deepest condolences to all of the victims and their loved ones," Obama said in a statement.
"The American people stand by the Indonesian people in this difficult time, and the U.S. government stands ready to help the Indonesian government respond to and recover from these outrageous attacks as a friend and partner.
"Indonesia has been steadfast in combating violent extremism, and has successfully curbed terrorist activity within its borders. However, these attacks make it clear that extremists remain committed to murdering innocent men, women and children of any faith in all countries. We will continue to partner with Indonesia to eliminate the threat from these violent extremists, and we will be unwavering in supporting a future of security and opportunity for the Indonesian people."
Obama preaches personal responsibility
The nation's first black president told the nation's oldest civil rights organization Thursday night that government and families must work hand-in-hand to improve neighborhoods and that African-Americans must focus more on education to get ahead.
Preaching personal responsibility in an at times fiery sermon, President Obama spoke in New York City to the 100th annual convention of the NAACP, his first speech to a mostly black audience since taking office.
"Government programs alone won't get our children to the Promised Land. We need a new mind set, a new set of attitudes -- because one of the most durable and destructive legacies of discrimination is the way we've internalized a sense of limitation; how so many in our community have come to expect so little from the world and from themselves," the president said.
"We've got to say to our children, yes, if you're African American, the odds of growing up amid crime and gangs are higher. Yes, if you live in a poor neighborhood, you will face challenges that somebody in a wealthy suburb does not have to face. But that's not a reason to get bad grades, that's not a reason to cut class, that's not a reason to give up on your education and drop out of school. No one has written your destiny for you. Your destiny is in your hands -- you cannot forget that. That's what we have to teach all of our children. No excuses. No excuses."
Obama also had a message for parents: "We can't tell our kids to do well in school and then fail to support them when they get home. You can't just contract out parenting. For our kids to excel, we have to accept our responsibility to help them learn. That means putting away the Xbox, putting our kids to bed at a reasonable hour. It means attending those parent-teacher conferences and reading to our children and helping them with their homework."
He added, "It also means pushing our children to set their sights a little bit higher. They might think they've got a pretty good jump shot or a pretty good flow, but our kids can't all aspire to be LeBron or Lil Wayne. I want them aspiring to be scientists and engineers, doctors and teachers, not just ballers and rappers. I want them aspiring to be a Supreme Court justice. I want them aspiring to be the president of the United States of America."
But he also said that in 2009, racial prejudice and discrimination is not fully eradicated.
"I understand there may be a temptation among some to think that discrimination is no longer a problem in 2009. And I believe that overall, there probably has never been less discrimination in America than there is today. I think we can say that," he said.
"But make no mistake: The pain of discrimination is still felt in America. By African American women paid less for doing the same work as colleagues of a different color and a different gender. By Latinos made to feel unwelcome in their own country. By Muslim Americans viewed with suspicion simply because they kneel down to pray to their God. By our gay brothers and sisters, still taunted, still attacked, still denied their rights."
Obama also paid tribute to the sacrifices and courage of civil rights activists from the NAACP and other groups. "Because of them I stand here tonight, on the shoulders of giants. And I'm here to say thank you to those pioneers and thank you to the NAACP," he said.
Fate of healthcare up to Senate moderates
Could it be a reprise of the stimulus on healthcare?
There are certainly hints that moderate US senators of both parties could determine the fate of President Obama's agenda yet again.
Obama is holding separate private meetings this morning to discuss healthcare overhaul with Senators Olympia Snowe, a Maine Republican, and Ben Nelson, a Nebraska Democrat. They are among the senators being targeted by new TV ads, launched by Obama's grassroots organization, that say "it's time" for healthcare reform.
Nelson and Snowe's fellow moderate senator from Maine, Susan Collins, played a key role in negotiations to win Senate approval in February for the $787 billion economic recovery package championed by Obama. The stimulus bill passed the House without a single Republican vote, and the administration's horse-trading focused on satisfying Nelson and Collins, who pushed for a smaller package.
After meeting with Obama, Snowe said the president repeated his wish for Congress to pass a bill before its August recess. "He's determined to have that happen," she said on MSNBC.
But Snowe said it's more important to get bipartisan consensus in the Senate Finance Committee, especially on how to pay for the bill. Supporting a Senate vote in September, she also said she wants to give ample time for all senators and the public to review the bill.
"This deserves a thoughtful process," she said.
Asked about Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus saying today that Obama had hindered his efforts to reach a bipartisan deal by opposing a tax on some employer-provided health insurance benefits to help pay for the deal, Snowe said it would be helpful if Obama endorsed a financing approach.
The panel is "working mightily" to find "offsets" and other savings to reduce the cost of the bill. "It's all part of building a consensus," she said.
Asked to respond to Baucus, deputy White House press secretary Bill Burton told reporters on Air Force One today, "Nobody said it was going to be easy. And there are obviously bumps along the way to getting to final passage of legislation in both the House and the Senate. But we think that we've been able to make a lot of progress. And those comments notwithstanding, this week has been a very great week, if you consider that the House bill and the bill that passed through the HELP Committee are very, very similar. They're about 80 percent exactly the same."
Burton refused to say which version of the healthcare bills the president favors, and said Obama remains hopeful for a bipartisan compromise.
"We're only about midway through this. But he feels very positive about the progress we've been able to make," Burton said. " And once we get something through the House and through the Senate, we'll be able to go to conference and really put the rubber to the road and get something done."
With the power equation in the Senate so tenuous -- just last week Al Franken became the 60th Democratic vote, potentially enough to overcome Republican filibuster -- Snowe and Collins play an outsized role.
Obama and Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts are still holding out hope for a bipartisan deal this year on healthcare.
But those prospects appear to be dimming. The Senate health committee passed its $615 billion plan on a strictly party-line vote on Wednesday.
In the House, little, if any Republican support, is expected in votes planned today in the Education and Labor and the Ways and Means committees on a $1.5 trillion plan that House Democrats presented this week. It would be financed in large measure through a tax surcharge on the highest-income Americans.
"It is extraordinary, the breadth of the bill that is being pushed through and the cost associated with it," Representative Eric Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House, told reporters this morning. "And ultimately, really, the cost is going to be borne by the people of this country -- the middle class, the wealthy, those who can least afford it, all of us are going to be paying an astronomical cost at a time that we just cannot afford this ambitious grab."
Obama, who during the campaign proposed paying for healthcare by limiting tax deduction for high earners, has not endorsed a specific financing plan. But on CBS's "Early Show" this morning, he said, "Personally, I think the best way to fund it is for people like myself, who've been very lucky, to pay a little bit more."
UPDATE: Today, the American Medical Association endorsed House Democrat's bill, saying it "includes a broad range of provisions that are key to effective, comprehensive health system reform."
“I am grateful that the doctors of the AMA have chosen to support health insurance reform that will lower costs, expand coverage, and assure choice and quality health care for all Americans. Along with the nation’s nurses, these doctors are joining the chorus of Americans who know that the time to reform what is broken about our health care system is now,” Obama said in a statement.
The insurance industry, however, said it opposes key elements of the bill, saying a government plan "will cause millions of patients to lose their current coverage."
Taking it to the streets
With President Obama's goal of a sweeping healthcare bill hanging in the balance, his grassroots group plans a weeklong series of events across the country designed to turn up the heat on Congress.
Organizing for America, Obama's campaign organization now part of the Democratic National Committee, announced this afternoon that it plans door-to-door canvasses, phone banks, roundtable discussions, and community gatherings from Monday through next Sunday, all "designed to build grassroots support for President Obama’s plan and amplify the his call for the House and Senate to pass health care reform bill before the August congressional recess."
The events include door knocks and a phone bank led by State Representative Chris Hamm in Hopkinton, N.H., next Saturday, and signature collecting in Exeter, N.H., next Sunday.
“Presidents since the time of Teddy Roosevelt have called for reform of our health care system - now comprehensive reform is finally within our reach,” Mitch Stewart, the group's director, said in a statement. “The number of Americans who have declared their support for the President’s three principles of reform has been overwhelming and continues to grow each day. During this Week of Action, we’ll continue to build support - person-by-person and block-by-block - for passing a plan this year that lowers costs, guarantees choice – including the choice of a public option and ensures all Americans have access to quality, affordable care.”
Cantor, White House trade barbs on stimulus
The war of words over the economic stimulus is getting louder today in Virginia.
Vice President Joe Biden is in Richmond, the home district of Representative Eric Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House and one of President Obama's harshest, most persistent critics.
Biden plans to blast Cantor, according to the Washington Post. "To those who say that our economic decisions 'have not produced jobs, have not produced prosperity, and simply have not worked, I say, 'Take a look around,' " Biden will say, according to prepared remarks obtained by Post. "I ask those critics, 'Would they not help the states prevent lay off thousands of teachers, firefighters, cops? Would they not give a tax cut to 95 percent of the American people? Would they sit back and do nothing as our economy collapsed?' "
Cantor's office, for its part, is on the case of Tim Kaine, Virginia's governor and Obama's hand-picked chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
Kaine sent out a statement today saying that Obama's $787 billion stimulus package -- which not a single House Republican supported -- is sparking a recovery and creating jobs.
"For Governor Kaine's DNC to flatly state that there is an economic recovery misses the current and increasing double-digit unemployment in Richmond and the 8.1% unemployment in Central Virginia. To declare an 'economic recovery' when so many Virginian families are being negatively impacted by this Administrations economic policy is a truly shocking statement that should be retracted," Cantor spokesman Brad Dayspring said in a statement.
"A stimulus bill should have an immediate economic impact and create real, long term jobs, and this stimulus has not created jobs or fixed our economy."
Obama: Kennedy 'there in spirit' on healthcare
It must be a bittersweet time for Senator Edward M. Kennedy.
His most cherished legislative goal -- a healthcare bill that offers universal coverage -- is perhaps closer than ever before.
But his own health -- he is more than a year into treatment for aggressive brain cancer -- is keeping him from being in the thick of the action. He was not present when the Senate health committee became the first congressional panel Wednesday to pass a healthcare overhaul bill.
President Obama, who benefited immensely from Kennedy's endorsement during the Democratic primaries, said on ABC's "Good Morning America" this morning that he had talked to Kennedy last week.
But the president noted that is a difficult time for Kennedy, whom he lauded at a White House healthcare summit in March.
"Obviously, it's painful for Senator Kennedy, who's fought all his life for this moment, not to be there in the heat of battle. But he's there in spirit," Obama said. "Obviously, right now, we just want to make sure that he's taking care of himself and he's healing. But his spirit looms large over this entire process."
Obama: Health reform closer than ever
With Congress getting back on track on a healthcare overhaul, President Obama declared this afternoon that "we are now closer to the goal of health reform than we have ever been."
During his foreign trip last week, leaders of the healthcare push ran into a series of roadblocks. But on Tuesday, the House Democratic leadership unveiled a comprehensive bill. And this morning, the Senate health committee passed its version.
"Both proposals will take what’s best about our system today and make it the basis for our system tomorrow -- reducing costs, raising quality, and ensuring fair treatment of consumers by the insurance industry," the president said in the Rose Garden.
"Both include a health insurance exchange, a marketplace that will allow families and small businesses to compare prices, services, and quality so they can choose the plan that best suits their needs; and among the choices available would be a public health insurance option that would make healthcare more affordable by increasing competition, providing more choices, and keeping insurance companies honest. Both proposals will offer stability and security to Americans who have coverage today, and affordable options for Americans who don’t," Obama added.
"This progress should make us hopeful -- but it can’t make us complacent. It should instead provide the urgency for both the House and the Senate to finish their critical work on health reform before the August recess."
Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, who is seeking a landmark healthcare bill as the capstone of his legislative career while fighting brain cancer, missed the health committee vote.
Still, Obama praised the "unyielding passion and inspiration" provided by "our friend Ted Kennedy," as well as the "bold leadership" of Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, who has been shepherding the bill in Kennedy's absence.
Taking on critics he described as the "naysayers and the cynics," Obama repeated his argument that the country can't wait to fix the healthcare system, and renewed his vow to sign a comprehensive healthcare bill this year.
"We are going to get this done," said Obama, who was joined by Dodd and leaders of the 2.9-million-member American Nurses Association, saying that "few understand why we have to pass reform as intimately as our nation’s nurses." "It's time for us to buck up.... It’s up to us now. We can do what we’ve done for so long and defer tough decisions for another day -- or we can step up and meet our responsibilities. In other words, we can lead. We can look beyond the next news cycle and the next election to the next generation, and come together to build a system that works not just for these nurses, but for the patients they care for; for doctors and hospitals; for families and businesses -- and for our very future as a nation."
His full prepared remarks are below:
Winning hearts and minds on healthcare
As Congress races to try to get a healthcare overhaul bill to President Obama's desk before the August recess, both political parties are trying to shape public opinion.
Organizing for America, Obama's grassroots group now housed within the Democratic National Committee, released a new 30 second TV ad today in which five people hurt by the healthcare system all say "it's time" for the sweeping change. The five (their stories are below) are among hundreds of thousands of people who responded to the group's call for personal stories.
“Millions of Americans lose their health insurance when they lose their job, are denied care because of a pre-existing condition, and delay care or skip medication because they can’t afford it,” the group's executive director, Mitch Stewart, said in a statement. “Skyrocketing health care costs are hurting American families and straining already-strapped budgets for businesses and governments. It’s time to reform our health care system to lower costs, preserve patient choice and ensure that all Americans have access to quality, affordable care.”
The ad will run on national cable, on cable in Washington, and on local stations in Arkansas, Indiana, Florida, Louisiana, Maine, North Dakota, Nebraska, and Ohio, calling on moderate senators -- both Republicans and Democrats -- in those states to support the bill.
While Democrats are urging Congress to act, Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele asked "why the rush?" in an email today to supporters urging them to get involved.
"The Democrats have learned from their missteps last time they tried to force Americans into a socialized health care system -- the abysmal failure of the Clinton Administration's 'HillaryCare,' " he says. "So now, they are rushing 'Obamacare' through Congress, hoping it avoids the same fate."
Like Clinton's ill-fated plan, Obama and the Democrats -- with a public insurance option -- are seeking government-run healthcare, Steele argues.
"President Obama and Congressional Democrats think government is the solution to every problem. They're wrong," he says. "The government already runs car companies, banks and mortgage companies. Republicans believe that the last thing the American people want is government telling them when and where -- or even whether -- they can get medical treatment for their families.
"You and the RNC are all that stand between our sensible Republican plan for real healthcare reform and the Democrats' scheme to take more of your hard-earned income to pay for other people's health care while limiting yours."
FULL ENTRYSenate health panel passes overhaul bill
The Senate health committee this morning passed its version of healthcare overhaul on a 13-10 party line vote, the first congressional panel to pass a healthcare bill this session.
Related
The $600 billion measure would expand health coverage to nearly all Americans by requiring individuals to get insurance and employers to contribute to the cost. Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, who is shepherding the bill in the absence of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, told reporters it is time to pass a comprehensive reform bill. Kennedy, who is battling brain cancer, missed the vote.
"We have done the hard work that the American people sent us here to do," Kennedy said in a statement. "We know, however, that our work is not over -- far from it. As we move from our committee room to the Senate floor, we must continue the search for solutions that unite us, so that the great promise of quality affordable health care for all can be fulfilled."
“For the past months, Rhode Islanders have told me that we need to fix health care in this country. I’ve heard from people struggling under skyrocketing costs and fearful that their coverage will disappear; people living with illness or injury because they can’t afford to see a doctor; people suffering from needless, preventable medical errors. All they’re asking for is health care they can rely on, and afford. As of today, we’re one step closer," Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat on the committee, said in a statement.
“The reform bill we passed today will let you keep the health insurance you have, if you like it – and if you can’t afford your coverage or you’re uninsured, you’ll have new choices. Its emphasis on quality improvement, disease prevention, and a public insurance option will mean high-quality, efficient health care that invests not only in treating you when you’re sick, but in keeping you well. And never again will an insurance company be able to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing condition."
But Senator Judd Gregg, a New Hampshire Republican, told reporters that Democrats on the committee had "struck out" on healthcare by passing a bill that leaves millions of Americans uncovered and that could cost workers their jobs by burdening businesses.
He and other Republicans complained that the Democratic majority ignored their proposals and amendments.
On Tuesday, House leaders unveiled a $1.5 trillion healthcare bill that would raise taxes on the highest-income Americans and penalize businesses that don't offer coverage and individuals who don't get insurance.
The House bill calls for federal income surtax starting with individuals making more than $280,000 a year and rising to 5.4 percent on those making more than $1 million a year. Employers who don't provide coverage would be hit with a penalty equal to 8 percent of workers' wages, though small businesses would be exempt. Individuals who skip coverage would pay 2.5 percent of their incomes as a penalty, up to the average cost of a health insurance plan.
President Obama, who is ramping up his push to get a healthcare overhaul bill on his desk before the August congressional recess, has scheduled another speech on healthcare this afternoon in the Rose Garden.
Obama responded to the panel's passage with a statement praising elements that he supports, but as he did when House leaders unveiled their bill without fully endorsing it.
“Today, thanks to the unyielding passion and inspiration provided by Senator Edward Kennedy, the HELP committee he chairs has produced a proposal that will finally lower health care costs, provide better care for patients, and ensure fair treatment of consumers by the insurance industry," the president said.
"Like the legislation produced by the House of Representatives, this proposal would offer Americans quality, affordable health care that is there when they need it. No longer will insurance companies be able to deny coverage based on a pre-existing medical condition. No longer will Americans have to worry about their health insurance if they lose their job, change their job, or open a new business.
"This proposal will bring down costs, expand coverage, and increase choice. Through a health insurance exchange, families and small businesses will be able to compare prices and quality so that they can choose the health care plan that best suits their needs. Among the choices that would be available in the exchange would be a public health insurance option that would make health care affordable by increasing competition, providing more choices, and keeping the insurance companies honest.
"This proposal would also control rising costs by investing in preventive care and wellness programs, rooting out waste and fraud in the system, and changing the incentives that automatically equate the most expensive care with the best care.
"When this proposal is combined with other proposals that the Senate Finance Committee is working on, it’s estimated that health reform will cover 97% of all Americans.
"The HELP committee’s success should give us hope, but it should not give us pause. It should instead provide the urgency for both the House and Senate to finish their critical work on health reform before the August recess. I want to commend Senator Kennedy, Senator Dodd, as well as Senators Harkin, Mikulski, Bingaman, and Murray on the leadership they’ve shown and the foundation they’ve laid to reform our health care system.”
House unveils healthcare overhaul bill
President Obama this afternoon praised the healthcare overhaul bill unveiled by Democratic leaders in the House.
Patterned in significant measure after the 2006 Massachusetts law, it would penalize employers who fail to provide health insurance for their workers and individuals who refuse to obtain coverage.
The legislation would be paid for by a federal income surtax -- up to 5.4 percent on the income of taxpayers making more than $1 million a year -- plus hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts in projected Medicare and Medicaid spending.
Obama urged Congress on Monday to get back on track to send him a bill before its August recess, after healthcare legislation went off the rails over disagreements on financing during the week he was abroad.
But in his statement, he did not endorse the surtax as a way to pay for healthcare.
"For decades, Washington failed to act as healthcare costs continued to rise, crushing businesses and families and placing an unsustainable burden on governments. But today, key committees in the House of Representatives have engaged in unprecedented cooperation to produce a health care reform proposal that will lower costs, provide better care for patients, and ensure fair treatment of consumers by the insurance industry," Obama said in a statement issued by the White House this afternoon.
"This proposal controls the skyrocketing cost of health care by rooting out waste and fraud and promoting quality and accountability. Its savings of more than $500 billion over 10 years will strengthen Medicare and contribute to our goal of reforming health care in a fiscally responsible way. It will change the incentives in our health care system so that Americans can receive the best care, not the most expensive care. And it will offer families and businesses more choices and more affordable health care," he added.
"This proposal will also prevent insurance companies from denying people coverage because of a pre-existing medical condition. It will ensure that workers can still have health insurance if they lose their job, change their job or start a new business. And it includes a health insurance exchange that will allow families and small businesses to compare prices and quality so they can choose the health care plan that best suits their needs. Among the choices that would be available in the exchange would be a public health insurance option that would make health care affordable by increasing competition, providing more choices, and keeping the insurance companies honest.
"The House proposal will begin the process of fixing what’s broken about our health care system, reducing costs for all, building on what works, and covering an estimated 97% of all Americans. And by emphasizing prevention and wellness, it will also help improve the quality of health care for every American.
"I thank Chairmen Rangel, Waxman, and Miller for their hard work on this bill that fundamentally reforms the health care system. As this process moves forward, I look forward to continuing to work with all House members in ensuring this legislation helps all Americans and plays an essential role in reducing deficits and bringing fiscal sustainability to our nation.”
UPDATE: Critics say the well-off are being unfairly targeted and would be discouraged from making more money and creating jobs.
The Tax Foundation calculates if the House plan became law, taxpayers in 39 states would face a combined top tax rate of more than 50 percent. Residents of Rhode Island (56.2 percent) and Vermont (55.8 percent) would be among the hardest hit.
"That means government would be taking more than half of every additional dollar from high-income taxpayers," Tax Foundation President Scott Hodge said in a statement.
The House proposal would impose a surtax of 1 percent on married couples with adjusted gross incomes of between $350,000 and $500,000 a year and singles who earn between $280,000 and $400,000; 1.5 percent on couples with incomes between $500,000 and $1 million and singles earning between $400,000 and $800,000; and 5.4 percent on couples earning more than $1 million and singles more than $800,000.
Obama to boost community colleges
President Obama landed this afternoon in Michigan -- the state with the nation's highest unemployment rate at 14 percent -- to reassure Americans that better days are ahead, and to talk about the importance of education to grow the economy.
He spoke at Macomb Community College -- a common stop for politicians ever since Ronald Reagan embraced white, blue-collar Democrats to create "Reagan Democrats" -- and declared that "the hard truth is that some of the jobs that have been lost in the auto industry and elsewhere won’t be coming back. They are casualties of a changing economy.
"And that only underscores the importance of generating new businesses and industries to replace the ones we’ve lost, and of preparing our workers to fill the jobs they create. For even before this recession hit, we were faced with an economy that was simply not creating or sustaining enough new, well-paying jobs," he said, according to prepared remarks released by the White House.
Obama announced a new initiative to strengthen community colleges in their role of training workers for new jobs.
"Time and again, when we have placed our bet for the future on education, we have prospered as a result – by tapping the incredible innovative and generative potential of a skilled American workforce.
"That is why, at the start of my administration I set a goal for America: by 2020, this nation will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world…Today, I am announcing the most significant down payment yet on reaching this goal in the next ten years. It’s called the American Graduation Initiative. It will reform and strengthen community colleges from coast to coast so that they get the resources students and schools need – and the results workers and businesses demand. Through this plan, we seek to help an additional five million Americans earn degrees and certificates in the next decade."
(The full prepared remarks and White House release are below.)
UPDATE: Senator Edward M. Kennedy, chairman of the Senate education committee, praised Obama's community college push.
“I commend President Obama for this major initiative to enable many more Americans to obtain the education and training they need to succeed in our modern economy," Kennedy said in a statement. "Community colleges in Massachusetts and across the country are putting millions of students on the path to a college degree. They are also offering millions of other Americans the opportunity to develop the skills and knowledge they need for family-sustaining jobs. Congress should include this important initiative in the higher education legislation we pass this year.”
Earlier today, Obama told reporters that he doesn't have a "crystal ball" on the jobs picture, but does expect the unemployment rate to rise before topping out. Many economists expect the national rate, now 9.5 percent, will reach double digits.
"Even after you start moving into a recovery, positive growth, hiring typically lags for some time after that. That's been the historic norm," he added. "Now, this has been a more severe recession than we've seen since the Great Depression, so how employment numbers are going to respond is not yet clear. My expectation is, is that we will probably continue to see unemployment tick up for several months. And the challenge for this administration is to make sure that even as we are stabilizing the financial system, we understand that the most important thing in the economy is, are people able to find good jobs that pay good wages."
(His full comments on the economy are below.)
Obama aims right down the middle
All eyes -- well at least those of baseball fans -- will be on President Obama tonight.
Will he throw a strike with the ceremonial first pitch at the All-Star game in St. Louis?
Obama told reporters this morning that he has been practicing, in hopes of avoiding the embarrassment of bouncing it up there well short of the plate.
He didn't have to say that that image would hand his critics a gift -- an image of failure that they could recycle into ads asserting that his healthcare plan, energy plan, you name it, was falling short, a wild pitch, just a little outside, or whatever sports cliche they could think of.
"I think it's fair to say I wanted to loosen up my arm," the president -- a lefty who is more of a hoops player -- said at an availability after meeting with the prime minister of the Netherlands.
According to the press pool report, Obama said he has been thinking back to when he threw out the first pitch at a 2005 Chicago White Sox game.
"I just wanted to keep it high," he said. "Now, there was no clock on it, I don't know how fast it went. If it exceeded 30 miles per hour, I'd be surprised. But it did clear the plate."
White House talks jobs -- of tomorrow
President Obama, seeking to regain the upper hand on the economy, issued a new report this morning on the "jobs of tomorrow" -- even as the jobs of today keep disappearing.
His Council of Economic Advisers released the report, titled "Preparing the Workers of Today for the Jobs of Tomorrow," that is an overview of how the US labor market is expected to develop over the next few years. The report (read it here) discusses the skills and training that will likely be needed for the growing occupation categories, and the education and training system needed to prepare people for those jobs.
As the unemployment rate heads north of 10 percent nationally, Obama is defending the $787 billion economic stimulus plan he championed, asking Americans for patience. He made that case in his weekly radio and Internet address on Saturday and in an op-ed piece in the Washington Post on Sunday, and is expected to make it again during a public event in Warren, Mich., on Tuesday.
In an unusual move, the White House today sent out an official release citing news reports challenging the facts used by Republican critics of the stimulus.
Such counterattacks are typically left to Democratic Party groups or friendly advocacy organizations. (The full release is below.)
UPDATE: Obama also huddled this afternoon with labor leaders, some of his most loyal and important allies.
"Today's meeting with President Obama and leaders in the union movement was a critical opportunity to share and discuss issues impacting working people, including jobs, health care, and the Employee Free Choice Act," AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said in a statement afterwards. "President Obama has always been a friend to the union movement, and the meeting emphasized his continued support on issues important to working people. We look forward to continuing to work with the president to build an economy that works for everyone.
Obama picks rural doctor for surgeon general
President Obama didn't page Dr. Gupta to be his surgeon general, instead tapping a family doctor from rural Alabama.
He announced this morning he will ask the Senate to confirm Dr. Regina Benjamin for the post, a bully pulpit for public health that has become less visible since C. Everett Koop, who served from 1982 to 1989.
Obama said she Benjamin has ample credentials to be the chief spokesperson for public health -- and more importantly the commitment and empathy that she has shown by staying in her rural health clinic that serves shrimpers who can't afford healthcare.
Benjamin, he said, has seen first hand and up close many of the flaws of the current healthcare system and represents what is best about doctors who will do anything to heal the sick.
Benjamin, 51, said she has personal experience, listing family members who have died from chronic conditions and preventable diseases including diabetes, AIDS, and lung cancer caused by smoking.
She said while she can't change her family's health, she can be a voice for improved public health.
Sanjay Gupta, the high-profile chief medical correspondent for CNN, was under consideration for the post, but withdrew his name in March, citing family and career concerns.
While Benjamin isn't as well-known in the wider public, she did earn notice for rebuilding her nonprofit medical clinic after Hurricane Katrina, won a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" last year, and became the first black woman and the youngest doctor elected to the American Medical Association's board.
(The full remarks of Benjamin and Obama are below, followed by the White House release.)
Obama also used the Rose Garden ceremony to put in another plug for his healthcare overhaul plan, which has run into a series of roadblocks in Congress in recent weeks.
He insisted, however, that reform is closer than ever, but said he has "no illusions" that it will be difficult to get across the finish line. But he said that an overhaul is needed, and accused his critics of "small thinking."
"This is no longer a problem we can wait to fix," he said.
Citing what he called "chatter" from "naysayers" that emerged during his trip to Europe and Africa last week, he said he wanted to put everyone on notice: "We are going to get this done."
Obama: Economic stimulus is working
Facing growing public unease about his handling of the economy, President Obama takes his weekly Internet and radio address to defend the $787 billion stimulus package he championed.
It is doing exactly what it was designed to -- stop the bleeding by slowing job losses, start reviving the economy, deliver tax relief to the middle class, and lay the groundwork for badly needed reform, he asserts.
"The Recovery Act wasn’t designed to restore the economy to full health on its own, but to provide the boost necessary to stop the free fall," he says. "It was designed to spur demand and get people spending again and cushion those who had borne the brunt of the crisis. And it was designed to save jobs and create new ones."
He counsels patience, cautioning against those already calling for a second stimulus package.
"I realize that when we passed this Recovery Act, there were those who felt that doing nothing was somehow an answer," he says. "Today, some of those same critics are already judging the effort a failure although they have yet to offer a plausible alternative. Others believed that the recovery plan should have been even larger, and are already calling for a second recovery plan.
"But, as I made clear at the time it was passed, the Recovery Act was not designed to work in four months – it was designed to work over two years. We also knew that it would take some time for the money to get out the door, because we are committed to spending it in a way that is effective and transparent. Crucially, this is a plan that will also accelerate greatly throughout the summer and the fall. We must let it work the way it’s supposed to, with the understanding that in any recession, unemployment tends to recover more slowly than other measures of economic activity," he adds.
During his weeklong trip to Europe and Africa that wraps up today, attacks grew louder on the stimulus, polls showed declining confidence in his job performance on the economy, and numbers showed continuing steep job losses.
In his address, Obama claims accomplishments abroad, but seeks to reassure Americans that he's focused on the homefront, that he will get federal budget deficits under control even as he tries to pass landmark legislation on healthcare and clean energy, and to remind the public of the depth of the economic crisis he inherited in January.
"We came into office facing the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression," he says. "At the time, we were losing, on average 700,000 jobs a month. And many feared that our financial system was on the verge of collapse. As a result of the swift and aggressive action we took in the first few months of this year, we’ve been able to pull our financial system and our economy back from the brink."
"I said when I took office that it would take many months to move our economy from recession to recovery and ultimately to prosperity," he adds. "We are not there yet, and I continue to believe that even one American out of work is one too many. But we are moving in the right direction. We are cleaning up the wreckage of this storm. And we are laying a firmer, stronger foundation so that we may better weather whatever future storms may come. This year has been and will continue to be a year of rescuing our economy from disaster."
The full text is below, and the video of the address can be viewed here.
Obama still confident on healthcare
President Obama said today he still hopes that Congress can vote on a healthcare overhaul bill before its August recess, despite a series of setbacks this week for his top domestic priority.
House leaders hoped to unveil their bill today, but have put that off until at least Monday while they try to bring conservative Democrats, known as the Blue Dog Coalition, back into the fold. Democrats in both the House and Senate are scrambling to come up with a way to pay the estimated $1 trillion cost over the next decade.
UPDATE: In the latest approach to financing the overhaul, House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel told reporters this afternoon that the House bill to be unveiled on Monday would raise $540 billion over the next decade by imposing a 1 percent surtax on Americans with an annual income of more than $350,000. A higher surtax is proposed for people earning $500,000 and $1 million, he said.
Combined with savings promised by hospitals and pharmaceutical companies, including cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, the tax revenue is designed to be enough to pay for a bill costing about $1 trillion.
"Our team is working with members of Congress every day on this issue, and it is my highest legislative priority over the next month," Obama told reporters at the close of the G-8 summit in Italy.
He insisted that Washington is closer "at any time in recent history" to "achieving serious health care reform that cuts costs, provides coverage to American families, allows them to keep their doctors and plans that are working for them."
As both parties and both chambers work through the legislation, the president said, his job is to set "clear parameters" -- cutting costs, emphasizing prevention, covering the nearly 50 million uninsured, and doing it in a way that does not add to the federal deficit.
"There are going to be some tough negotiations in the days and weeks to come, but I'm confident that we're going to get it done," Obama added. "What I'm trying to keep focused on are the people out in states all across the country that are getting hammered by rising premiums. They're losing their jobs and suddenly losing their healthcare."
His full answer at the news conference is below:
Obama to make history in Africa
The first African-American president will arrive later today for his first visit to Africa. So understandably, there is quite a bit of buzz.
In Ghana, his public schedule on Saturday includes meeting Ghana's president at Christianborg Castle in Accra, then attending an event on maternal health at La General Hospital, and speaking to the Ghanaian parliament. Obama and Michelle Obama will travel to Cape Coast, where they will meet with Head Chief Osabarima Kwesi Atta II at his residence.
Obama's father was Kenyan, though he was raised by his Kansas-born mother. At the G-8 summit in Italy, Obama related his own family history as he pushed for more aid so that African countries can combat hunger and become self-sufficient in food.
"My father traveled to the United States a mere 50 years ago and yet now I have family members who live in villages -- they themselves are not going hungry, but live in villages where hunger is real," he said at the closing news conference today. "And so this is something that I understand in very personal terms, and if you talk to people on the ground in Africa, certainly in Kenya, they will say that part of the issue here is the institutions aren't working for ordinary people. And so governance is a vital concern that has to be addressed.
"Now keep in mind -- I want to be very careful -- Africa is a continent, not a country, and so you can't extrapolate from the experience of one country. And there are a lot of good things happening," he added. "Part of the reason that we're traveling to Ghana is because you've got there a functioning democracy, a President who's serious about reducing corruption, and you've seen significant economic growth.
"So I don't want to overly generalize it, but I do want to make the broader point that a government that is stable, that is not engaging in tribal conflicts, that can give people confidence and security that their work will be rewarded, that is investing in its people and their skills and talents, those countries can succeed, regardless of their history."
The White House put out a list of events being held in conjunction with Obama's speech by US embassies across Africa, below:
Obama's poll numbers drop
Is President Obama's honeymoon with the American public nearing an end?
A second poll out this week shows a noticeable drop in public confidence in the president, six months into his term. The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released today put his overall job approval rating at 61 percent -- and on a steady decline from 76 percent in February.
As telling, 70 percent of respondents believe Obama is "a strong and decisive leader," down from 80 percent in February; 56 percent think he generally agrees with them on issues they care about, down from 63 percent five months ago; and only 53 percent said he has a "clear plan" for solving the nation's problems, down from 64 percent.
While 79 percent approve of Obama personally, a smaller subset -- 58 percent -- approve both him personally and his job performance, and 19 percent like him personally but not his job performance.
The poll, conducted June 26-28, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. A poll in the bellwether state of Ohio also found decreasing confidence in Obama and his economic proposals.
Obama's decline largely tracks the economy, which remains mired in recession. New numbers out today showed that laid-off workers are having trouble finding jobs -- continuing claims for unemployment benefits jumped by 159,000 last week, reaching 6.88 million, the highest in records dating from 1967.
As dissatisfaction grows with the $787 billion economic stimulus plan and Obama is on his foreign trip, the White House is dispatching Vice President Joe Biden today to Cincinnati, Ohio, and Saratoga County, New York, to cheerlead for the stimulus.
Biden spoke in front of the American Can Building, an abandoned factory being turned into a mixed-use development with stimulus money, and announced approval of Cincinnati's plan to use a $3.5 million federal grant to revive neighborhoods and fix up affordable housing and public facilities.
Overall, $4.4 billion in stimulus money has been targeted for Ohio, including $2 billion for education, $1 billion for health care, and $445 million for transportation.
“Roads plus teachers plus cops plus jobs equals a community — and that equals paychecks and prosperity,” Biden said. “In other words, it equals a better future right here in Southwest Ohio.”
Later, at Shenendehowa High School in Clifton Park, N.Y., Biden announced that the Labor Department has authorized $275 million in additional jobless benefits for New York, making it easier for unemployed workers seeking part-time work and those unemployed for family reasons to be eligible for benefits
So far, New York is in line to get $16 billion, including $2 billion for education and $700 million for transportation.
“I see it everywhere we go: communities being rebuilt, factories being reopened, workers rehired — teachers in their classrooms, cops on the streets, families better able to live a quality life,” Biden said. “With the Recovery Act, Saratoga County and America are reclaiming our proud past — and, while we’re at it, creating a better future.”
Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the No. 2 Republican in the House, kept up the critique of the stimulus and adamantly opposed the idea of a second stimulus package.
"Clearly, we’re at the point now about five months after the passage of the spending bill that the administration is realizing that it’s not working," he said on Fox News Channel, one of a series of TV interviews he did today. "That frankly the stimulative effects that were intended have not come to fruition. And in fact, promises were made that we wouldn’t go over 8.5% unemployment. We know millions of people are losing their jobs. We’re inching toward 10% unemployment. So now’s not the time to start saying, ‘Hey, we need more of the same,’ because we know it didn’t work."
UPDATE: Late today, the Republican National Committee posted a hard-hitting web video called the stimulus "failed" and repeatedly slamming Obama.
The video shows Obama putting his feet up on the desk as the narrator talks about rising unemployment and deficits, and continually loops excerpts from an interview where Obama says he would have done nothing differently on the stimulus.
Jobs debate heats up
While President Obama discusses the global economy in Italy with other world leaders, the volume is getting dialed up on job losses at home.
The unemployment rate is at 9.5 percent -- the highest in 26 years -- and headed into double digits. Employers laid off another 467,000 workers last month, bringing to 6.5 million the net job losses since the recession began in December 2007. And criticism is growing of the $787 billion economic stimulus plan that Obama championed -- and why it isn't creating jobs quicker.
The epicenter of the debate this week is Ohio, the traditional presidential bellwether state where Obama spent quite a bit of time campaigning and where a new poll this week had worrisome numbers for Obama.
Respondents in the Quinnipiac University survey were evenly divided over Obama's handling of the economy -- 48 percent approved, 46 percent disapproved -- and his approval rating had dropped to 49 percent from 62 percent in May while his disapproval number rose to 44 percent from 31 percent.
Quinnipiac called Obama's numbers "lackluster," and said they were the lowest in any national or state poll it had conducted since his inauguration.
Representative John Boehner of Ohio, the top Republican in the House, caused a ruckus over the weekend by claiming that none of the contracts had been let for infrastructure projects funded by the stimulus.
The Democratic National Committee released a web video and is holding a news conference today in Ohio to rebut Boehner, who it says is being hypocritical since the House GOP stimulus plan had no infrastructure projects.
“Given that he championed and continues to advocate the very same economic policies that got us into this mess to begin with, perhaps John Boehner just doesn't know what creating new jobs looks like. Or perhaps he was willfully misleading the public about the effect of the President's economic recovery package to score political points,” DNC spokesman Hari Sevugan said in a statement. “Either way, considering that the Republican 'alternative' included ZERO funding for construction projects, it's the height of hypocrisy for Boehner to criticize the status of these projects at all.”
Michael Steel, a Boehner spokesman, responded: "Ohio was very nearly the last state to get the first 50 percent of its stimulus construction money obligated for construction projects, which is ridiculous. As of late May, approximately, no
contracts had been signed.
"Since that time, some contracts have been belatedly set in motion, but the entire process has been absurdly slow-moving -- just as Republicans warned it would be last winter when we called for an economic recovery bill based on fast-acting tax relief for small businesses and working families rather than spending on slow-moving government programs. It's embarrassing that the DNC can't defend its own indefensible trillion-dollar stimulus that isn't working
and resorts to desperate tactics like this."
The Obama administration concedes that the continuing job losses are unacceptable, but says that the stimulus package was always going to take some time to have measurable impact.
Vice President Joe Biden said over the weekend that the White House might have "misread" the depth of the recession; he plans to visit the state on Thursday to trumpet the stimulus.
But Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said on Fox Business Network that all the stimulus needs to be spent before serious consideration of a second stimulus package.
Solis said she can't predict when the unemployment rate will begin declining.
"We're not looking at just a quick fix here, we're looking at something that is going to take us out of this bad economy for the next decade," she said. "And we have to make these investments that were neglected in the last eight years."
Biden unveils deal with hospitals
Subbing for President Obama, who is at the G-8 economic summit in Italy, Vice President Joe Biden this morning formally announced the latest deal with the industry on a healthcare overhaul.
The nation's hospitals have tentatively agreed to forego about $155 billion in government payments for Medicaid and Medicare over the next decade -- about 20 percent of the $1 trillion projected to be needed to extend health coverage to about 47 million uninsured Americans.
Hospitals are cracking under the weight of uninsured patients getting treated in emergency rooms, Biden said, flanked by several hospital CEOs.
The deal follows some concessions by pharmaceutical firms, retail giant Wal-Mart's announcement last week that it would support an employer requirement to help pay for healthcare. The Obama team hopes such agreements build momentum for sweeping healthcare changes; the president wants to sign a bill this year.
"Reform is coming. It is on track. It is coming," Biden said.
Drug companies, doctors, and others are interested in healthcare overhaul. "We have the American public behind us," Biden added. (His full remarks are below.)
But even fellow Democrats in Congress are having qualms about the complexities of how to pay for a healthcare overhaul -- including whether to tax health benefits provided by employers -- and whether to create a new government insurance plan.
FULL ENTRYObama clarifies Biden on Iran
President Obama found himself today revising and extending remarks made by his number two on a hair-trigger topic -- Iran's apparent pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Vice President Joe Biden said Sunday on ABC's "This Week" that the administration wants to negotiate with Iran, but also seemed to suggest that the United States would not stop an Israeli pre-emptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.
"Look, Israel can determine for itself -- it's a sovereign nation -- what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else," Biden said. "Whether we agree or not," added the former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who has developed quite the reputation for misspeaking and straying off message.
Obama was asked on CNN this morning, "Are you giving Israel a green light?"
"Absolutely not," the president replied. "And I think it’s very important that I’m as clear as I can be, and our administration is as consistent as we can be on this issue."
"I think Vice President Biden stated a categorical fact which is we can't dictate to other countries what their security interests are," Obama added. "What is also true is that it is the policy of the United States to try to resolve the issue of Iran’s nuclear capabilities in a peaceful way through diplomatic channels. That is our policy, I have been talking about this for the last two years, we are going to continue to pursue this, and you know we have said directly to the Israelis that it is important to try and solve this in an international setting in a way that does not create major conflict in the Middle East.
"Now this is a tough job and nobody is under any illusions that it will be easy, and I've always said that we, the United States, preserve the right, and I as the commander in chief preserve the right to take whatever actions are necessary to protect the United States. But we are committed to a peaceful resolution to this conflict and I think it is still possible, but ultimately if we present an opportunity to the Iranians at some point, they've got to seize that opportunity."
Obama applauds healthcare progress
The White House just issued a statement this morning reacting to word of a deal with hospitals to help finance a healthcare overhaul.
"I am pleased by the progress we're making on health care reform and still believe, as I've said before, that one of the best ways to bring down costs, provide more choices, and assure quality is a public option that will force the insurance companies to compete and keep them honest. I look forward to a final product that achieves these very important goals," said the statement from President Obama, who is in Moscow for day two of his first Russian summit.
Administration and industry officials told several news organizations late Monday that after talks involving the White House and key Senate Democrats, the nation's hospitals were on the verge of signing off on a deal to reduce their anticipated payments from Medicare and Medicaid by about $155 billion over the next decade.
The government could use that money to help provide health coverage to millions who now lack it. The cost of healthcare overhaul is projected at $1 trillion or more over the next decade.
Kerry praises new nuke treaty
Senator John F. Kerry this afternoon praised the signing by President Obama and Russia's leader of a follow-up nuclear arms reduction treaty to START.
“I applaud President Obama and Russian President Medvedev for agreeing to negotiate an arms control treaty that will reduce the size of our two countries’ arsenals of deployed strategic nuclear warheads and strategic delivery vehicles to the lowest levels in decades. This is a very important early step toward the nonproliferation and long-term disarmament goals that President Obama set out in his April speech in Prague," Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement.
"With the START Treaty due to expire in December, it is vital that negotiations on the new treaty proceed urgently. The Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate will closely examine the new treaty once it is finalized, but I am confident that the treaty envisioned by this Joint Understanding will ultimately win Senate approval and enter into force.
“I also welcome and endorse President Medvedev’s comments on the state of our bilateral relationship. Russia is a essential partner in meeting the global challenges of the twenty-first century. Nuclear nonproliferation, climate change, international terrorism, and pandemic public health threats can only be addressed with our comprehensive cooperation.”
Obama tries to 'reset' Russia ties
Deep into the first US-Russia summit in seven years, President Obama and Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev today are issuing a series of joint statements to "reset" the soured relationship between the two superpowers.
They have agreed to pursue a new nuclear arms reduction treaty, to cooperate in Afghanistan, and to work together on public health, among other areas.
Their joint press conference is below, along with their joint statements on Afghanistan and nuclear nonproliferation, and the White House release on the joint agreements:
Obama speaks on Putin, Jackson, and more
Before he heads off for the July Fourth holiday, then a major foreign trip headlined by his first Russia summit, President Obama sat down today with the Associated Press and with religious news reporters for wide-ranging interviews.
Among highlights of the AP interview:
He laid down the law to former Russian President Vladimir Putin, who he said needs to "understand that the old Cold War approaches to US-Russian relations" are outdated. "Putin has one foot in the old ways of doing business and one foot in the new," Obama said.
Obama acknowledged severe misgivings about his own proposal to indefinitely hold some Guantanamo detainees -- a plan assailed by human rights groups. He said he would not be comfortable ordering the indefinite detentions -- which he wants for detainees who are dangerous but who don't have criminal cases facing them -- without congressional action.
He said the Supreme Court, which ruled this week in favor of white firefighters in a job promotion case in New Haven, Conn., was "moving the ball" away from affirmative action. But he said the high court had not completely ruled out the use of racial preferences in hiring and college admissions, which he said he supports in some circumstances.
He said he's not "reconciled" to Iran obtaining a usable nuclear weapon some time during his presidency.
He said he didn't see anything controversial in that he didn't issue a public statement about Michael Jackson's death: "I know a lot of people in the black community and I haven't heard that," he said, calling Jackson a brilliant performer whose music he has on his iPod.
The president said the White House pastry chef makes "the best pie I have ever tasted."
Asked to choose between basketball greats Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan, Obama didn't pause for even a second before picking "Michael. I haven't seen anybody match up with Jordan yet."
The transcript of the AP interview is below.
The Globe's Michael Paulson has a report on his blog about Obama's session with the Catholic and other religious news outlets.
In that interview, the president said he is waiting to pick a church in Washington, in part because of the political firestorm last year over his former Chicago pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., whom he repudiated over inflammatory sermons criticizing the US government and on other subjects.
Another plum post for Obama contributor
President Obama this afternoon nominated another batch of ambassadors.
And par for the course so far, career diplomats are getting, shall we say, the less high-profile posts -- while campaign donors are getting the plum spots.
As envoy to the Netherlands, Obama nominated Fay Hartog-Levin, a Chicago public relations executive who gave $2,100 directly to Obama's presidential campaign and another $28,500 to the Democratic Obama Victory Fund, according to campaignmoney.com .
The president picked longtime Foreign Service officers for the ambassadorships in Mongolia, Burkina Faso, and Swaziland, and a longtime academic for the one in Malta.
"I am confident that these fine individuals will represent our nation abroad with distinction, and strengthen our diplomatic efforts to meet 21st century challenges. I look forward to working with them in the months and years ahead,” Obama said in a statement.
The president has also tapped major fund-raisers or politicians for sought-after postings in European capitals including London, Paris, and Rome, as well as the high-profile embassies in Beijing and Tokyo. As part of his pledge to change Washington, he had suggested he would reduce the number of political appointees as ambassadors, and increase the ranks of career diplomats.
The full list is below:
FULL ENTRYConsumer groups out-lobbied on healthcare
President Obama has been urging the public to speak out on healthcare, warning that if they don't, their voices will be drowned out by special interests.
A watchdog group today put some numbers behind that admonition, reporting that health industry groups are vastly outspending consumer groups in lobbying Washington.
The Center for Responsive Politics says that consumer groups that favor Obama's proposals, including a public insurance plan to compete with private insurers, are being "decidedly outspent and out-lobbied by drug manufacturers, insurers, HMOs, and doctors' associations."
In the first three months of 2009, the US Chamber of Commerce, which has spent more money on lobbying since 1998 than any other group, and the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America paid lobbyists a combined $22.5 million to promote their interests.
In contrast, Families USA, a consumer group on healthcare has spent $10,000 on lobbying this year after spending only $32,000 total in 2008, the center says.
Obama faces mounting job losses
President Obama plans today to highlight the importance of innovation in creating jobs, but at this rate the White House would be happy with any kind of jobs at all.
The Labor Department reported this morning that employers slashed 467,000 jobs last month, bringing the net loss since the recession began in December 2007 to about 6.5 million.
While the job cuts were less than many economists expected, the unemployment rate still rose to 9.5 percent, the highest in 26 years, and most expect the jobless rate will reach 10 percent this year. About 14.7 million people were unemployed in June.
Besides the devastating impact on families and their towns, the growing unemployment rolls are a political problem for Obama, who championed the $787 billion economic stimulus plan, but wants to be able to show more impact to reassure Americans.
In a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released today, 40 percent of respondents said they believe the economy is still getting worse, while 48 percent said it has stabilized, and only 12 percent believe a recovery has begun.
In his last scheduled public event before decamping for Camp David for the Fourth of July holiday, the president plans to meet with the CEOs of large and small companies that are using innovation to add jobs.
His full remarks are below, followed by the White House release, including the list of attendees:
Obama has work to do selling health plan
President Obama is seeking to build more public support for his healthcare agenda, holding an online town hall meeting this afternoon at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale.
But newly released poll results show he has some work to do.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey found that 51 percent of Americans support Obama's health reform plans, while 45 percent oppose them. Those numbers, however, lag well below his overall job approval standards.
And the vast majority of Americans believe Obama's plans would cause their own medical costs to rise -- 54 percent in the poll said their costs would go up, while 17 percent said their bills would decrease, and 26 percent said costs would stay the same. More worrisome perhaps, only 20 percent of Americans said they would be better off with the healthcare overhaul, while 35 percent said they would worse off, and 44 percent said they would come out about the same.
Also, the number who believe that the healthcare system needs a "great deal" of reform has dipped slightly, to 55 percent now from 62 percent just before the November election.
Still, Americans trust Obama on healthcare more than congressional Republicans or Democrats. When Congress returns next week from its July Fourth recess, key Senate committees plan to resume detailed work on their proposals.
And so far, the poll suggests, Americans aren't buying the arguments of healthcare overhaul critics -- that the proposals would force patients to leave their doctors and that the plans would force private insurers out of business. Only 31 percent believe the former, and 42 percent the latter.
The poll, conducted June 26-28, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
At the town hall, Obama is answering questions from a live audience, as well as and online communities including Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.
Kicking off the event, Obama called healthcare one of the most important issues facing American families -- and one of the keys to long-term economic prosperity.
"We are at a defining moment for this nation," he said, reprising a reform theme from his campaign and confronting critics who say he is taking on too many ambitious proposals.
"America has waited too long," he said, to seriously deal with healthcare, as well as education and clean energy.
The president also addressed the concern that a healthcare overhaul designed to extend coverage to every American will cost too much -- more than $1 trillion over the next decade, according to most estimates.
"The costs of inaction, of doing nothing, are even greater and are unacceptable," Obama said, with healthcare inflation rising dramatically and increasing the federal deficit.
Beyond macroeconomics, healthcare problems are hurting real families every day, he said.
Obama vowed to get an overhaul plan through Congress this session.
"We are going to pass it this year," he said to applause. "That is my commitment. We are going to get it done."
But he cautioned that the most difficult work to passing a plan lies ahead. Naysayers are coming up with "every excuse and scare tactic in the book" to stall reform, he said.
To critics, he said he asks, what's their alternative and what they say to Americans who are without insurance or at risk of losing it.
"All of us are in this together," he said.
He urged the public to join the fight, saying that if Congress doesn't believe that Americans want real change, the lobbyists and special interests will carry the day.
(His full remarks, and the question-and-answer session, are below.)
Obama has mobilized his grassroots army to get the word out on healthcare. The post-election vehicle for Obama's campaign, Organizing for America, held a series of service-related healthcare events last week. And today, it sent supporters an email bragging about the turnout, including a video of highlights and a reference to a Boston Globe report about it.
"Last weekend, you were part of something big," wrote Jeremy Bird, the group's deputy director. "Americans like you came together across the country -- in community health centers, outside of supermarkets, in local schools -- to serve together and improve health care in your community. While serving your neighborhoods, you raised your voice and built momentum to finally fix this broken health care system. Thank you for your work."
Obama allies push energy bill
A pro-Obama, Democratic grassroots group unveiled a new TV ad today, lauding the House for passing a landmark climate change bill and urging supporters to call their senators to do the same.
The spot, from Americans United for Change, is to air in Washington this week and asserts that the legislation will create millions of clean energy jobs. "It’s a foundation for America’s long-term economic success, making us world leader in clean energy," the announcer says. "The challenge is global. And the solution uniquely American."
After lots of arm-twisting by President Obama and his aides, and quite a bit of horse-trading, the House on Friday narrowly passed the bill on a 219-212 vote. It is designed to lower how much carbon is pumped into the atmosphere through a "cap-and-trade" system in which carbon emissions are capped and permits to pollute are given away or sold by the government.
But the bill faces tough sledding in the Senate, and some observers don't believe it will pass this year, though Obama wants final passage before he attends an international global warming conference in Copenhagen.
Obama and his allies are ramping up their grassroots efforts to put pressure on senators.
“Thanks to the extraordinary leadership in Congress, America has taken a giant leap towards becoming the global standard for clean energy while creating millions of new jobs in the process," Tom McMahon, acting executive director of Americans United for Change, said in a statement. "This historic legislation will help build a solid foundation for long-term economic prosperity by meeting President Obama’s challenge to reduce our nation’s dependence on foreign oil and curbing pollution that causes global warming. This ad is designed to encourage Congress to continue standing up to the forces of ‘status quo’ and move this historic clean energy jobs bill to the President’s desk as quickly as possible.”
UPDATE: Organizing for America, the current iteration of Obama's grassroots campaign organization, is sending an email today to thousands of members in Representative Ed Markey's district, urging them to call the Massachusetts congressman with thanks for his leadership on the energy bill.
"We know that historic change is always tough, and enacting clean energy legislation is no exception," wrote Addisu Demissie, the group's political director. "But, with your help, on Friday the House passed a historic energy bill -- a critical first step toward rebuilding our economy with good green jobs, reducing harmful pollution, and breaking our dependence on foreign oil."
White House unveils rural tour
The White House announced late this afternoon that top officials will go on the road this summer -- not to big cities, but to often-neglected rural areas to discuss how communities, states, and the federal government can work together to strengthen rural America.
Vice President Joe Biden, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will kick off the Rural Tour on Wednesday to visit Wattsburg, Pa., to discuss the issue of rural broadband.
“A healthy American economy depends on a prosperous rural America,” President Obama said in a statement. “Rural America is vast and diverse, and different communities face different challenges and opportunities. That’s why we’re going out to hear directly from the people of rural America about their needs and concerns and what my Administration can do to support them.”
The other stops scheduled so far:
July 16, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Vilsack will travel to La Crosse, Wisc., to discuss rural economic development.
July 18, Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Vilsack will travel to Ringgold, Va., to discuss green jobs and a new energy economy, with a focus on weatherization and carbon sequestration.
July 20, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, and Vilsack will travel to St. John’s Parish, La., to discuss rural healthcare.
Aug. 12, Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Chu, and Vilsack will travel to Bethel, Alaska, to discuss rural infrastructure, green jobs and a new energy economy, as well as climate change.
Aug. 16, Salazar and Vilsack will travel to Zanesville, Ohio, to discuss green jobs and a new energy economy, with a focus on renewable energies.
Aug. 17, Duncan and Vilsack will travel to Hamlet, N.C., to discuss rural education.
Sept. 28, Salazar and Vilsack will travel to Scottsbluff, Neb., to discuss production agriculture.
Sept. 30, Donovan and Vilsack will travel to Las Cruces, N.M., to discuss rural infrastructure.
Coleman concedes Senate race to Franken
The long-running political saga known as the Minnesota US Senate election is finally over.
After the state's Supreme Court today ended the recount and affirmed Democratic challenger Al Franken as the winner, Republican incumbent Norm Coleman conceded. That cleared the way for Franken to be seated, giving Democrats a potentially filibuster-proof 60-vote majority in the Senate -- and giving a boost to President Obama's agenda.
"It's over," Coleman said, congratulating Franken.
"Sure I wanted to win, not just for myself but for my supporters," Coleman told reporters.
But he said that further litigation would damage the state. "We have to focus on the future, and the future is that we have a new US senator," he said.
In his own news conference about an hour after Coleman's, Franken said he was "so thrilled" that he could finally celebrate his victory and excited to start work for Minnesotans.
"We have a lot of work to do in Washington, but that's why I signed up for this job in the first place," said the new senator-elect.
He said he would work on healthcare, education, renewable energy, and the economy.Franken said Coleman called and was gracious in defeat.
Franken said he expects to be seated next week, when Congress returns from its July Fourth recess.
But he cautioned that he wouldn't always toe the party line.
"I know there's been a lot of talk about the fact that when I'm sworn in I'll be the 60th member of the Democratic caucus, but that's not how I see it," Franken told reporters outside his downtown Minneapolis town house. "The way I see it, I'm not going to Washington to be the 60th Democratic senator. I'm going to Washington to be the second senator from the state of Minnesota, and that's how I'm going to do this job."
"I promise to do my best, to work hard, to stand on principle when I believe I must, and, yes, to compromise when I believe that that is in the best interests of the people of Minnesota," he added.
Minutes after Coleman's concession, the White House issued a statement from Obama: "I look forward to working with Senator-Elect Franken to build a new foundation for growth and prosperity by lowering health care costs and investing in the kind of clean energy jobs and industries that will help America lead in the 21st century.”
The unanimous ruling (read it here) affirmed a trial court's decision that after the recount, Franken received 312 more votes than Coleman out of more than 2.4 million cast last November.
While the result has been tied up in the courts, Minnesota has been without its second US senator as Congress has tackled major legislation on the economy and other issues.
Before Coleman's concession, allies of Obama and Democrats quickly called on Coleman to concede and allow Franken, a former "Saturday Night Live" comedian, to be seated.
“On behalf of the Democratic National Committee, I congratulate Al Franken on his election to the United States Senate. Senator-Elect Franken must be seated as soon as possible. The people of Minnesota rightfully elected Al Franken to serve in the Senate and there is far too much work to be done for the state and the nation to drag this process on any longer,” Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine said in a statement.
“Today’s ruling from the Minnesota Supreme Court marks the end of the line for Norm Coleman's legal battle. For too long, Minnesotans have been denied their proper representation in Congress while Norm Coleman pursued his political ambitions. In light of today's decision, Norm Coleman should concede and Governor Pawlenty should sign the election certificate which Al Franken is entitled to, and which he pledged to do upon guidance from the court. Doing so will finally put this saga to an end and give Minnesotans their full voice in the U.S. Senate."
“Now that the Minnesota Supreme Court has made its final ruling, it is time to recognize Al Franken as the duly elected Senator from Minnesota. As is appropriate after any extremely close election, Minnesotans took the time to conduct an extensive and thorough recount process, but now that all reasonable legal options have been exhausted, Minnesota deserves its full representation in Congress. We call on Governor Pawlenty to pursue the state’s best interests and end this contest instead of favoring those who would allow the recount to continue for purely partisan reasons," Anna Burger, chairwoman of the Change to Win labor coalition, said in a statement.
"America’s workers congratulate Al Franken – and the people of Minnesota who have gone 226 days without a second Senator – for their unanimous victory today in the Minnesota Supreme Court," added AFL-CIO president John Sweeney.
"Working families are facing many challenges including a tough economy, lack of health care coverage and an out of balance economic system where workers do not have a voice at their job. With these colossal issues at stake it is essential that Minnesotans have both their senators to represent them and we urge Governor Pawlenty to immediately sign the election certificate so Franken can get to work.
Obama praises nonprofit, including N.H. group
President Obama this afternoon praised a New Hampshire nonprofit that helps poor people buy fuel-efficient reliable cars in a White House event designed to highlight innovative programs across the country.
Obama named Robert Chambers, president and co-founder of Bonnie CLAC, who attended the event. He came up with the idea for the group after working at an auto dealership and seeing low-income individuals forced to pay high interest rates when they purchased cars, the White House said.
Bonnie CLAC helps clients build their credit records and offers advice on selecting and buying vehicles. Since its founding in 2001, Bonnie CLAC has guaranteed more than $12 million in loans for more than 1,200 clients, the White House said.
Such groups, Obama said, hold the promise of finding solutions to persistent problems and to meeting unprecedented challenges because government can't do everything.
The president paid tribute to leaders and staffers of nonprofits. "The hours are long and the pay could be better, let's face it," he said.
But, he added, "You teach us there's no such thing as a lost cause."
(His full remarks are below, followed by the White House release.)
Obama also highlighted the Harlem Children's Zone, which includes a preschool and charter school; HopeLab, a California group that helps young people with chronic illnesses; and Genesys Works, a Houston-based nonprofit that trains and employs high school students to get them into major corporations
"These programs and others like them have the potential to make progress in education, training, health care, and other areas in more communities across the country," the White House said. "The President will call on foundations, philanthropists, and others in the private sector to partner with the government to find and invest in these innovative, high-impact solutions. Now more than ever, we need to build cross-sector partnerships to transform our schools, improve the health of Americans, and employ more people in clean energy and other emerging industries. These community solutions will help build the new foundation for the economy and the nation."
FULL ENTRYObama marks Iraq milestone
President Obama this afternoon marked the milestone in the US war in Iraq: US troops left Iraqi cities and handed over control to the Iraqi military police.
Iraqis, he said, "are rightly treating this day as a day for celebration."
Obama plans to withdraw all US combat troops by August 2010, but the president said the US stands ready to help.
"Make no mistake, there will be difficult days ahead," noting the bombing today in Kirkuk.
But he said he's confident that the insurgents will fail and that the forces trying to pull Iraq into the "abyss" of violence are on the wrong side of history.
He also took time to praise US troops, who he said have completed every mission given to them. His full remarks are below:
FULL ENTRYNader nags Obama on healthcare
Consumer activist Ralph Nader has a simple message for liberals feeling less warm and fuzzy about President Obama: "I told you so."
"Millions of Americans are feeling betrayed. They thought Obama as President meant change we can believe in. They thought Obama as President meant withdrawal from Iraq. They thought Obama as President meant standing up to Wall Street fat cats. They thought Obama as President meant a living wage," Nader, who ran a presidential campaign last year far less successful than his 2000 bid, said in an email to supporters today,
"But for those of you who stood with us during the 2008 Presidential campaign, you knew the score. You do not feel betrayed. You are immune to Obama Betrayal Syndrome," Nader continues. "Because you knew, as we pointed out repeatedly during the campaign, that Obama was the corporate Democrat. Beholden to large campaign contributors from Wall Street. From the military industrial complex. And from the health insurance pharma complex."
Nader's missive seeks donations for Single Payer Action, a new advocacy group pushing a healthcare plan along the lines of the national insurance plan in Canada.
Supporters of such a plan say it is the only way to cover everyone while cutting costs, but Obama is not among them, saying that while it might make sense if starting from scratch, it makes more sense now to build upon the current system, under which most Americans get their health coverage through their employer.
To combat critics who call his plan socialized medicine, the president reassures that he would not force anyone to change their coverage.
But Nader's new group isn't giving up. Single Payer Action members have confronted members of Congress in their home districts to press them on the issue.
"Let's break through the corporate barriers and make single payer for all a reality," he says in the email. "Together, we can make the difference. Onward to a life-saving, cost-saving single payer."
Obama brags on energy measures
President Obama held an event this afternoon to trumpet one of his biggest legislative victories so far -- the narrow House passage late Friday of the first-ever bill to tackle global warming.
The sweeping legislation, passed on a 219-212 vote, would rewrite US environmental policy in the most significant way since the 1970s Clean Air Act and would create a controversial cap-and-trade system that would limit carbon emissions and under which the government would sell or give away permits to emit limited amounts.
Obama said it is time for bold action to build on what he called more action on clean energy in the last few months than in the past few decades, including new fuel efficiency standards for all vehicles and green jobs in the economic stimulus plan. He also announced new efficiency standards, including compact fluorescent light bulbs. (His full remarks are below, followed by the White House release.)
He called the climate change bill "extraordinary," saying it will open the door to a clean energy economy, end US dependence on foreign oil, and create thousands of jobs. but he also has quibbles with the House version.
During his campaign, Obama called for all the pollution permits to be sold to help raise money for other priorities, but went along with House Democrats' plan to give many of them away to help lower the cost to industry.
On Sunday, Obama also acknowledged reservations about a provision that would punish trading partners that don't work to curb pollution. "At a time when the economy worldwide is still deep in recession and we've seen a significant drop in global trade, I think we have to be very careful about sending any protectionist signals out there," he told reporters.
House Republicans railed against the bill, saying it amounted to an energy tax on Americans -- and Senate Republicans quickly indicated they will use the same line of attack to try to stop the bill.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on "Fox News Sunday" that the measure would lead to "significant increases" in electricity costs across the country.
But in his weekly Internet and radio address on Saturday, Obama urged the Senate not to listen to the naysayers. "We cannot be afraid of the future," he said. "And we must not be prisoners of the past. Don’t believe the misinformation out there that suggests there is somehow a contradiction between investing in clean energy and economic growth. It’s just not true."
While Obama and supporters say the bill is a historic advance, some liberal allies say it doesn't go far enough.
MoveOn.org, the major advocacy group, sent a fund-raising missive to members today asking for a vote whether to fight the bill in the Senate.
"The US House passed a huge energy bill Friday. Lots of good people are applauding the passage of this legislation. But here's the ugly truth: Big Oil and Coal lobbyists, working in cahoots with some conservative Blue Dog Democrats, weakened the bill terribly—it now falls far short of President Obama's campaign vision to transition America's economy to clean energy and create millions of new jobs," the email said.
"In fact, the bill repeals a key part of the Clean Air Act and doesn't do nearly enough to shift America to renewable energy -- so instead of a boom in solar and wind, the bill locks us into dirty coal power for another generation.... o win in the Senate, we need to make sure everyone understands that the Clean Air Act is under attack and highlight the other big problems with the bill. If we decide to proceed with this campaign together, we'll boost progressive champions like those who fought in the House, and expose conservatives who do the bidding of the oil and coal industry."
Obama outlines healthcare savings
President Obama today offered part two of his healthcare overhaul pitch, and provided more detail on his pledge to find another $300 billion in savings to help pay for it.
Last week, in a detailed two-page letter to key senators laying out his core principles for a healthcare bill, Obama said he wanted to cut an additional $200 billion to $300 billion from Medicare and Medicaid over the next decade, on top of the $309 billion reduction he had already proposed in the government's two main healthcare programs for the poor, elderly, and disabled.
In his weekly radio and Internet address today, he says, "I am announcing an additional $313 billion in savings that will rein in unnecessary spending, and increase efficiency and the quality of care – savings that will ensure that we have nearly $950 billion set aside to offset the cost of health care reform over the next ten years."
"These savings will come from commonsense changes," he adds. "For example if more Americans are insured, we can cut payments that help hospitals treat patients without health insurance. If the drug makers pay their fair share, we can cut government spending on prescription drugs. And if doctors have incentives to provide the best care instead of more care, we can help Americans avoid the unnecessary hospital stays, treatments, and tests that drive up costs."
The proposals include incorporating "productivity adjustments" into Medicare payment changes, reducing subsidies to hospitals for treating the uninsured, getting lower prices on Medicare prescription drugs, adjust payment rates for CT scans, adopting an independent panel's recommendations on payments to nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, and the old standby of cutting "waste, fraud, and abuse."
(To see a White House fact sheet on the proposal, click here.)
"These savings underscore the fact that securing quality, affordable health care for the American people is tied directly to insisting upon fiscal responsibility. And these savings are rooted in the same principle that must guide our broader approach to reform: we will fix what’s broken, while building upon what works. If you like your plan and your doctor, you can keep them -- the only changes that you’ll see are lower costs and better health care," the president says.
Obama, who held a town hall meeting this week on healthcare and has mobilized his grassroots organization to lobby Congress, acknowledged that many in Congress, which is working on drafting healthcare bills, and elsewhere "question whether we can afford to act this year."
"But the unmistakable truth is that it would be irresponsible to not act," he says. "We can’t keep shifting a growing burden to future generations. With each passing year, health care costs consume a larger share of our nation’s spending, and contribute to yawning deficits that we cannot control. So let me be clear: health care reform is not part of the problem when it comes to our fiscal future, it is a fundamental part of the solution."
The full address is below, and the video can be viewed here.
Obama meets with Zimbabwe democracy leader
President Obama met today with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai of Zimbabwe, who is touring Western countries to seek badly needed aid for his country and convince leaders that his country is undergoing democratic reform.
Tsvangirai, himself, was arrested and abused by the regime of President Robert Mugabe, but in February joined him in a power-sharing coalition. Western leaders have isolated Zimbabwe and assailed Mugabe and are demanding widespread reforms.
After their meeting, Obama praised Tsvangirai, saying he admired his "courage and the tenacity that the Prime Minister has shown in navigating through some very difficult political times in Zimbabwe."
And the president seemed to offer hope for US aid.
"There was a time when Zimbabwe was the bread basket of Africa and continues to have enormous potential. It has gone through a very dark and difficult period politically. The President -- President Mugabe -- I think I've made my views clear, has not acted oftentimes in the best interest of the Zimbabwean people and has been resistant to the kinds of democratic changes that need to take place," Obama said.
"We now have a power-sharing agreement that shows promise, and we want to do everything we can to encourage the kinds of improvement not only on human rights and rule of law, freedom of the press and democracy that is so necessary, but also on the economic front."
(Their full remarks are below.)
Thursday, Tsvangirai met with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senator John F. Kerry and the Foreign Relations Committee.
“It was my pleasure to welcome Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today. Prime Minister Tsvangirai and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) have made real progress in stabilizing runaway inflation and trying to begin to create the conditions for democracy in Zimbabwe," Kerry said in a statement afterwards.
“The challenge before us now is how to help Zimbabwe’s agents of change in their efforts to promote democracy while still maintaining proper accountability. I believe that we should explore our options to increase assistance for reform. Failure to act now may squander this opportunity for change, and the greatest beneficiaries will be Robert Mugabe and the other architects of Zimbabwe’s destruction.”
Obama sees change in Iran election
So many Iranians wanted to vote today that officials kept the polls open two hours longer.
After a rambunctious campaign, there's a prospect that hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, an antagonist to Washington for years, could actually be ousted by reformist Mir Hossein Mousavi, a former prime minister who favors more engagement with the United States.
That, and the victory earlier in the week of moderates in Lebanon, is raising talk of an Obama effect for change -- something the president is not dissuading people from contemplating.
"We are excited to see what appears to be a robust debate taking place in Iran," Obama told reporters today. "And obviously, after the speech that I made in Cairo, we tried to send a clear message that we think there is the possibility of change.
"And ultimately, the election is for the Iranians to decide, but just as has been true in Lebanon, what can be true in Iran as well is that you're seeing people looking at new possibilities. And whoever ends up winning the election in Iran, the fact that there's been a robust debate hopefully will help advance our ability to engage them in new ways," he added.
McCain hits Obama on healthcare
Senator John McCain, hurt during the presidential campaign by his differences with President Obama on healthcare, is trying to turn the tables.
McCain today criticized Obama's insistence on a public insurance option to compete directly with private insurers.
“State run plans have driven the private insurers out…it ends up being more and in some cases prohibitively expensive,” the former GOP presidential nominee said on Fox News Channel.
McCain also pointed out that Obama is at least open to considering a tax on employer-paid healthcare benefits to pay for expanding access -- an idea that the president eviscerated McCain about during the campaign.
“The important thing is we wanted to give American families a $5,000 refundable tax credit which would have more than covered their healthcare insurance needs,” McCain said. "He spent tens of millions of dollars attacking me on that.”
“Life isn’t fair, elections have consequences and its interesting how there’s been numerous shifts on the president's positions on a number of issues since the election,” he added.
Gitmo population reduced by four
Only 234 more to go.
The number of detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp fell by four, US officials announced today, when four Chinese Muslims were released and resettled in, of all places, Bermuda, the British-administered island in the middle of the Atlantic.
They are among 17 Uighurs who were captured in Pakistan in 2001. The other 13 are to go to the South Pacific island of Palau, which will receive as much as $200 million in US aid. Officials determined the Uighurs were not anti-US terrorists, and would not return them to China, which says the Uighurs are an Islamic separatist movement.
The Center for Constitutional Rights, which has been pushing for their release, congratulated the four men, who will be in the guest worker program: Huzaifa Parhat, Abdusemet, Abdulnasser, and Jalal Jalaldin.
"We also offer our thanks to the government and people of Bermuda for extending humanitarian protection to four of Guantanamo's refugees. These men want nothing more than their freedom and a chance to restart their lives. We welcome Bermuda’s willingness to look beyond the stigma of Guantanamo and see this reality," the center said in a statement.
"We hope that Bermuda’s humanitarian gesture will encourage Australia, Portugal, Ireland, Canada, Germany and other countries in Europe to open their doors to resettlement of the remaining men who need a place to restart their lives. Many of these countries have already said that they would be willing to take in victims of Guantanamo. It is time for other countries to step forward and help close Guantanamo. After more than seven years of imprisonment, action is needed more than words. This holds true for our congressional representatives at home as well. Congress should immediately support the President's pledge to close Guantánamo on schedule.
"Guantanamo is America's gulag. The long nightmare for four of these innocent men is finally coming to a close. They cannot recover the years that they lost, but we hope that they will be able to start their lives again in freedom. The reality, however, is that at least 60 prisoners will remain at Guantanamo until other countries agree to resettle them. The issue now is not what the law requires, or what the United States itself should do, it is a moral issue."
But for President Obama to keep his promise to close Guantanamo by January, the administration will have to persuade several other countries to take detainees.
On Tuesday, the first Guantanamo detainee arrived on US soil to stand trial in federal civilian court. Ahmed Ghailani, a Tanzanian who was captured in Pakistan in 2004, is facing charges in connection with 1998 Al Qaeda bombings at the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans.
Besides sending detainees elsewhere and putting detainees on trial then housing them in high-security US prisons if they're convicted, Obama also plans to use a revised form of military tribunals for those charged with violating the rules of war, and has proposed indefinite detention for those who the government does not have enough usable evidence against, but who the administration believes are too dangerous to release.
UPDATE: There's talk of a compromise in Congress that would allow Guantanamo detainees to face trial in the United States, but would not allow them to stay if they're convicted.
White House spokesman Bill Burton didn't directly confirm the possible deal, but told reporters today on Air Force One, "Well, we've obviously been talking to folks in the Democratic and Republican parties in both the House and the Senate to find the best possible solution to ensure the safety and security of Americans, and to make sure that justice is done here on the detainees who are going to be going to be prosecuted in criminal courts. And so I'm not going to get into the back and forth on what's happening in the negotiations other than to say that the President has obviously been talking to folks on both sides."
Asked where detainees would serve their sentences, Burton replied, "Well, I don't want to prejudge the conclusion of a result that hasn't come to pass just yet."
On the road again, for healthcare
President Obama took to the road again today, hosting another town hall meeting, this one on healthcare.
He is trying to build public support behind a goal that has eluded his predecessors for decades -- an overhaul of the healthcare system to cut costs and expand access. It is not only his top domestic legislative priority for the rest of the year, but success is also crucial to getting the federal deficit under control so he can pay for other ambitious initiatives.
And in his opening remarks to the crowd in Green Bay, Wisc., he tried to state the case for healthcare overhaul as simply and clearly as possible.
"Every day in this country, more and more Americans are forced to worry not simply about getting well, but whether they can afford to get well. Millions more wonder if they can afford the routine care necessary to stay well," he said.
"If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan," Obama added, urging the crowd not to listen to those who want to try to scare the public otherwise.
"But in order to preserve what’s best about our health care system, we have to fix what doesn’t work."
"Healthcare reform is not just something I just cooked up when I took office," Obama added. "It is central to our economic future – it's central to our long-term prosperity as a nation."
Several bills are starting to wend their way through Congress, but Obama made clear last week that there are principles on which he will not compromise -- lowering costs, expanding access, and offering a public insurance plan to compete with private insurers.
"The question now is, how do we finish the job? How do we permanently bring down costs and make quality, affordable healthcare available to every single American?" Obama asked in the town hall. "My view is that reform should be guided by a simple principle: we fix what’s broken and we will build on what works."
The first question came from a self-employed woman who asked why Obama isn't considering a so-called single-payer system, similar to the government health plans in Canada and Britain.
Prefacing his answer, Obama said there had been confusion in the press and public. He said he opposes what critics call "socialized" medicine -- an entirely government-run system. He said while there are some advantages to a single payer plan, where there are private doctors but they are paid from one source -- the government -- to minimize disruptions and to do what is politically possible, he supports building on the existing system, where most people get their insurance through work.
"We're not starting from scratch," he said.
Obama also said that he's not "ideologically" tied to any solution and is more than happy to steal good ideas.
He also made time to write a school absence excuse note for Kennedy, the daughter of another questioner, and handed it to her. (Will it be on eBay by this afternoon?)
Obama picked Green Bay for the town hall because by several measures, it is a model for controlling medical spending while improving the health of patients.
"We have to ask why places like Geisinger Health systems in rural Pennsylvania, or Intermountain Health in Salt Lake City, or communities like Green Bay can offer high-quality care at costs well below average, but other places in America can’t," Obama said. "We need to identify the best practices across the country, learn from the successes, and then duplicate those successes everywhere elsewhere. And we should change the warped incentives that reward doctors and hospitals based on how many tests or procedures they do, even if those tests or procedures aren’t necessary or result from medical mistakes.
"Doctors did not get into the medical profession to be bean counters or paper pushers; they're not interesting in spending all their time acting like lawyers or business executives," he added. "They became doctors to heal people. And that’s what we must free them to do." (Read his full remarks, including the question-and-answer, below.)
But many doctors also went into the profession to make a good living, and many of the proposals being bandied about could cut into their income, particularly those of highly-paid specialists.
So Monday in Chicago, Obama will face a far less friendly audience for his case for a healthcare overhaul. He plans to speak to the American Medical Association, which with about 250,000 members is the nation's largest group of physicians and which opposes the public insurance option.
Asked about the AMA's stand, White House spokesman Bill Burton told reporters today: "He knew at the beginning of this process that people would oppose and support different elements that were on and off the table, and this is just one part of the process. He's going to talk to the AMA on Monday, and thinks that we'll be able to have an open and honest dialogue about the issues that we're all very concerned about.
"Well, he is going to continue to work with everybody, people who even oppose a lot of the things that we're for right now," Burton added. "But what's important is that we come to the table with a lot more common ground than there has been in the past, giving some momentum to health care reform happening this year."
Obama will talk to doctors on healthcare
President Obama plans next week to make his case for a healthcare overhaul to a group that has helped block major changes before -- the nation's doctors.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs announced today that the president will speak next Monday to the American Medical Association's annual gathering in Chicago.
"He'll start with the recognition that the healthcare system status quo is unsustainable and he'll outline the case for healthcare reform," Gibbs told reporters at his daily briefing. "He'll make clear why we can't afford to wait another year or another administration to bring down costs that are crushing families, businesses, and government.
"In the speech the president will discuss the reasons why past efforts have failed and he'll address the consequences of failing to act again this year," Gibbs added. He'll lay out plainly what healthcare reform will mean for American families and their doctors and what it won't. The president will also address the importance of making sure that reform doesn't add to our deficit, and what we can do to strengthen what works in our health care system and to fix what's broken so that we can build -- what we build provides the best care in the world at the lowest cost.
Earlier today, Obama summoned key lawmakers to the White House again today to push them to reach a deal. Afterwards, there were reports that key Democratic and Republican said a compromise may be emerging on one of the biggest disputes -- whether to create a government-sponsored health plan to compete with private insurers.
The compromise would create nonprofit health cooperatives owned by groups of patients, similar to how electric or other cooperatives operate, and without the government involvement that troubles Republicans and business groups about the public plan, the Associate Press reported.
The senators said Obama was willing to listen to all sides but insisted that Congress must pass a bill this year that reins in costs and helps provide coverage to nearly 50 million uninsured people.
Kennedy panel introduces health bill
After a year of deliberation, the Senate health committee led by Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts today formally unveiled its healthcare overhaul bill.
But it's only one of several competing bills that Congress and President Obama will eventually try to reconcile. House Democratic leaders today offered their own proposal that includes a new tax on employer-provided health benefits to help pay for expanding coverage to the uninsured, and a requirement for all individuals to purchase affordable coverage, with an unspecified penalty for those who refuse and a waiver for those who cannot cover the cost.
And the Kennedy panel bill -- the "Affordable Health Choice Act" -- does not for now include one of the most controversial proposals that the committee's Democrats and Republicans are still haggling over -- a public insurance plan that would directly compete with private insurers.
The Kennedy bill also leaves out, pending further negotiation with Republicans, a requirement that employers provide health benefits to workers.
The legislation would require all individuals to have health insurance, ban insurers from refusing to cover pre-existing conditions, and establish online "exchanges" where the uninsured and employees of small companies could shop for affordable insurance.
“Our health care system is a crisis for American families and President Obama and members of Congress of both parties recognize the urgency of the problem. Our goal is to strengthen what works and fix what doesn’t. Over the next few days, we will continue working with our Republican colleagues on common sense solutions that reduce skyrocketing health care costs, assure quality care for all and provide affordable health insurance choices. Much work remains, and the coming days and weeks won’t be easy. But we have a unique opportunity to give the American people, at long last, the health care they need and deserve,” Kennedy said in a statement.
The committee plans a public hearing on the bill on Thursday. To read it, click here. A summary is below.
During Kennedy's battle with brain cancer, Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut has been deputized to push the legislation. He announced today that Kennedy, who is undergoing treatment, would be unable to attend the committee's working sessions on the bill next week.
“Health care reform cannot and must not wait. Today, we will introduce legislation that will strengthen what works and fix what doesn’t. If you like the insurance you have today, you can keep it. If you don’t like what you have today, we’ll give you better choices, including a public option for health care. This does not symbolize the end of the game or even the end of the first quarter. We still have a lot of work ahead of us and are looking forward to working with our colleagues on a bipartisan basis to resolve the remaining issues and move forward with a mark-up of this legislation next week,” Dodd said in a statement.
The House efforts are being led by three powerful Democrats: Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel of New York, Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman of California, and Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller of California. To see an outline of their legislation, click here.
“Our Committees are working as one to develop a uniquely-American solution to the health care crisis that is endangering the financial security of individuals and businesses," they said in a joint statement. "This solution will fulfill President Obama's commitment to provide quality, affordable health care for all. This framework will build upon what works by ensuring that patients can keep their health coverage if they like it, preserve patients’ choice and reduce costs. We will also fix what is broken through marketplace reforms, sliding scale credits to make coverage more affordable, and provisions to combat waste, fraud and abuse, strengthen Medicare and Medicaid, and invest in the health care workforce and public health. By improving the current system and offering a public health insurance option to promote honest competition with private insurance plans, we will provide individuals and small businesses with better, more affordable choices.
“We will continue to seek input and work closely with our colleagues, outside stakeholders, and the Administration and are on track to introduce legislation shortly. We anticipate Committee action on health reform in the coming weeks, with legislation on the House Floor prior to the August district work period. Reforming America’s health care system is critical to our country’s long-term economic recovery and long-term fiscal health. We are confident that we will achieve reform that will give Americans peace of mind and return our great nation to a path of prosperity for generations to come.”
Obama met this afternoon with Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee about the healthcare bill. Afterwards, the White House released this statement:
"The President had a productive meeting with Democrats from the House Ways and Means Committee, in which they agreed that health reform legislation must lower costs and expand coverage and must not add to the deficit. The President told the members that he will be spelling out additional savings for Medicare and Medicaid soon. He reiterated his support for his revenue-raising proposal, which would return the itemized deduction rate for the wealthiest Americans back to what it was when Ronald Reagan was President. The President and the members discussed some of the important components of reforming America’s health care system, such as emphasizing primary care, prevention and wellness. They agreed to aim for a timetable in which final passage of the bill would take place in October."
Obama praises return of bailout money
President Obama bragged this afternoon about 10 of the nation's largest banks repaying $68 billion in government bailout money.
"Taxpayer dollars were used to stabilize the financial system at a time of extraordinary stress. And these funds were also meant to be an investment -- and they were meant to be temporary. And that's why this morning's announcement is important," the president said at the White House.
"Several financial institutions are set to pay back $68 billion to taxpayers. And while we know that we will not escape the worst financial crisis in decades without some losses to taxpayers, it's worth noting that in the first round of repayments from these companies the government has actually turned a profit," he added.
"This is not a sign that our troubles are over -- far from it. The financial crisis this administration inherited is still creating painful challenges for businesses and families alike. And I think everybody sees it in their own individual districts. But it is a positive sign. We're seeing an initial return on a few of these investments. We're restoring funds to the Treasury where they'll be available to safeguard against continuing risks to financial stability. And as this money is returned, we'll see our national debt lessened by $68 billion -- billions of dollars that this generation will not have to borrow and future generations will not have to repay.
"I've said repeatedly that I have no interest in managing the banking system -- or, for that matter, running auto companies or other private institutions. So today's announcement is welcome news to me. But I also want to say the return of these funds does not provide forgiveness for past excesses or permission for future misdeeds. It's critical that as our country emerges from this period of crisis, that we learn its lessons; that those who seek reward do not take reckless risk; that short-term gains are not pursued without regard for long-term consequences."
The Treasury Department announced today that it has approved the repayments from the banks, which withdrew cash from the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program created by Congress last October at the height of the financial crisis.
Obama tackles public doubts on spending
Barack Obama is president, but he's also still a politician.
So after trying to shore up his support on how he's handling the economy with a high-profile pledge on Monday to ramp up the impact of the $787 billion stimulus package, today he's focusing on his weakest area -- federal spending.
With the deficit this year headed to a record $1.8 trillion -- four times the previous high -- Obama outlined new rules that would require Congress to pay for any new tax cuts or spending, including an overhaul of the healthcare system.
He spoke at the White House on what is known as "PAYGO" -- as in pay as you go.
"The 'pay as you go' rule is very simple," he said. "Congress can only spend a dollar if it saves a dollar elsewhere. This principle guides responsible families managing a budget. And it is no coincidence that this rule was in place when we moved from record deficits to record surpluses in the 1990s -- and that when this rule was abandoned, we returned to record deficits that doubled the national debt. Entitlement increases and tax cuts need to be paid for. They are not free, and borrowing to finance them is not a sustainable long-term policy.
"Paying for what you spend is basic common sense. Perhaps that's why, here in Washington, it has been so elusive."
Obama said he is sending Congress a bill to turn the proposals into law.
(His full remarks are below, followed by a White House release on the proposals.)
Obama announced rules -- similar to those used by President Bill Clinton to produce budget surpluses -- that would ban lawmakers from expanding entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security, creating new entitlement programs, or cutting taxes unless they are paid for with spending cuts or tax increases. If lawmakers fail to do so, entitlement programs would be automatically cut.
Obama invited members of Congress, including fiscally conservative Democrats in the "Blue Dog Coalition," whose support he needs on healthcare and other parts of his ambitious agenda.
A new Gallup Poll reinforces that while Obama's job overall approval rating remains high at 61 percent, and he gets high marks on his handling of foreign affairs, his disapproval number is at the highest of his presidency, at 34 percent, eroded by increasing doubts on some of his policies. Disapproval of how he is handling the economy has risen from 30 percent in February to 42 percent in late May.
And more Americans now disapprove than approve how he is handling the federal budget deficit (46 percent approval, 48 percent disapproval) and how he is controlling federal spending (45 percent approval, 51 percent disapproval).
"This latest Gallup Poll shows that the US public has significantly differentiated views on various dimensions relating to Obama. Americans are most positive when asked about their basic opinions of Obama as a person. They also are positive when asked to assess his overall job performance, and on aspects of his performance relating to foreign and international issues. Americans have become increasingly less positive about Obama's handling of the economy in recent months, and are most negative when asked to say whether they approve of his handling of the federal deficit and federal spending," Gallup says.
"The good news for Obama is that the public continues to be quite positive when asked to rate him as a person and to rate his overall job performance -- both of which are presumably summaries of Americans' views of their president across all of the ways in which he could be evaluated."
The new poll, conducted May 29-31, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Faster stimulus for Massachusetts
By Alan Wirzbicki, Globe correspondent
WASHINGTON -- The White House pulled out all the stops today, seeking to reassure Americans that the $787 billion economic stimulus package is working and outlining plans to save or create 600,000 jobs in the next three months by speeding up the program.
It launched a new website, it offered specific figures on the projects nationwide where spending will be accelerated, and top economic adviser had a PowerPoint presentation, including maps filled with dots pinpointing the projects.
But getting an actual list of projects turned out be heavy lifting. The White House didn't provide one, but referred reporters to various departments.
Some agencies had state-by-state rundowns, but others didn't. Curiously, for instance, the White House said that work would begin or be sped up on 20 Superfund sites, but the Environmental Protection Agency could not identify them. (Three sites in Massachusetts -- New Bedford Harbor, Hatheway & Patterson in Mansfield, and Silresin Chemical in Lowell -- are eventually scheduled to receive between $45 million and $85 million in stimulus funding.)
Here's what the Globe was able to compile about Massachusetts:
Agriculture: Start 200 new rural wastewater and water systems nationwide.
Massachusetts: Manchaug water district in Sutton, $1.4 million in grants and loans.
Defense: Initiate 2,300 projects at 359 military facilities nationwide.
Massachusetts: Unavailable.
Education: Fund 135,000 jobs, including teachers, principals and support staff nationwide.
Massachusetts: Unavailable.
Environment: Begin or accelerate cleanup at 20 Superfund sites nationwide.
Massachusetts: Unavailable.
Health and Human Services: Enable 1,129 health centers to serve 300,000 patients nationwide.
Massachusetts: 36 community clinics, $9.9 million total.
Interior: Begin repairs and other work at 107 national parks and historic sites nationwide.
Massachusetts: Charlestown Navy Yard, Bunker Hill Monument, Historic Longfellow House, Lowell historic mills, Saugus Iron Works, $9.2 million total.
Justice: Speed grants to hire or keep on the job 5,000 law enforcement officers nationwide.
Massachusetts: 210 agencies have applied for money for 922 jobs so far.
Labor: Create 125,000 summer youth jobs nationwide.
Massachusetts: $25 million for slots, including about 800 in Boston.
Transportation: Begin work on projects at 98 airports and more than 1,500 highway locations nationwide.
Massachusetts: Taxiway repairs at Hanscom Field in Bedford, Beverly Municipal Airport, and Orange Municipal Airport.
Also, Interstate 95 between Lexington and Reading, Route 6 in Swansea, Routes 18 and 28 in Bridgewater and Middlesborough, Route 116 in Adams, Route 6 in Bourne, $15.3 million total.
Veterans: Begin improvements at 90 veterans medical centers in 38 states.
Massachusetts: Unavailable.
Note: Dollar figures represent total funding, not necessarily how much will be spent in next three months.
Obama wants to ramp up stimulus
After reaching out to Muslims and reassuring allies on his second world trip, President Obama returned today to job one on the domestic front -- reviving the economy, still bleeding hundreds of thousands of jobs a month.
He and Vice President Joe Biden convened his cabinet this morning to ramp up the impact of the $787 billion stimulus package in its second 100 days, announcing 10 major new projects designed to create or save more than 600,000 jobs in the second 100 days – compared to 150,000 in the first 100 days.
UPDATE: Before the cabinet session, Obama said the slowing pace of job losses is "a sign we're moving in the right direction."
But there are still far too many people losing their jobs and in danger of losing their homes, he said. It's a reminder that the US is still in a "very deep" recession and it will take a "considerable amount of time" to pull out of the tailspin.
The Labor Department reported on Friday that employers cut 345,000 jobs in May -- the lowest monthly total since September. But 787,000 more people joined the unemployment rolls, increasing the national rate to 9.4 percent, the highest in more than a quarter century.
Obama highlighted the impact of the stimulus package, but acknowledged that continuing job losses will further the negative economic cycle by reducing spending and hurting businesses. Now, he said, the stimulus package must reverse that cycle.
"I'm not satisfied. We've got more work to do," he said. "Now we're in a position to really accelerate."
Obama pledged anew to spend the money transparently and avoiding "boondoggles." And he hit back at his critics, saying that they should talk to people who have been helped by the stimulus package.
(The full remarks of Obama and Biden are below.)
The White House statement asserted that the work during the first 100 days "focused on providing immediate relief to hard-hit families and communities, jump-starting shovel-ready projects, and laying the foundation for large-scale infrastructure improvement programs."
The White House also released a "roadmap to recovery" -- a graphic representation of where the new projects will happen. It said that Obama will urge the cabinet to meet these targets during the second 100 days:
Enable 1,129 health centers to serve 300,000 patients – Department of Health and Human Services
Begin work on 107 national parks – Department of the Interior
Begin work on projects at 98 airports and more than 1,500 highway locations – Department of Transportation
Fund 135,000 education jobs, including teachers, principals and support staff – Department of Education
Begin improvements at 90 veterans medical centers in 38 States – Department of Veterans Affairs
Hire or keep on the job 5,000 law enforcement officers – Department of Justice
Start 200 new waste and water systems in rural America – United States Department of Agriculture
Begin or accelerate cleanup work at 20 Superfund sites -- Environmental Protection Agency
Create 125,000 summer youth jobs – Department of Labor
Initiate 2,300 construction and rehabilitation projects at 359 military facilities - Department of Defense
Obama has been under fire from Republicans and others for what they call the slow pace of job creation. Not a single House Republican voted for the package before it passed in February, and its leadership sent out a list of questions this morning in advance of Obama's announcement:
Does anyone really know how many jobs the stimulus has “saved or created”?
Why is stimulus spending bypassing the states hit hardest by the recession?
Does anyone know how much stimulus money has actually been spent?
Does $59,000 equal $27 million in stimulus money spent?
Who is being scammed by the stimulus?
Republicans also immediately jumped on a remark this morning by Vice President Joe Biden's chief economist, Jared Bernstein.
"The 600,000 jobs are full-time equivalence, meaning that if there are two part-time jobs they count as one full-time job. So that's some real employment in the job market,” Bernstein said on CNBC.
"Apparently, the 600,000 jobs the stimulus will 'save or create' over the next 100 days are not long-term, full-time jobs but temporary, part-time jobs. It’s statements like these that lead to real questions about the administration’s stimulus math," said Joe Pounder, a spokesman for Representative Eric Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House.
One group critical of Obama, Americans for Tax Reform, put out statistics of its own today, questioning the White House jobs saved number.
Figuring in the 1.5 million jobs lost since Obama signed the stimulus bill in February, and the $47.3 billion spent as of May 29, the group said "each lost job has cost taxpayers $2,900."
But Obama's labor allies praised his push. The Laborers International Union of North America's general president Terry O’Sullivan, issued a statement: "We commend President Obama and Vice President Biden for working to accelerate the speed of jobs created from the economic recovery plan. While the pace of construction job loss was cut by half in the last month, we agree with the Obama administration that 'not as bad is not good enough.' The best thing to bring relief to struggling Americans is good jobs with good paychecks."
"The economic recovery plan has already started to put people back to work and accelerating the funding for projects to build America will create more jobs that workers desperately need," O'Sullivan continued. "But even after the recovery plan creates or support an anticipated 700,000 construction jobs, there will still be more than 1 million unemployed construction workers. To create good jobs and demonstrate a sustained commitment to fixing our economy and taking care of our country we need a much greater investment to build America starting with the upcoming surface transportation reauthorization and the water bill currently waiting for action in the Senate. We know what’s working to get people back to work – for the sake of our country and economy, we must not only do it faster, but also do more of it."
FULL ENTRYObama praises Lebanon vote
President Obama this morning issued a positive statement about the election in Lebanon, where a US-supported alliance appeared to keep control of the parliament against the militant group Hezbollah.
Sunday's balloting was seen as a key test between Iran and the US for influence in Lebanon, and came just three days after Obama's much-publicized address to the Muslim world.
"I congratulate the people of Lebanon for holding a peaceful election yesterday," the president said in a statement. "The high turnout and the candidates – too many of whom know personally the violence that has marred Lebanon – are the strongest indications yet of the Lebanese desire for security and prosperity. Once more, the people of Lebanon have demonstrated to the world their courage and the strength of their commitment to democracy.
"The United States will continue to support a sovereign and independent Lebanon, committed to peace, including the full implementation of all United Nations Security Council Resolutions. It is our sincere hope that the next government will continue along the path towards building a sovereign, independent and stable Lebanon," Obama continued.
"Government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who hold power: you must maintain your power through consent, not coercion; you must respect the rights of minorities, and participate with a spirit of tolerance and compromise; you must place the interests of your people and the legitimate workings of the political process above your party. Commitment to these principles of peace and moderation are the best means to secure a sovereign and prosperous Lebanon."
Obama presses case for healthcare overhaul
President Obama, who this week staked out his clearest guideposts yet of what he wants in a healthcare overhaul, uses his weekly radio and Internet address to reinforce the point.
"We must attack the root causes of skyrocketing healthcare costs," he says, adding that "any healthcare reform must be built around fundamental reforms that lower costs, improve quality and coverage, and also protect consumer choice."
Obama told Congress that Americans should have the option of a new public health insurance program -- something that Republicans and private insurers oppose, that he is open to requiring individuals to obtain insurance as long as there is a hardship waiver for those who can afford it, and that he wants to cut $200 billion to $300 billion more from Medicare and Medicaid over the next decade.
In his address today, he puts the best face on the state of play in Washington, asserting that an "unprecedented coalition" has "come together for change. Unlike past attempts at reforming our health care system, everyone is at the table – patient’s advocates and health insurers; business and labor; Democrats and Republicans alike."
With Congress just starting the nitty-gritty work of drafting detailed bills, then trying to reach compromise, the president says that fixing the healthcare system cannot be postponed any longer. His grassroots campaign group, Organizing for America, is holding thousands of house parties and other events across the country to kick off a lobbying effort behind his healthcare proposals.
"All across America, our families are making hard choices when it comes to health care. Now, it’s time for Washington to make the right ones," he concludes. "It’s time to deliver. And I am absolutely convinced that if we keep working together and living up to our mutual responsibilities; if we place the American people’s interests above the special interests; we will seize this historic opportunity to finally fix what ails our broken health care system, and strengthen our economy and our country now and for decades to come."
His full speech is below, and can be viewed here.
Dodd invites healthcare fixes
Senator Chris Dodd, the lead negotiator on the health committee for now on a healthcare overhaul, is asking for ideas from constituents, who not so coincidentally will decide whether he keeps his job after what looks like a tough election next year.
Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, has a video on his Senate website inviting viewers to submit suggestions to the Senate YouTube channel.
"It's clear everybody the current system isn't working," Dodd says in the video. The healthcare system needs major fixes for economic reasons -- it's costing more and more -- and the "human condition" -- the estimated 50 million uninsured, he said.
But Dodd also made clear a principle also espoused by President Obama -- that those who get their insurance through their employer won't lose it. "If you like what you've got, you can keep what you've got," Dodd said.
"I look forward to your idea, let us hear from you," he concludes.
He is filling in for Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, the health committee's chairman who is undergoing treatment for brain cancer.
Biden says stimulus package will pick up pace
Responding to the latest unemployment numbers, Vice President Joe Biden said today that he and President Obama will announce Monday plans to "ramp up" the pace of projects from the $787 billion economic stimulus plan.
The Labor Department reported that while employers cut 345,000 jobs in May -- the lowest monthly total since September -- the national unemployment rate still rose to 9.4 percent, the highest in more than a quarter century.
Biden called the numbers "tough" but said there are also "some signs of hope today," according to the press pool report before his meeting with his chief economist, Jared Bernstein, and Christina Romer, chairwoman of the White House Council of Economic Advisors.
Still, he told reporters, "It doesn't satisfy me, it doesn't satisfy the president. Less bad is not how we're going to measure success. We will not be satisfied until we are adding jobs on a monthly basis."
He did not offer more specifics about the Monday announcement.
Biden, who was put in charge of overseeing the recovery package by Obama, said that 3,600 projects are underway from the stimulus package, and that today's jobs report shows "some signs" of this.
"We still have a very long way to go," Biden said, adding "We're working to build that foundation every day we're here." (His full remarks are below.)
Critics, however, have complained that money for roads and other infrastructure projects, and have questioned the administration's jobs figures -- more than 150,000 saved or created as of late last month, 100 days after the stimulus was passed.
But the top House Republican, John Boehner of Ohio, used the jobs report to lay into the Obama administration's policies and the effectiveness of the stimulus package, which not a single GOP representative supported.
"Today's unemployment rate is the highest in more than a quarter century, and it's another reminder of how Washington is hanging middle-class Americans out to dry. More than 2.5 million Americans have lost their jobs this year, and what have the Democrats in charge of Washington given them? A trillion-dollar 'stimulus' that isn't producing jobs immediately, as the Administration promised, and that Vice President Biden admits is ripping off the American people. Another $400 billion spending bill loaded with 9,000 unscrutinized earmarks. And bailouts that reward irresponsible behavior and bad business decisions. These policies are harming middle class families when they can least afford it and adding to the massive debt inherited by future generations," he said in a statement.
"There is a better way. Doubling down on the Democrats' plans to tax more, spend more, and borrow more from our children and grandchildren is not the right answer to this economic crisis. Republicans have offered better solutions to create more jobs, curb spending, cut taxes, rebuild savings, and control the debt, and we have reached out to our Democratic counterparts to work on these policies in a constructive way. I urge Democrats in Congress and the Administration to finally follow through on their promises of bipartisan cooperation."
Obama taps Raytheon exec as envoy to Saudi Arabia
President Obama this afternoon announced another batch of nominees for ambassadorships, including a Raytheon executive as envoy to Saudi Arabia.
Retired Air Force General Brigadier General James B. Smith is an international business development executive at Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems.
Another former executive at the Waltham-based defense contractor, William Lynn III, won confirmation to the No. 2 job at the Pentagon, overcoming questions about his ties to Raytheon.
The other picks are: Carlos Pascual for Mexico, David Jacobson for Canada, Donald Gips to South Africa, Patricia N. Moller to Guinea, Nicole A. Avant to the Bahamas, Kenneth H. Merten to Haiti, and Anne E. Derse to Lithuania.
“I am grateful that these individuals will help represent our nation abroad during this important time for our country and the world. They bring a depth of experience and I look forward to working with them in the months and years to come,” Obama said in a statement.
Avant is a California music executive, who along with her family, has been a major donors to the Democratic Party, the Associated Press reports. Avant raised at least $500,000 for Obama and donated the maximum $4,600 to his campaign.
Gips, a Colorado communications executive and former aide to former Vice President Al Gore, raised at least $500,000 for Obama, the AP says, citing the Center for Responsive Politics.
And Jacobson, an Illinois lawyer, raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for Obama, the AP said.
Obama pledged during the campaign to reduce the number of political appointees and boost the number of career diplomats serving as American envoys abroad, but his early selections have included more than a few politicians and major donors, raising concerns about inexperience and patronage.
Last week, the president announced his nominees for coveted posts in London, Paris, and Tokyo, and they were all major Obama fund-raisers.
John Roos, the nominee for Japan, is a California technology lawyer and campaign fund-raiser who collected at least $500,000 for Obama's campaign. Louis Susman, who would serve in Britain, is a former Citigroup vice president from Chicago who raised at least $100,000 as an Obama bundler. He also contributed $50,000 for Obama's inauguration. Charles Rivkin, the nominee for France, is a former financial analyst at Salomon Brothers who runs a California entertainment company and who raised more than $500,000 for Obama.
The White House-provided mini-biographies of today's picks are below:
US reaction to Obama speech
Domestic reaction to President Obama's Cairo speech is filtering in, and given its sweep and ambition, the reviews are decidedly mixed.
Senator John F. Kerry, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, called Obama's speech "blunt" but necessary to put the United States and Muslim countries on a new path.
"President Obama's blunt, honest address in Cairo was absolutely critical in signaling a new era of understanding with Muslim communities worldwide," Kerry said in a statement. "He shattered stereotypes on both sides, reminded the west and the Muslim world of our responsibilities, and reaffirmed one of America's highest ideals and traditional roles -- that those who seek freedom and democracy, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, have no greater friend than the United States of America.
"We know that one impressive speech will not erase years of mistrust and missed opportunities just as Dr. King's 'I Have A Dream' speech did not complete the civil rights movement. Deeds will have to follow words. President Obama did not paper over difficult challenges from combating violent extremism and resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to dealing with Iran’s nuclear weapons program and threats to religious freedom and women’s equality. These will all require tough-minded diplomacy and global cooperation. But in addressing these challenges directly, President Obama has created an historic opportunity to find a new beginning. "
But the Republican Jewish Coalition faulted Obama for treating Israelis and Palestinians too equally.
"President Barack Obama, in his major speech in Cairo this morning, struck a balanced tone with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and that's what was wrong with this speech," the coalition's executive director, Matthew Brooks, said in a statement.
"American policy should not be balanced - it should side with those who fight terror, not those who either engage in it or are too weak to prevent it. This conflict will not reach a peaceful conclusion until the Palestinians put an end to terrorism, violence, and incitement against Israel. American policy has long been to support Israel - a fellow democracy and committed ally of this country - in its efforts to achieve lasting security for its citizens. Israel's good faith efforts have been met by unremitting Palestinian violence and what is in effect an internal Palestinian civil war. Peace and security go hand in hand - Israel has repeatedly reached out her hand in peace only to have it slapped back. The President's remarks to the world's Muslims today appear to mark the beginning of a worrisome shift in U.S. policy.
"We urge President Obama to return to the policy of holding the security of Israel as a key American priority and requiring significant, concrete, and verifiable moves toward peace from the Palestinian side."
But Ira N. Forman, CEO of the National Jewish Democratic Council, was more positive.
"President Barack Obama's speech this morning in Cairo did not just reiterate what the audience wanted to hear," Forman said in a statement. "Instead, Obama was forthright about the necessity for acceptance of the Jewish homeland in Israel and called for Palestinian abandonment of violence. We praise Obama for reaching out to the Muslim world and for his commitment to Middle East peace. Similarly, we recognize his wisdom in speaking directly to the Muslim world about the need to abandon fantasies of destroying Israel and in reiterating America's unbreakable bond with the Jewish State."
Activists on the humanitarian crisis and conflict in Darfur -- which the US State Department has labeled a genocide -- said that Obama's "failure to call for a joint push for peace in Sudan is a glaring omission."
"The President rightly called the situation in Darfur 'a stain on our collective conscience,'” said Enough Project executive director John Norris said in a statement, "but that is not enough. The president needs to articulate a clear vision of how a lasting peace is going to be achieved for all of Sudan, and demonstrate through his actions rather than just his words that this is a political priority. The situation in Darfur deserves more than a single sentence of the president's attention."
Jerry Fowler, president of the Save Darfur Coalition, added, "President Obama missed an important opportunity in his Cairo speech to the Muslim world by not reiterating his commitment to lead for peace in Sudan, where 2.7 million Muslim civilians have been driven from their homes and hundreds of thousands have perished because of violence orchestrated by the government. President Obama could have asked all governments in the region to join him in offering a choice to Khartoum between concrete progress toward peace, which will result in improved relations, or continued obstructionism and use of violence, which will lead to increased isolation."
David Harris, national executive director of the American Jewish Committee, gave mixed marks to Obama.
“In the heart of a region where denial is routine – denial of Israel’s right to exist, denial of the historic link of Jews to their homeland, denial of the Holocaust – President Obama spoke the truth with a clear, unwavering voice,” Harris said in a statement.
But he added, Obama should have been more explicit about the danger Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons poses to the entire Middle East and to global security.
"Iran's theocratic regime is a world leader in supporting terrorism, threatening moderate Arab regimes, and orchestrating the chorus of extremists who deny Israel's right to exist,” said Harris. “The U.S. has an obligation to more vigorously lead the international community in stopping the Iranian nuclear program."
Republicans outline budget cuts
Answering a challenge from President Obama, House Republicans today outlined what they called "common-sense" savings totaling $375 billion over five years.
In a letter and proposals to Obama, the Republicans listed a host proposals -- many of them familiar -- including consolidating federal arts funding, ending "ineffective" and "duplicative" education programs, and terminating other small-bore federal agencies. (Click here to read them.)
"The President challenged us to come up with budget savings, and today House Republicans encourage him to not only look over our proposed list of $375 billion common-sense taxpayer savings, but to join our effort," Representative Eric Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House, said in a statement. "For the sake of our young people and America’s long-term fiscal viability, Congress simply cannot keep spending money that the President himself admits we don’t have. We have an opportunity to work together to finally start to bring some accountability to the way Washington spends taxpayer dollars, and I hope it’s taken seriously by the Administration and the Democrat majorities in Congress."
That would be far more than the $100 million in budget savings that Obama outlined at his first cabinet meeting in April. The president said those trims would set a new tone, but acknowledged they amount to a "drop in the bucket" when the federal deficit is projected to reach a record $1.84 trillion this year -- four times the previous high.
Obama's $3.6 trillion budget for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1 has been criticized, by some Democrats as well as Republicans, because it would mean a projected $9.3 trillion in deficits over the next decade.
President meets with Egypt's Mubarak
President Obama met for the first time today with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a key figure if there is to be a peace deal in the Middle East.
The White House released their introductory remarks heading into their private session.
"I'd like to welcome President Obama to Egypt," Mubarak said, according to the White House translation. "This is his first -- our first meeting together. We discussed so many issues -- the Middle East issues -- interests in the region. We also discussed all problems here in the region, the situation and everything related to Iran and to the region.
"I repeat welcoming Mr. Obama. We discussed everything candidly and frankly, without any reservation. But there are other meetings that will take place later either in the United States of America or anywhere else. Thank you very much.
Obama replied, "Well, I just want to thank President Mubarak, as well as the people of Egypt, for their wonderful hospitality. I'm very much looking forward to speaking at the university this afternoon. I wanted to first sit down with President Mubarak, who obviously has decades of experience on a whole range of issues.
"As the President has indicated, we discussed the situation with Israel and the Palestinians. We discussed how we can move forward in a constructive way that brings about peace and prosperity for all people in the region. And I emphasized to him that America is committed to working in partnership with the countries in the region so that all people can meet their aspirations.
"And I'm very much looking forward in the months and years to come to continuing to consult with the President. And I've communicated to him and I want to communicate to the Egyptian people our greetings from America. Thank you."
Obama addresses Muslims
Here is the full text of President Obama's speech to the Muslim world:
Thank you very much. Good afternoon. I am honored to be in the timeless city of Cairo, and to be hosted by two remarkable institutions. For over a thousand years, Al-Azhar has stood as a beacon of Islamic learning; and for over a century, Cairo University has been a source of Egypt's advancement. And together, you represent the harmony between tradition and progress. I'm grateful for your hospitality, and the hospitality of the people of Egypt. And I'm also proud to carry with me the goodwill of the American people, and a greeting of peace from Muslim communities in my country: Assalaamu alaykum. (Applause.)
We meet at a time of great tension between the United States and Muslims around the world -- tension rooted in historical forces that go beyond any current policy debate. The relationship between Islam and the West includes centuries of coexistence and cooperation, but also conflict and religious wars. More recently, tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations. Moreover, the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalization led many Muslims to view the West as hostile to the traditions of Islam.
Violent extremists have exploited these tensions in a small but potent minority of Muslims. The attacks of September 11, 2001 and the continued efforts of these extremists to engage in violence against civilians has led some in my country to view Islam as inevitably hostile not only to America and Western countries, but also to human rights. All this has bred more fear and more mistrust.
So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, those who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity. And this cycle of suspicion and discord must end.
I've come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles -- principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.
I do so recognizing that change cannot happen overnight. I know there's been a lot of publicity about this speech, but no single speech can eradicate years of mistrust, nor can I answer in the time that I have this afternoon all the complex questions that brought us to this point. But I am convinced that in order to move forward, we must say openly to each other the things we hold in our hearts and that too often are said only behind closed doors. There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other; to learn from each other; to respect one another; and to seek common ground. As the Holy Koran tells us, "Be conscious of God and speak always the truth." (Applause.) That is what I will try to do today -- to speak the truth as best I can, humbled by the task before us, and firm in my belief that the interests we share as human beings are far more powerful than the forces that drive us apart.
(Speech continues below.)
Speechwriter previews Obama's address to Muslims
Here's the latest sneak peek into President Obama's much-anticipated, much-hyped speech to the Muslim world, courtesy of Obama's foreign policy speechwriter Ben Rhodes.
Thursday in Cairo, Obama plans to talk about mutual respect, the role of Muslim Americans, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, democracy and human rights, and possible partnerships in the future, Rhodes told reporters today in Saudi Arabia.
"He feels it's important to speak very openly and candidly about the very full range of issues that have caused some tensions between the United States and the Muslim world, and then also present a great deal of opportunity for partnership in the future," Rhodes said.
His full preview is below:
FULL ENTRYObama, McCain call for cutting nuclear weapons
John McCain and Barack Obama -- presidential rivals last year -- agreed today on the need for progress to a world free of nuclear weapons.
McCain, the veteran Republican senator from Arizona, spoke on the Senate floor to mark the unveiling of a statue in the Capitol Rotunda of the late President Ronald Reagan, who also dreamed of a nuke-free world.
"This is a distant and difficult goal," McCain said. "And we must proceed toward it prudently and pragmatically, and with a focused concern for our security and the security of allies who depend on us. But the Cold War ended almost twenty years ago, and the time has come to take further measures to reduce dramatically the number of nuclear weapons in the world's arsenals. In so doing, the United States can – and indeed, must – show the kind of leadership the world expects from us, in the tradition of American presidents who worked to reduce the nuclear threat to mankind."
McCain called for a reduction in the US nuclear arsenal, while continuing "to deploy a safe and reliable nuclear deterrent, robust missile defenses, and superior conventional forces capable of defending the United States and our allies."
He also called for a more robust stance against Iran and North Korea, saying "the US must lead the world not only in reducing the size of existing nuclear arsenals, but also in reversing the course of nuclear proliferation. This requires a tough, and tough-minded, approach to both Iran and North Korea, both of whom have gotten away with too much for far too long."
Obama, who called for eventually ridding the world of nuclear weapons in a major speech in Prague in April, issued a statement welcoming McCain's speech.
"In my speech in Prague, I outlined my agenda for keeping the American people safe from the dangers posed by nuclear weapons, and I am grateful to John McCain for his leadership on these critical issues," he said in a statement. "I have outlined an ambitious strategy for promoting arms control and preventing nuclear terrorism and proliferation, which is already bearing fruit. I look forward to working with Senator McCain and the entire Congress to ensure that we accomplish these goals together for the American people and the security of the entire planet."
Obama meets Saudi king
On the first leg of his second foreign trip in office, President Obama today received a warm welcome -- and another not-so-nice greeting.
King Abdullah hosted Obama at his private farm. "I also want to express my best wishes to the friendly American people who are represented by a distinguished man who deserves to be in this position," the king said before their meeting.
Obama said, "This is my first visit to Saudi Arabia, but I've had several conversations with His Majesty. And I've been struck by his wisdom and his graciousness. Obviously the United States and Saudi Arabia have a long history of friendship, we have a strategic relationship. And as I take this trip and we'll be visiting Cairo tomorrow, I thought it was very important to come to the place where Islam began and to seek His Majesty's counsel and to discuss with him many of the issues that we confront here in the Middle East."
UPDATE: After their private meeting, the White House issued a one-paragraph synopsis:
"President Obama and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia met today and discussed a wide range of issues including Middle East peace, the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan, energy, Iran and other matters affecting the region. The President and the King also discussed the President's upcoming speech to the Muslim world. The President and King pledged to remain in close contact in order to continue to make progress on these and other issues central to the US-Saudi relationship."
But as Obama landed in the Middle East, Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden issued a new audiotape threatening Americans and accusing Obama of inflaming hatred toward the United States by urging Pakistan to launch a campaign of "killing, fighting, bombing and destruction" against Taliban militants in the Swat Valley, where the Islamabad government had agreed to a truce and had allowed the Taliban to impose religious law.
Obama urges Kennedy, Baucus to press ahead on healthcare
President Obama, in a lengthy letter to the key bill writers in the Senate, presses his case for a healthcare overhaul this year, reinforcing that legislation should both expand access and cut costs.
"We simply cannot afford to postpone health care reform any longer," Obama wrote to Senators Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Max Baucus of Montana. "In short, the status quo is broken, and pouring money into a broken system only perpetuates its inefficiencies."
The White House released the letter -- the clearest summary yet of what Obama wants in a healthcare plan -- today (read it here), a day after Obama summoned key senators to the White House to urge them to find common ground.
But an united front might be easier to say than accomplish. Though they insist they will come up with a single compromise bill, Kennedy, chairman of the health committee, and Baucus, chairman of the finance committee, have been squabbling over whether legislation should include a public insurance plan that would directly compete with private insurers.
Obama's letter repeats his goals for healthcare overhaul, and his hope that a bill reaches his desk by October.
He reiterated his support for allowing people to keep the plans they get through their jobs if they want, but also to offer the new public health insurance plan to compete against private insurers. "This will give them a better range of choices, make the health care market more competitive, and keep insurance companies honest," Obama wrote.
He also says he is "open" to proposals on requiring individuals to obtain coverage, but calls for a "hardship waiver" like the one in Massachusetts for those who can't afford it and says more needs to be done to make coverage affordable.
On top of $309 billion he wants to cut from overall healthcare spending over 10 years, he says he wants to cut an additional $200 billion to $300 billion from Medicare and Medicaid over 10 years.
The letter does not address the issue of taxing healthcare benefits to help finance the bill, which he opposed during his campaign but which senators said he suggested he was open to considering in Tuesday's meeting. The White House quickly clarified that it was not his first choice.
Obama, Kerry urge relief for Pakistan
President Obama is asking Congress for $200 million to help the estimated 2.5 million Pakistanis displaced by the fighting in Swat Valley, where the Pakistan government is trying to root out Taliban militants at the urging of the United States.
"These funds will provide displaced people in Pakistan with urgent relief and resettlement assistance," he said in the request to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi released Tuesday night by the White House.
Senator John F. Kerry, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, is also urging more humanitarian aid for Pakistan.
“The humanitarian crisis in Swat gets worse every day, which is why it’s so critical that the government of Pakistan and the Obama Administration undertake immediate joint relief operations modeled on our successful efforts following the 2005 Kashmir earthquake," the Massachusetts Democrat said in a statement today. "The United States must commit military assets, such as Chinook heavy-lift helicopters, combat engineers and uniformed medical personnel, that the Pakistani government needs to facilitate these efforts without further delay. When terrorist groups such as Jamaat-ud Dawa are reportedly already operating relief camps in Swat, there is no basis for turning back the far more capable assistance of the United States military.
“The statistics underscore the emergency: between two and three million civilians have been displaced and have little or no access to adequate shelter, food or medical care. In a few weeks, the summer monsoons will turn ramshackle camps into fetid swamps, incubators for a host of preventable epidemics. History has already taught us that poorly-resourced refugee communities are prime breeding grounds for extremist movements; the Taliban itself had its genesis in the Afghan refugee community driven into Pakistan during the 1980s and 1990s. We don’t need to repeat that disaster when instead we can show America’s true commitment to the Pakistani people.”
Obama's supplemental budget request also includes $2 billion "out of an abundance of caution" to fight the swine flu outbreak. To read it, click here.
Obama lowers expectations for Muslim speech
In a series of pre-trip interviews, President Obama is doing his darndest to lower the bar for his highly-anticipated speech Thursday in Cairo to the Muslim world.
In somewhat different words, he told National Public Radio, the British Broadcasting Co., and Canal Plus of France on Monday and NBC News in an interview broadcast this evening, that the speech is only a first step to improving relations between the United States and Muslim countries.
To Canal Plus, according to the transcript the White House released this afternoon: "Now, I think it's very important to understand that one speech is not going to solve all the problems in the Middle East. And so I think expectations should be somewhat modest.
"What I want to do is to create a better dialogue so that the Muslim world understands more effectively how the United States but also how the West thinks about many of these difficult issues like terrorism, like democracy, to discuss the framework for what's happened in Iraq and Afghanistan and our outreach to Iran, and also how we view the prospects for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
"Now, the flip side is I think that the United States and the West generally, we have to educate ourselves more effectively on Islam. And one of the points I want to make is, is that if you actually took the number of Muslims Americans, we'd be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world. And so there's got to be a better dialogue and a better understanding between the two peoples."
On NBC: "I also don't want to, you know, load up too many expectations on this speech. After all, one speech is not gonna transform very real policy differences and some very difficult issues surrounding the Middle East and the relationship between Islam and the west.
"But I am confident that we're in a moment where in Islamic countries, I think there's a recognition that the path of extremism is not actually gonna deliver a better life for people. I think there's a recognition that simply being anti-American is not gonna solve their problems. The steps we're taking now to leave Iraq takes that issue and diffuses it a little bit.
"And the question then is, how do we now go forward with an honest, serious-- relationship based on mutual respect and-- and mutual interest? And so what I hope will happen, as a consequence of this speech, is people will have a better sense of how America views its relationship to the broader world and to Islam....I do hope that we can start opening a dialogue that'll be more constructive moving forward."
On the BBC: "I think what we want to do is open a dialogue. And, you know, there are misapprehensions about the West on the part of the Muslim world and obviously there are some big misapprehensions about the Muslim world when it comes to those of us in the West. And it is my firm belief that no one speech is going to solve every problem, there are no silver bullets. There are very real policy issues that have to be worked through that are difficult, and ultimately it's going to be action and not words that determine the path of progress from here on out.
"But it did seem to me that this was an opportunity for us to get both sides to listen to each other a little bit more and hopefully learn something about different cultures."
On NPR, he was also asked about the challenge of being at war in Muslim countries, where civilian casualties are all too commonplace.
"Well, there's no doubt that anytime you have civilian casualties that always complicates things, whether it was a Muslim or a non-Muslim country," he replied. "I think part of what I'll be addressing in my speech is a reminder that the reason that we're in Afghanistan is very simple, and that is 3,000 Americans were killed and you had a devastating attack on the American homeland; the organization that planned those attacks intends to carry out further attacks and we cannot stand by and allow that to happen.
"But I am somebody who is very anxious to have the Afghan government and the Pakistani government have the capacity to ensure that those safe havens don't exist. And so it's -- I think will be an important reminder that we have no territorial ambitions in Afghanistan. We don't have an interest in exploiting the resources of Afghanistan. What we want is simply that people aren’t hanging out in Afghanistan who are plotting to bomb the United States. And I think that's a fairly modest goal that other Muslim countries should be able to understand."
Obama presses for action on healthcare
By Lisa Wangsness, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- Just before leaving for his trip to the Middle East and Europe, President Obama summoned key Senate Democrats to the White House this afternoon to rally the troops for a healthcare overhaul.
Before the meeting, Obama said getting a healthcare bill passed is "not a luxury," and said the period between now and Congress's monthlong recess in August is the "make-or-break period."
He also said a bill must not only cover more people, but also reduce the cost of healthcare, according to the press pool report. "If we don't get control over costs, then it is going to be very difficult for us to expand coverage," he said. "These two things have to go hand in hand."
(His full remarks are below.)
But in the last several days, differences have emerged between the two main architects of the healthcare legislation in the Senate, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Max Baucus of Montana.
Kennedy, chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, is leaning toward creating a widely available Medicare-style public insurance option. But Baucus, the Finance Committee chairman, wants a bipartisan solution -- and Republicans consider Kennedy's public plan an intolerable threat to the private insurance industry.
The White House and Baucus also publicly disagreed today over how the bill should be financed, with the administration opposing Baucus's proposal to tax a portion of healthcare benefits provided by employers.
The list of senators expected to attend the White House meeting is below:
FULL ENTRYPoll: Most agree with Cheney on Guantanamo
On overall popularity, President Obama rates light years ahead of former Vice President Dick Cheney.
But on the issue of whether to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center for terrorist suspects, Cheney appears to winning the public opinion battle, a new poll suggests.
In a USA Today/Gallup survey released today, Americans oppose closing Guantanamo by more than a two-to-one margin and oppose bringing any of the detainees to US soil by more than three-to-one. And by 40 percent to 18 percent, respondents said Guantanamo had made America safer.
The survey, conducted on Friday through Sunday, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The debate over Guantanamo exploded in back-to-back speeches May 21 in Washington, with Obama trying to explain his decision and Cheney blasting it.
Obama has also had trouble getting Democratic allies in Congress to go along. Last month, they stripped $80 million to close Guantanamo out of bills to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
White House lays out economic case for health overhaul
The White House, trying to build the case for a healthcare overhaul, released tonight what it calls "the economic case for healthcare reform."
Billed as a "comprehensive analysis" by the president's Council of Economic Advisers, the 56-page report asserts that by slowing the rise of healthcare costs through the overhaul would pay off in a big way for the US economy. Read it here.
Healthcare spending now totals about 18 percent of the country's entire economic output and is projected to reach one third of the gross domestic product by 2040.
The report says that reducing the rise in healthcare costs by 1.5 percentage points a year would increase the real GDP by 2 percent in 2020 and nearly 8 percent in 2030.
That means families would have more disposable income, since less of it would be going to healthcare -- $2,600 more in 2020 and almost $10,000 more by 2030, according to the report.
The analysis also says controlling healthcare spending would lower the unemployment rate by 0.25 percentage points for several years, would help keep the federal budget deficit under control, and help increase the labor supply and level the playing field between small and large businesses.
And the report argued that extending insurance coverage to the uninsured would increase "net economic well-being" by about $100 billion a year, about 0.67 percent of GDP.
Christina Romer, the council's chairwoman, said that lowering health costs would also reduce pressure on government budgets, leaving more room for other priorities such as education.
UPDATE: Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, a key player in drafting a healthcare bill, praised the council's report.
“The council’s report emphasizes the major economic benefit to the nation that will also be achieved if we make health care a basic right for all," he said in a statement. "In the current economic crisis, more and more families are being forced to leave their preferred doctors, forgo medication they need, or are even losing their health insurance entirely because their employer can no longer afford a health plan. We can’t afford to miss this chance to give the American people, at long last, the health care they deserve.”
Republicans and others remain skeptical.
“This report is nothing more than smoke and mirrors. Everyone agrees that reducing the cost of healthcare would benefit our economy, but the administration hasn’t offered a credible plan to do so without raising taxes or rationing care,” House Republican leader John Boehner said in a statement.
Poll: Americans wary of Muslim world
President Obama leaves tonight for a four-day trip to the Middle East and Europe on which the highest profile event will be a speech in Cairo reaching out to the Muslim world.
But a newly released poll suggests that when it comes to US-Muslim relations, he has a lot of work to do back home.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey found that only about 20 percent of Americans have a favorable view of Muslim countries, while 46 percent have an unfavorable view. That unfavorable number is up five percentage points from 2002 -- soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The respondents said that they believe people in Muslim countries have even more negative views of the United States, with nearly 80 percent saying that Muslims hold an unfavorable view.
Also, while 62 percent said they don't believe the US is at war with the Muslim world, 36 percent believe the US is at war with some Muslim countries.
The poll was conducted May 14-17 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Obama visits with war injured
President Obama visited wounded service members today at the Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., the first of two such events for him this week.
Reporters were not allowed to tag along, but Obama met with 26 inpatients and about 30 outpatients and their families, according to the press pool report. He also met with hospital staff and awarded two Purple Hearts. Bethesda is one of the military's major hospitals for the injured from Iraq and Afghanistan who require extended care, including those who have lost limbs.
On Friday, Obama plans to visit the Landstuhl medical center in Germany, the first stop on the way home for many of the seriously injured in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Obama, Abbas talk peace
By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- President Obama received Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the White House today with a valuable welcoming gift: a toughly-worded, categorical US demand for Israel to stop settlements in Palestinian territories.
But hours before the two men met, the Israeli government flatly rejected the demand. Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said that "normal life in those communities must be allowed to continue," meaning that some construction will continue in existing settlements.
Obama and Abbas appeared to see eye to eye, speaking of the need for increased support from Arab governments to support the peace process by showing good faith in their promise to recognize the existence of the Jewish state if Israel strikes a peace deal with Palestinians.
But nowhere was the confluence of views so striking as in the Obama administration's position on settlements, which the president outlined directly to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week at the White House.
After meeting with Abbas, Obama told reporters he stands firmly behind "core principles" toward peace, including a two-state solution, Israel "stopping settlements," and Palestinians preventing attacks on Israel.
"I am confident we can move this process forward," if all sides live up to prior obligations and negotiate in good faith, the president said.
Abbas said the Palestinian Authority will live up to all its obligations under the so-called roadmap, a 2003 document callding for a two-state solution and presented to Israel and by negotiators for the "quartet" -- the United States, the United Nations, the European Union, and Russia.
"I believe time is of the essence," he said through an interpreter.
Their full remarks are below:
FULL ENTRYTime is now on healthcare, Obama says
It's now or never on healthcare, President Obama told his millions of grassroots backers today, urging them to organize and lobby their senators and representatives.
In a call from Air Force One as he returned from a western fund-raising swing, Obama said that if Congress doesn't pass a healthcare overhaul this year, the opportunity will be lost, perhaps forever, the Associated Press reports.
"If we don't get it done this year, we're not going to get it done," Obama told supporters. "The election in November, it didn't bring about change. It gave us an opportunity for change."
Organizing for America, the group housed within the Democratic National Committee that is his presidential campaign from last year and his re-election campaign in waiting, plans a June 6 kickoff on healthcare with house parties across the country.
It has been 16 years since the last sweeping effort, during the Clinton administration, which failed partly due to opposition from the insurance industry. This time, the insurers are offering concessions to head off a public insurance plan that would directly compete.
Obama's remarks on the conference call with supporters is below:
Obama will visit military hospital, finally
President Obama, who took some grief for cancelling a visit to a military hospital in Germany during his triumphant European tour last summer, will get there a year later.
The White House announced this morning that Obama "will visit wounded warriors and their families at Landstuhl Regional Medical Facility" next Friday, the same day he plans to visit the Buchenwald concentration camp.
"Landstuhl supports our service men and women stationed in Europe, and serves a leading and vital role in the care and recovery of personnel medically evacuated from Afghanistan, Iraq, and other forward-deployed posts within the U.S. European Command, Central Command and Africa Command areas of responsibility," the White House announcement said.
There was confusion and conflicting accounts of why Obama nixed his visit last July. His campaign said he didn't want to make a political visit during the height of the presidential campaign.
Republican rival John McCain bashed him on the issue, putting out a TV ad that said, "He made time to go to the gym, but cancelled a visit with wounded troops. Seems the Pentagon wouldn't allow him to bring cameras. John McCain is always there for our troops."
Obama names ambassador nominees
President Obama this evening announced a slew of nominations for high-profile ambassador posts, including those to Britain, France, India, and Japan.
The nominees:
Michael A. Battle, Sr., ambassador to the African Union. Battle is president of the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta.
Vilma S. Martinez, ambassador to Argentina. Martinez is a lawyer and president of the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
Thomas A. Shannon, ambassador to Brazil. Shannon is assistant secretary of state for Western hemisphere affairs.
Laurie S. Fulton, ambassador to Denmark. Fulton is a Washington lawyer.
Charles H. Rivkin, ambassador to France. Rivkin is a former president and CEO of the Jim Henson Co.
Louis B. Susman, ambassador to the United Kingdom. Susman is a retired vice chairman of Citigroup, a Chicago fund-raiser for Obama, and was national finance chairman for Senator John F. Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign.
Robert S. Connan, ambassador to Iceland. Connan is a minister for commercial affairs to the US mission to the European Union.
Timothy J. Roemer, ambassador to India. Roemer is a former congressman from Indiana who also served on the commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
John V. Roos, ambassador to Japan. Roos is a Silicon Valley lawyer.
Christopher William Dell, ambassador to Kosovo. Dell is a career Foreign Service officer who is now deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in Afghanistan.
Patricia A. Butenis, ambassador to Sri Lanka. Butenis is deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in Baghdad.
Miguel H. Díaz, ambassador to the Vatican. Diaz is a Cuban-American theologian at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University in Collegeville, Minn. who advised Obama's presidential campaign.
If confirmed, Diaz would be the first Latino in the posting. He would replace Mary Ann Glendon, a Harvard University professor who turned down the University of Notre Dame's top honor, the Laetare Medal, after the Catholic school invited Obama to give the commencement address earlier this month and awarded him an honorary degree.
“Catholics United is thrilled to learn that Dr. Miguel Diaz has been nominated as U.S. ambassador to the Holy See. Dr. Diaz is a devout Catholic, a respected theologian, a leader in the Catholic Latino community, and a dedicated husband and father of four children. We have full confidence that he will serve our nation well and we invite all Catholics to join us in celebrating this historic nomination,” Chris Korzen, the group's executive director, said in a statement.
“The Administration and the Holy See share many common concerns, such as protecting the environment, fostering peace in the Middle East, disarming nuclear arsenals and cultivating international development, especially for the poorest nations of the world. Dr. Diaz’s ability to work constructively for common ground makes him a superb choice for this position."
“I am grateful that these distinguished Americans have agreed to help represent the United States and strengthen our partnerships abroad at this critical time for our nation and the world. I am confident they will advance American diplomacy as we work to meet the challenges of the 21st century. I look forward to working with them in the years and months ahead,” Obama said in a statement.
The White House provided mini-biographies, which are below:
Obama extols stimulus package
For a president who complained at first about all the hoopla over the 100-day milestone, which he termed an artifice, he seems to be embracing it now.
President Obama held a town hall and a primetime news conference to mark his first 100 days in office last month. And today, he held an event to mark the first 100 days under the $787 billion economic stimulus plan.
He toured the solar power array at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas, then delivered a speech "highlighting the progress the country has made in the first 100 days of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the work that has been done to build a new foundation for America’s economic recovery," the White House says.
Obama also released a report from Vice President Joe Biden, whom he has put in charge of making sure the money is well spent, on stimulus projects already underway across the country.
“One hundred days ago, in the midst of the worst economic crisis in half a century, we passed the most sweeping economic recovery act in history – a plan designed to save jobs, create new ones, and put money in people’s pockets,” Obama said. “....One hundred days later, we're already seeing results.”
(His full remarks are below.)
The White House said that more than $112 billion has been spent or pledged and more than 150,000 jobs have been created or saved. The president highlighted $467 million to expand and accelerate the development and use of geothermal and solar energy throughout the country.
The White House released a "100 Days, 100 Projects" report, with highlights that are below. (Click here to read it.)
Analysis: Confirmation battle could complicate healthcare push
By Peter S. Canellos, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, a candidate more likely than some on President Obama's short list to arouse Republican opposition, could complicate the president's task on another major agenda item -- healthcare.
Over the next two months, while the Senate will be debating Sotomayor's views on affirmative action, the applicability of foreign judicial rulings, and the right to privacy -- all hot-button issues guaranteed to provoke resentment on the ideological edges of both parties -- it will also be trying to come together in a spirit of compromise on healthcare.
"I really think that the stars may be aligned here and we potentially can get it done if everybody comes at it with a spirit not of ideological rigidity," Obama told C-SPAN over the weekend, referring to healthcare. He expressed the hope that "we can really negotiate and compromise and get something done for the American people."
But much of the negotiating on healthcare is slated to take place during the debate over the Sotomayor nomination. The two Senate committees handling the healthcare overhaul expect to have legislation in place well before the August recess; Obama wants his Sotomayor confirmed by then as well so she can prepare for the Supreme Court's next term in October.
That makes for a busy two months on Capitol Hill, and while it's reasonable to expect that the Senate can pursue its dual responsibilities without much procedural interruption, a battle royal over the Supreme Court could consume time and sap the president's political momentum.
"If [Sotomayor's confirmation] takes a month, it does bump things up against the adjournment time," said Dartmouth College political scientist Linda Fowler. "The worry for Obama is less the loss of bipartisan spirit than the time constraints. An acrimonious nomination fight just eats up a lot of time."
Supreme Court appointments have been the main battleground for the two parties' sharply different views on social issues, especially abortion and racial preferences. And while it is unclear whether the Sotomayor nomination will run into strong opposition, early signs are that the GOP is girding for battle.
Many conservative groups released statements expressing concern about her support of "identity politics" -- a line of attack that may succeed in raising questions about both her selection for the high court and her recent ruling against white firefighters who were denied promotions despite scoring higher than minorities on an exam.
Some Republicans consider her more of a liberal activist than federal Judge Diane Wood, former Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan, or Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who were the other three names on Obama's short list.
But as the first Hispanic nominee to the Supreme Court, Sotomayor also has the pride and support of an increasingly large ethnic group behind her.
Back in 1986, when President Ronald Reagan tapped the conservative Antonin Scalia for the court, many liberals chose not to oppose the nominee because of the deep pride of the Italian-American community, from which he would be the first justice.
"The fact that Obama chose the first Hispanic nominee will be a big hindrance to those who want to oppose her," said Mickey Edwards, former GOP representative from Oklahoma, who noted that the states most important to the Republicans electorally -- Texas, Arizona, and Florida among them -- have large Hispanic populations.
"Pick your fights and this is one you don't want to do," advised Edwards.
As for doing healthcare in the midst of a Supreme Court nomination, he said, "I think the two things can move along on different tracks."
Obama can at least hope so. With Massachusetts Senator Edward M. Kennedy having given up his seat on the Senate Judiciary Committee to concentrate on healthcare, there is relatively little overlap between the senators focused on Sotomayor and those working on healthcare.
The real question is whether Obama comes out of the Sotomayor nomination with enough political capital to wage one more historic battle.
White House applauds South Korea on nuclear nonproliferation
Even as the White House warns North Korea about its nuclear ambitions, it praised South Korea this evening for joining a nonproliferation agreement.
"The President welcomes the Republic of Korea’s decision today to join the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI)," the White House statement said. "By endorsing the PSI Statement of Interdiction Principles, the ROK has joined 94 other countries in a global effort to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), their delivery systems, and related materials to and from states and non-state actors of proliferation concern. We look forward to working with the South Korean Government to stop the proliferation of WMD-related materials worldwide and to strengthening the Initiative for the future."
The statement is in stark contrast to the Obama administration's call for a tough international response, including possibly more sanctions, to North Korea's underground nuclear test on Monday.
"Today, North Korea said that it has conducted a nuclear test in violation of international law," the president's statement said. "It appears to also have attempted a short range missile launch. These actions, while not a surprise given its statements and actions to date, are a matter of grave concern to all nations. North Korea's attempts to develop nuclear weapons, as well as its ballistic missile program, constitute a threat to international peace and security.
"By acting in blatant defiance of the United Nations Security Council, North Korea is directly and recklessly challenging the international community. North Korea's behavior increases tensions and undermines stability in Northeast Asia. Such provocations will only serve to deepen North Korea's isolation. It will not find international acceptance unless it abandons its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery," Obama added. "The danger posed by North Korea's threatening activities warrants action by the international community. We have been and will continue working with our allies and partners in the Six-Party Talks as well as other members of the UN Security Council in the days ahead."
House parties for healthcare
It worked on the $787 billion economic stimulus package.
So President Obama's grassroots group is scheduling house parties on June 6 to help push through a healthcare overhaul. Obama, himself, plans to join in via conference call that Saturday.
"In thousands of homes across the country, we'll gather to launch our grassroots campaign for health care. We'll watch a special message from the President. We'll build the teams and draw up the plans for winning health care reform the same way we won the election: Building support one block, one neighbor, one conversation at a time. And we'll put those plans into action," David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager last year, wrote to supporters on the email list of Organizing for America.
"These gatherings on June 6th are just the beginning of a battle between those who fought and believe in change and those who would protect a broken status quo. The stakes for our country could not be greater," Plouffe added. "Some call this strategy pie-in-the-sky. They say we'll never have enough volunteers to make a real impact; that you need insiders and Washington lobbyists to make a difference. But you and I know firsthand how wrong they are. Starting June 6th, it's once again time to show this country how bottom-up change is done."
White House wants suggestions
The White House today announced the 21st century version of a national suggestion box.
Heavily using the Internet, the Obama administration is urging Americans to "supplement the expertise of government employees with the knowledge and know-how of the American people."
Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser and assistant to the president for intergovernmental affairs and public engagement, called the initiative “an unprecedented process for public engagement in policymaking.”
“This will help us achieve a new foundation for our government – a foundation built on the values of transparency, accountability, and responsibility,” Jarrett said in statement. “This is a chance to brainstorm ideas, discuss the most promising ones, and collaborate with one another on next steps.”
The White House release on the effort is below:
Obama takes on terror, critics
President Obama offered lots of reassurances, but not as many details in a major national security speech this morning -- reassurances that he'll do everything possible to keep America safe while still upholding the Constitution, but not the detail that some want on how he'll do it.
Obama emphasized the need to uphold the nation's founding principles, saying that is as important as military might in protecting America.
"We uphold our most cherished values not only because doing so is right, but because it strengthens our country and keeps us safe. Time and again, our values have been our best national security asset -- in war and peace; in times of ease and in eras of upheaval. Fidelity to our values is the reason why the United States of America grew from a small string of colonies under the writ of an empire to the strongest nation in the world.
"It's the reason why enemy soldiers have surrendered to us in battle, knowing they’d receive better treatment from America’s armed forces than from their own government," he added. "It is the reason why America has benefited from strong alliances that amplified our power, and drawn a sharp and moral contrast with our adversaries. It is the reason why we’ve been able to overpower the iron fist of fascism, outlast the iron curtain of communism, and enlist free nations and free peoples everywhere in common cause and common effort of liberty."
His responsibility as commander in chief, Obama said, "is only magnified in an era when an extremist ideology threatens our people, and technology gives a handful of terrorists the potential to do us great harm. We are less than eight years removed from the deadliest attack on American soil in our history. We know that Al Qaeda is actively planning to attack us again. We know that this threat will be with us for a long time, and that we must use all elements of our power to defeat it.
"Already, we've taken several steps to achieve that goal. For the first time since 2002, we are providing the necessary resources and strategic direction to take the fight to the extremists who attacked us on 9/11 in Afghanistan and Pakistan. We are investing in the 21st century military and intelligence capabilities that will allow us to stay one step ahead of a nimble enemy. We have re-energized a global non-proliferation regime to deny the world’s most dangerous people access to the world’s deadliest weapons, and we've launched an effort to secure all loose nuclear materials within four years. We are better protecting our border, and increasing our preparedness for any future attack or natural disaster. We are building new partnerships around the world to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda and its affiliates. And we have renewed American diplomacy so that we once again have the strength and standing to truly lead the world," Obama added.
"These steps are all critical to keeping America secure. But I believe with every fiber of my being that in the long run we also cannot keep this country safe unless we enlist the power of our most fundamental values. The documents that we hold in this very hall -- the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights -- these are not simply words written into aging parchment. They are the foundation of liberty and justice in this country, and a light that shines for all who seek freedom, fairness, equality, and dignity around the world," he declared, speaking in the august National Archives, where an original of the Constitution is kept.
The Bush administration and the country, he asserted, lost its way after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
"Unfortunately, faced with an uncertain threat, our government made a series of hasty decisions. I believe that those decisions were motivated by a sincere desire to protect the American people. But I also believe that all too often our government made decisions based on fear rather than foresight, and all too often trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions. Instead of strategically applying our power and our principles, we too often set those principles aside as luxuries that we could no longer afford. And in this season of fear, too many of us -- Democrats and Republicans; politicians, journalists, and citizens -- fell silent," he said.
"In other words, we went off course. This is not my assessment alone. It was an assessment that was shared by the American people, who nominated candidates for president from both major parties who, despite our many differences, called for a new approach – one that rejected torture, and recognized the imperative of closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay.
Like his major economic policy speech in April, Obama sought to get the public to look past the recent bobbles and take a broader view of the issues at stake -- a view more favorable to him.
Obama is facing high stakes on his anti-terror policies after taking hits from both sides of the political aisle in the past two weeks.
He dismayed and angered liberals with two reversals -- fighting the release of a new batch of photos showing US troops abusing detainees in Afghanistan and Iraq and restarting military tribunals for some of the 240 detainees still being held at the Guantanamo Bay prison.
The president is being savaged by Republicans -- and was abandoned by his Democratic allies in Congress -- over his plans to close Guantanamo by January -- a decision he announced with much fanfare on his second full day in office -- without having put out specifics on where the detainees will go.
Wednesday, the Senate joined the House in passing an amendment barring the detainees from entering the United States, and his FBI director expressed concerns about having terrorists on US soil, even if they are in maximum-security prisons.
His GOP presidential rival, John McCain, agrees with shutting down Guantanamo, but says that Obama botched the process. "All of the hard part was not addressed," McCain said on Fox News Channel this morning. "The easy part, the announcement of the closing of Guantanamo is done and now the chickens have come home to roost."
One of his harshest critics, former Vice President Dick Cheney, is giving a speech on national security in the same hour and less than two miles away.
Obama took on his critics, saying that "we will be ill-served by some of the fear-mongering that emerges whenever we discuss this issue."
"Listening to the recent debate, I’ve heard words that frankly are calculated to scare people rather than educate them; words that have more to do with politics than protecting our country," he added.
Obama strongly defended his decision to end harsh interrogation techniques such as waterboarding that he and other critics call torture.
"As commander in chief, I see the intelligence, I bear responsibility for keeping this country safe, and I reject the assertion that these are the most effective means of interrogation. What’s more, they undermine the rule of law. They alienate us in the world. They serve as a recruitment tool for terrorists, and increase the will of our enemies to fight us, while decreasing the will of others to work with America. They risk the lives of our troops by making it less likely that others will surrender to them in battle, and more likely that Americans will be mistreated if they are captured. In short, they did not advance our war and counter-terrorism efforts -- they undermined them, and that is why I ended them once and for all," he said to applause.
The president also defended his decision not to release the abuse photos, asserting that they add little to the understanding of what happened in places such as Abu Grahib and that there is a "clear and compelling reason" not to release them -- the safety of troops in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere.
"Nothing would be gained by the release of these photos that matters more than the lives of our young men and women serving in harm’s way," he said.
And he defended his decision to close Guantanamo, noting that military commissions led to only three convictions and that hundreds of detainees were released during the Bush administration.
"So the record is clear: rather than keep us safer, the prison at Guantanamo has weakened American national security. It is a rallying cry for our enemies. It sets back the willingness of our allies to work with us in fighting an enemy that operates in scores of countries. By any measure, the costs of keeping it open far exceed the complications involved in closing it. That is why I argued that it should be closed throughout my campaign. And that is why I ordered it closed within one year," Obama said.
In his speech, Obama outlined a five-pronged approach to Guantanamo: sending detainees to other countries when that is possible and does not pose a security risk (50 have been approved so far); putting those who have violated criminal laws on trial in federal civilian court; using the military tribunals for those charged with violating the rules of war; and releasing those who have been ordered released by the courts.
Calling it the "toughest single issue we will face," he also proposed indefinite preventitive detention for those who can't be prosecuted for past crimes but nonetheless represent a danger to the United States.
"These are people who, in effect, remain at war with the United States," Obama said.
"However, we must recognize that these detention policies cannot be unbounded," he added. "That's why my administration has begun to reshape these standards that apply to make sure they are in line with the rule of law. We must have clear, defensible, and lawful standards for those who fall into this category. We must have fair procedures so that we don’t make mistakes. We must have a thorough process of periodic review, so that any prolonged detention is carefully evaluated and justified."
"Let me be blunt: There are no neat or easy answers here. I wish there were," he said. "But I can tell you that the wrong answer is to pretend like this problem will go away if we maintain an unsustainable status quo. As president, I refuse to allow this problem to fester. I refuse to pass it on to someone else. It's my responsibility to solve the problem. Our security interests won’t permit it. Our courts won’t allow it. And neither should our conscience."
His full remarks are below:
Obama seeks help on healthcare push
President Obama today sent out a personal appeal -- well, at least as personal as a blast email to millions can be -- to his grassroots supporters to push Congress on healthcare.
The message saying, "I need your voice," was sent through Organizing for America, the group housed in the Democratic National Committee that inherited Obama's campaign apparatus.
"The chance to finally reform our nation's health care system is here. While Congress moves rapidly to produce a detailed plan, I have made it clear that real reform must uphold three core principles -- it must reduce costs, guarantee choice, and ensure quality care for every American," the president writes.
"As we know, challenging the status quo will not be easy. Its defenders will claim our goals are too big, that we should once again settle for half measures and empty talk. Left unanswered, these voices of doubt might yet again derail the comprehensive reform we so badly need. That's where you come in. When our opponents spread fear and confusion about the changes we seek, your support for these core principles will show clarity and resolve. When the lobbyists for the status quo tell Congress to hold back, your personal story will give them the courage to press forward."
Obama promises to read some of the personal stories, then repeats one of his own, seeing his mother die of ovarian cancer while worried about insurance.
"Last November, the American people sent Washington a clear mandate for change. But when the polls close, the true work of citizenship begins," Obama concludes. "That's what Organizing for America is all about. Now, in these crucial moments, your voice once again has extraordinary power. I'm counting on you to use it."
Republicans face uphill battle
As Republican leaders gather to find the way forward, a new poll shows the tough sledding ahead.
While 63 percent of Americans say President Obama's policies would move the country in the right direction -- and 57 percent say that of Democratic leaders in Congress -- only 39 percent say so of GOP congressional leaders, according to the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey.
The poll found that 53 percent of respondents believe the policies being proposed by Republicans would put the country on the wrong path. And 53 percent also blame Republicans and only 21 percent Democrats for the economic swoon.
Meanwhile, 37 percent say Obama's prescriptions have improved the economy, while 23 percent say his policies have made the economy worse, and 40 percent say they have had no impact.
UPDATE: This afternoon, the party leaders trashed a proposal to start calling their opponents the "Democrat Socialist" party.
The Associated Press reports that instead, they plan to vote on a resolution urging Americans to oppose the Democrats' "socialist" agenda. GOP Chairman Michael Steele and others had opposed the resolution urging the Democrats to change their name, calling it absurd.
Obama signs mortgage bills
President Obama this afternoon signed two significant bills that he hopes will help fix the struggling housing market.
“These landmark pieces of legislation will protect hardworking Americans, crack down on those who seek to take advantage of them, and ensure that the problems that led us into this crisis never happen again,” Obama said.
One is designed to clamp down on mortgage fraud and would set up a $5 million independent commission to investigate the cause of the worldwide financial meltdown.
The $265 million a year from the bill, which supporters say will pay for itself through additional fines and penalties, would go to hire about 160 more FBI agents and 200 more Justice Department prosecutors to work on mortgage fraud cases.
The other encourages banks to help homeowners avoid foreclosure by expanding a $300 billion program that pushes lenders to write down an individual's mortgage if the homeowner agrees to pay an insurance premium.
His full remarks are below, followed by a White House.
Because of the current strict eligibility requirements, only about 50 homeowners are refinancing through the program, compared to the 400,000 it was supposed to help. The bill does not include the so-called cram-down provision that would have allowed bankruptcy judges to reduce mortgage payments. Obama wanted the proposal, but banks and other lenders vehemently opposed it.
Earlier today, Obama huddled with more of his economic brain trust, attending the first quarterly meeting of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board.
Afterwards, Obama thanked its chairman, former Federal Reserve chief Paul Volcker, for the panel's "extraordinary work."
The committee has an "impressive" though not unanimous consensus on the potential of clean energy jobs, Obama told reporters. It is also helping advise him on an overhauled financial regulation plan the administration plans to put before Congress this year, Obama said.
Biden ventures into troubled Balkans
Vice President Joe Biden continued his diplomatic tour of the troubled Balkans today, meeting with the leaders of Serbia as he tries to cement the hard-won peace in the region of tinderbox tensions.
"I came to Serbia on behalf of the Obama-Biden administration with a clear, distinct message, Mr. President: The United States wants to, would like to, deepen our cooperation with Serbia to help solve the problems of the region, to help Serbia become a strong, successful democratic member of the Euro-Atlantic community. That's our objective," Biden said, according to remarks released by the White House.
"Ever since the end of World War II, generations of Europeans and Americans have worked very hard to build a Europe that is whole, free, and at peace. Southeast Europe remains the missing piece, and Serbia is central to Southeast Europe's future. Simply put, the region cannot fully succeed without Serbia playing the constructive and leading role."
(His full remarks are below, followed by a joint statement with the European Union envoy.)
On Tuesday, Biden spoke in Sarajevo to the parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina, warning lawmakers to resist the nationalism of ethnic strife that led to the bloody civil war during the 1990s that didn't end until intervention by NATO led by the United States.
Biden wraps up his visit Thursday in Kosovo, where he will meet that nation's leaders, address the assembly, and go to Camp Bondsteel to speak to US and NATO peacekeepers
FULL ENTRYClinton announces aid for Pakistan
The Obama administration has been urging the Pakistani government to go after the Taliban in the Swat Valley, after a cease-fire seemed to embolden the Islamic militants, who came within 60 miles of the capital last month.
Now that the military response has displaced tens of thousands of residents, the Obama team is offering humanitarian aid to deal with the fallout.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced the aid -- $110 million -- at the White House this morning.
In the announcement, Clinton said the money will help ease the plight of about 2 million Pakistanis who have fled fighting.
The White House said $100 million would come the State Department and $10 million from the Defense Department. The largest single item is $26 million for the immediate purchase of wheat and other food.
It was Clinton, herself, who testifying to Congress for the first time in her new post, warned that Pakistan under the control of extremists "poses a mortal threat to the security and safety of Americans and the world." She also asserted that the Pakistani government is "basically abdicating to the Taliban and to the extremists" with the cease-fire, which was approved by Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari.
The Obama administration's new strategy in the region includes giving $1.5 billion a year in additional aid to Pakistan's government to help it take on the militants and sending at least 17,000 more US combat troops to southern Afghanistan and 4,000 troops to train the Afghan military and hundreds of civilian advisers to help the Afghan government.
UPDATE: Senator John F. Kerry, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, applauded the aid. He is pushing for $1.5 billion a year in additional aid to Pakistan to help the government take on the Taliban.
“I applaud the Administration’s pledge of more than $100 million in humanitarian aid for Pakistanis displaced by the violence in Swat Valley. Last week, in a Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Pakistan, I strongly urged Special Representative Richard Holbrooke to take this important action, and to do so as quickly as possible. The scale of the tragedy demands immediate assistance: Some 2 million civilians have been driven from their homes due to fighting initiated by the Taliban," Kerry said in a statement.
“The present emergency carries echoes of the 2005 Kashmir earthquake: following that disaster, the United States provided nearly $1 billion in relief aid—and proved that our nation could be a powerful and faithful friend to the Pakistani people. The legislation that Sen. Lugar and I introduced earlier this month aims to solidify this approach: for the sake of the national security of both of our nations, we seek to demonstrate to the people of Pakistan that we are friends in fair and foul weather alike.”
Clinton's full remarks are below, followed by the White House outline of the funding.
Poll: Americans back Obama on photos
Americans of both major political parties agree with President Obama's decision to fight the release of more detainee abuse photos, a new poll suggests.
In the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey result released this afternoon, 73 percent opposed releasing the images, while 26 percent supported doing so.
Among self-identified Republicans, the opposition to divulging the photos was stronger -- 87 percent, while it was 62 percent among Democrats.
Obama announced his change of mind last week, saying that military commanders had convinced him that the photos' release could endanger US troops in the field in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Gays being kicked out of military at steady rate
By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- A steady number of troops are being discharged from the US military for being gay, according to the latest Pentagon statistics, which show that 619 troops were kicked out last year under the controversial "don't ask, don't tell" policy that bars homosexuals from serving openly in the ranks.
The figures, which are on par with the previous four years, are bound to spark a new outcry from gay rights advocates who have grown frustrated with President Obama's unwillingness so far to take steps to lift the ban, despite a campaign pledge to do so.
Of the discharges for the fiscal year that ended September 30, 410 were male and 209 were female, according to the figures obtained by the Globe from Pentagon personnel officials. That compares with a total of 627 discharges in fiscal year 2007; 612 in 2006; 726 in 2005; and 653 in 2004.
The new statistics come to light as the Obama administration comes under growing pressure to use his executive powers to place a moratorium on the discharges while he lobbies Congress to overturn the controversial 1993 law -- which was enacted as a compromise after then-President Bill Clinton set off a mutiny when he tried to allow gays to serve openly in uniform.
In recent weeks White House officials have declared that the president still intends to follow through on his campaign pledge, but said he will not intervene on current cases while the policy remains in place. At the same time, other administration officials have suggested a go-it-slow approach to ensure gays can be fully integrated into the ranks with as little disruption as possible.
Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates recently likened overturning the ban to integrating blacks into the ranks, a process that took five years. Meanwhile, Obama's national security adviser, James L. Jones, said earlier this month he didn't know if the ban would be lifted.
The cautious view was also expressed by Army General David Petraeus, who oversees the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, when he told a questioner at Kansas State University last month that "I’m not sure we want to add something else to our plate right now."
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters earlier today that only initial discussions about the policy have taken place and that there is no expectation at this point that the policy will be changed.
"I do not believe there are any plans under way in this building for some expected, but not articulated, anticipation that 'don't ask, don't tell' will be repealed," Morrell said.
But opponents of the current policy say that while they believe the military and the nation are ready to lift the ban, the longer the White House and Congress wait the more opposition will build. They cite a recent letter sent to the president by 1,000 retired admirals and generals organized by the right-wing Center for Military Readiness that urged him to maintain the ban or risk severely damaging troop morale.
Saying the issue has reached a "stalemate," Aubrey Sarvis, president of the Servicemembers' Legal Defense Network, the main group pushing to lift the ban, said "we are urging the president to speak up and lead on this initiative."
"We feel an urgency and are desperately trying to convey that to the White House," he said. "Every day service members continue to be discharged."
Sarvis' group believes based on their own sources in the military that the discharges have continued apace since Obama took office, estimating that as many as 200 have been kicked out sinc ehis was inagurated in January. Those numbers could not be verified.
Other leading gay rights advocates expressed disappointment with the new administration.
"For many people, for many reasons, the policy continues to be a very emotional issue," said Richard Socarides, a New York lawyer who served as an advisor on gay issues to Clinton. "It is the one area where the federal government is blatantly engaging in discriminatory conduct. For [Obama] to now be completely silent on this at best -- and at worst have Gates equivocating -- is very troubling to a lot of people."
Legislation to lift the ban has been proposed in the US House -- where Democrats enjoy a large majority -- but there remain deep doubts that the Senate would get on board. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts has sought unsuccessfully for months to find a Republican cosponsor for the bill in the upper chamber, a step considered crucial to garnering enough votes to change the law.
Until then, the Pentagon maintains it is simply following the law even though many of the discharges have been of soldiers with critical skills, including 94 linguists who have kicked out under the ban over the past decade.
"This law requires the Department of Defense to separate from the armed forces members who engage in or attempt to engage in homosexual acts; state they are homosexual or bisexual; or marry or attempt to marry a person of the same biological sex," said Cynthia Smith, a department spokeswoman.
More than 13,000 troops have been discharged for being gay since 1993.
Obama focuses on Israeli-Palestinian conflict
President Obama today began a series of meetings to bring new momentum to the Middle East peace process.
First up, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was at the White House for an one-on-one meeting with Obama, a bigger meeting, and a working lunch.
After the sessions, Obama said they were "extraordinarily productive."
He told reporters that the United States has a "special relationship" with Israel, whom he described as a "stalwart ally" with historical and emotional ties and the only true democracy in the Middle East.
Obama said that Israel's security is paramount, and said he wants a positive response from Iran on its nuclear program by the end of the year and is "not precluding" a range of steps, including stronger international sanctions.
The president also said the two men talked about restarting the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian authority toward a two-state solution, and said he told Netanyahu that he has a "historic opportunity" to secure Israel's security and achieve a historic peace.
But that requires fulfilling the 2003 "road map" to a peace deal, including for Israel to stop building settlements in the West Bank.
An Israel-Palestinian peace "strengthens our hand" in dealing with Iran, Obama said.
Netanyahu called Obama a "great friend" of Israel and said that he agrees that the greatest danger Israel faces is an nuclear-armed Iran.
The prime minister also said that he is ready to negotiate with the Palestinians, but also "broaden the circle of peace" to include Arab countries.
He said the Israel is ready to make compromises, but that Palestinian leaders must do their part, including recognizing the Jewish state's right to exist.
(Their full remarks to reporters are below.)
Both the president and Netanyahu are being closely watched both for actions and words. Because of some past associations with Palestinian supporters and the false rumors that he was a Muslim, Obama spent quite a bit of time during the campaign to reassure Jewish voters and others that he was steadfast in his support for Israel.
Netanyahu, meanwhile, has yet to formally and publicly support a Palestinian state -- in opposition to official US policy, which calls for a two-state solution. And before his Feb. 10 election, he dismissed the latest round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which stalled late last year, as a waste of time.
The Israeli leader will be followed to the White House by President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt on May 26, and by President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian authority on May 28.
Swift boat redux on healthcare?
President Obama's grassroots organization is trying to fight back against critics of his healthcare plan, asserting that the same groups that "swift boated" Democratic nominee John F. Kerry in 2004 are trying to pull off a sequel.
Obama's allies point to the fact that Conservatives for Patients' Rights, which has already started to run ads on national cable warning of a government-run healthcare system, hired the same public relations firm that ran the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign questioning Kerry's Vietnam war record.
"We knew healthcare reform would face fierce opposition -- and it's begun. As we speak, the same people behind the notorious "swiftboat" ads of 2004 are already pumping millions of dollars into deceptive television ads. Their plan is simple: torpedo healthcare reform before it sees the light of day by scaring the public and distorting the president's approach," David Plouffe, Obama's former campaign manager and now head of Organizing for America, wrote supporters over the weekend in a fund-raising email.
"We need the resources to take them head on with an urgent, grassroots campaign to pass real healthcare reform in 2009. When the swiftboaters flood the airwaves with distortions, we'll flood the streets with volunteers armed with facts. When they send lobbyists to tell Congress to back down, we'll send millions of calls, letters, and stories from real Americans asking them to stand up."
Conservatives for Patients' Rights was founded by Rick Scott, who also helped finance the Swift Boat campaign and who is the former owner of the Hospital Corporation of America. Obama's allies, including the Service Employees International Union, also highlight HCA's spotty record and the investigations it faced.
Scott has responded to what he calls false personal attacks on the patients' rights group website.
Obama: Yes we can, agree on major issues
President Obama declares today that, yes, we can all get along.
In his weekly Internet and radio address, he says that advocates for opposing interests are coming to the table and negotiating in good faith on healthcare and energy -- to name two major issues being debated in Washington.
On climate change and clean energy legislation, "utility companies and corporate leaders are joining, not opposing, environmental advocates and labor leaders to create a new system of clean energy initiatives that will help unleash a new era of growth and prosperity."
On a healthcare overhaul, "representatives of insurance and drug companies, doctors and hospitals, and labor unions who are pledging to do their part to reduce health care costs. These are some of the groups who have been among the fiercest critics of past comprehensive health care reform plans."
"I have always believed that it is better to talk than not to talk; that it is far more productive to reach over a divide than to shake your fist across it. This has been an alien notion in Washington for far too long, but we are seeing that the ways of Washington are beginning to change," Obama added.
"This is how progress has always been made. This is how a new foundation will be built. We cannot assume that interests will always align, or that fragile partnerships will not fray. There will be setbacks. There will be difficult days. But we are off to a good start."
His full remarks are below, and the address can be viewed here:
FULL ENTRYRomney joins the Obama bashing
By Sasha Issenberg, Globe correspondent
PHOENIX – Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney joined Bush administration officials, including former Vice President Dick Cheney, in arguing today that President Obama’s approach to combating terrorism had left the country less safe.
"It's the very kind of thinking that left America vulnerable to the attacks of September 11th," Romney told the National Rifle Association's annual gathering. “And the approval of left-wing law professors and editorial boards won’t be worth much if this country lets down its guard and suffers an attack."
Even while declaring an end to past interrogation practices he calls “torture,” Obama has alienated many in his own party with a cautious approach to the issue. He has rebuffed calls to investigate Bush administration policymakers and release photographs of in that military leaders have said would be unnecessarily provocative. Today, the White House announced it would resume the use of military commissions to try those in American custody, a practice that Obama had criticized as a candidate.
"I'm glad he's continuing to hold military tribunals for terrorists," said Romney, who also said he approved of Obama’s hawkish approach to ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "In fact, whenever he adopts the policies of John McCain and George W. Bush like this, I’m glad."
Romney, who ran for president in 2008, was the closing speaker on an agenda that included Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele and McCain, last year’s Republican presidential nominee. The stop was Romney's latest on a circuit of conservative interest groups that many Republicans see as the opening lap in a prospective 2012 campaign.
Despite Romney's solidarity with their priorities, gun owners were slow to rally behind him as a candidate. Romney joined the National Rifle Association only shortly before becoming a national candidate and did not own a gun of his own. He reluctantly acknowledged that he had only been hunting twice in his life and had focused on prey such as rodents and rabbits. "Small varmints, if you will," he said then.
Today Romney was warmly received as he paid tribute to gun rights. Most of his speech, however, was devoted to the day’s broadest critique of a Democratic agenda he said amounted to "the greatest federal power-grab in American history."
Romney took issue with Obama's plans to change the healthcare system, which is based partially on the plan Romney helped to enact while governor of Massachusetts mandating citizens carry insurance.
"The best path to healthcare reform is to let the American people make their own decisions, not have those decisions forced on them by government," Romney said. "Let Washington choose the stamps for the post office, but let the American people choose who we want for our doctor."
Kerry and Lugar criticize Burmese junta
The leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee issued a statement this morning calling for the release of Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
“The Obama Administration and Congress are reviewing America’s policy toward Burma. At this critical time, some in the junta are trying to leverage the recent alleged unauthorized entry into Aung San Suu Kyi’s compound to extend her detention. This action sends precisely the wrong message to the citizens of Burma, the people of Southeast Asia, and all those in the global community who seek for the Burmese people the opportunity to live in a country where universal human rights are respected, not trampled," said committee Chairman John F. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, and the ranking Republican, Richard Lugar of Indiana.
“Now is the time for reform-minded leaders within the military junta to step forward and be heard. Releasing Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners would signal the start of a constructive dialogue with the United States.”
UPDATE: President Obama this afternoon told Congress he is continuing the US sanctions against Burma. To see his declaration, click here.
Obama dismaying liberals on detainees
President Obama thrilled his liberal backers -- who reviled the Bush administration's war on terror -- when in his first days in office he announced he would shut down the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and banned torture.
But they're none too happy after what appear to be two about-faces this week on terror detainees.
Obama first reversed himself and announced he would fight the release of photos showing US troops abusing detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying he listened to his military commanders who argued their dissemination could inflame local populations and thus threaten US forces.
Today, he announced he will restart the military tribunals for some Guantanamo detainees -- the same process he called during his campaign as "a flawed military commission system that has failed to convict anyone of a terrorist act since the 9/11 attacks and that has been embroiled in legal challenges."
UPDATE: Obama confirmed his move not with a public appearance, but a brief statement from the White House:
"Military commissions have a long tradition in the United States. They are appropriate for trying enemies who violate the laws of war, provided that they are properly structured and administered. In the past, I have supported the use of military commissions as one avenue to try detainees, in addition to prosecution in Article III courts. In 2006, I voted in favor of the use of military commissions. But I objected strongly to the Military Commissions Act that was drafted by the Bush Administration and passed by Congress because it failed to establish a legitimate legal framework and undermined our capability to ensure swift and certain justice against those detainees that we were holding at the time. Indeed, the system of Military Commissions at Guantanamo Bay had only succeeded in prosecuting three suspected terrorists in more than seven years.
"Today, the Department of Defense will be seeking additional continuances in several pending military commission proceedings. We will seek more time to allow us time to reform the military commission process. The Secretary of Defense will notify the Congress of several changes to the rules governing the commissions. The rule changes will ensure that: First, statements that have been obtained from detainees using cruel, inhuman and degrading interrogation methods will no longer be admitted as evidence at trial. Second, the use of hearsay will be limited, so that the burden will no longer be on the party who objects to hearsay to disprove its reliability. Third, the accused will have greater latitude in selecting their counsel. Fourth, basic protections will be provided for those who refuse to testify. And fifth, military commission judges may establish the jurisdiction of their own courts.
"These reforms will begin to restore the Commissions as a legitimate forum for prosecution, while bringing them in line with the rule of law. In addition, we will work with the Congress on additional reforms that will permit commissions to prosecute terrorists effectively and be an avenue, along with federal prosecutions in Article III courts, for administering justice. This is the best way to protect our country, while upholding our deeply held values."
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama will give a speech about Guantanamo detainees next Thursday.
Obama is asking for another 120-day delay in legal proceedings and is working through details of changes in the tribunals he will seek from Congress, Gibbs said.
Asked about alienating some of Obama's supporters, Gibbs said that "first and foremost" Obama will do what's best for the security of the United States.
The Bush tribunal set-up was not working in providing "swift and certain justice," but the changes will make the system workable, Gibbs said.
Pressed about the liberal criticism, Gibbs said it is not true that the tribunals under Obama will be the same as under Bush.
He also said that Obama is being critiqued both that he is too similar to Bush and too different. Gibbs said he'll let the media decide where on the spectrum Obama is.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which sued for the release of the photos, blasted Obama's change of position on that front. And it also criticized the president on the tribunals.
Elisa Massimino, executive director of Human Rights First, added in a statement: “Tinkering with the machinery of military commissions will not remove the taint of Guantanamo from future prosecutions. The president should listen to the many dedicated military lawyers who both defended and prosecuted cases in the commissions at Guantanamo who have said that the commissions are irredeemable. We cannot achieve justice by reverse engineering a process to enhance the likelihood of convictions. That’s not how we do things in this country. The federal criminal justice system has credibility and a proven track record of prosecuting terrorism cases without compromising national security or our Constitution’s values. President Obama should use it.”
The American Liberal Newsvine today is portrayed the decision this way: "Breaking a key promise from his campaign, President Barack Obama is expected to announce Friday the return of military commission trials for a small number of terrorism suspects. Obama had previously promised to abolish them. The tribunals, often criticized as overly protective of state secrets and willing to accept evidence obtained while defendants were allegedly tortured, were suspended mere hours after Obama took office."
The TalkLeft blog said: "There's no fixing those military tribunals. If your team can't come up with a solution other than one that reverts to one of the worst policies of Bush Administration, it's time to get a new team in place. Suggestion: Start with the lawyers representing the Guantanamo detainees. They know exactly what's necessary for a fair trial. Suggestion two: Try them in federal court like you said you would. Show some backbone and stick to your campaign promises. As a last resort, consider trials under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. But leave those military commission trials dead and buried where they belong."
Obama puts in new chief at CDC
While praising the smooth performance during the swine flu crisis of the agency's acting director, President Obama today formally announced he has appointed someone new to lead the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The new chief is Dr. Thomas Frieden, currently commissioner of the New York City Health Department, who will start on the job in early June. (His mini-biography is below.)
“America relies on a strong public health system and the work at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is critical to our mission to preserve and protect the health and safety of our citizens," the president said in a statement. "Dr. Frieden is an expert in preparedness and response to health emergencies, and has been at the forefront of the fight against heart disease, cancer and obesity, infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and AIDS, and in the establishment of electronic health records. Dr. Frieden has been a leader in the fight for health care reform, and his experiences confronting public health challenges in our country and abroad will be essential in this new role.”
Obama announced that acting CDC Director Dr. Rich Besser, who became a familiar sight on television, will continue as head of CDC’s Coordinating Office for Terrorism Preparedness and Emergency Response for the past four years.
“Secretary Sebelius and I thank Acting CDC Director Dr. Rich Besser and the women and men throughout the CDC for their superb work, especially over the past weeks," Obama added. "Dr. Besser has led the CDC’s Coordinating Office for Terrorism Preparedness and Emergency Response for the past four years, and those preparations were essential during the recent H1N1 flu detection and response activities. We are very pleased he will continue in that role.”
Public health crusader Paul Farmer could join Obama team
By James F. Smith, Globe Staff
Dr. Paul Farmer, the global health crusader who has crafted life-saving projects from Haiti to Rwanda, has told colleagues privately that he is mulling a possible appointment by the Obama administration to coordinate growing US overseas health initiatives.
Farmer told faculty members at Harvard Medical School on Monday that he is in discussions with the State Department, which this month proposed a surge in funding over the next six years for global programs to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and tropical disease, and to improve children's health.
It could not be confirmed today exactly what job Farmer is being considered for, but one person who was present at the medical school meeting said Farmer described it as a position overseeing all foreign health aid. Farmer told the gathering that he hadn't decided whether to accept the appointment if it is formally offered but that he was considering it seriously.
Farmer did not respond to email and phone messages seeking comment. Partners in Health also declined to respond, as did Harvard Medical School's Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, where Farmer is vice-chairman.
A State Department spokesman refused any comment on personnel discussions in progress or on potential new positions. It could not be confirmed today whether Farmer is being considered for a full-time policy position or an advisory role, or whether an appointment would be to a new job or an existing one.
The top positions at the US Agency for International Development are vacant, including the administrator and deputy administrator as well as assistant administrator in charge of global health. The top positions are presidential appointments and require Senate confirmation. There could also be health policy roles within the State Department, which this month announced a plan to spend $63 billion over the next six years to fight global diseases including HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and other preventable diseases. That would build on an ambitious effort launched by the Bush administration.
Farmer has gained international acclaim for more than two decades of work treating the poorest villagers in the poorest countries, while also carrying out groundbreaking medical research and reshaping health policies in the Third World. When he was still a Harvard medical student he co-founded Partners in Health, the Boston-based nonprofit that supports an array of global health efforts and pushes governments to provide better care.
In 2003, Tracy Kidder published a best-selling book, "Mountains Beyond Mountains," about Farmer.
He remains very active in Partners in Health and its initiatives, including the remaking of Rwanda's health system amid the twin ravages of AIDS and the aftermath of genocide, as well as building programs in other countries -- Russia and Peru among them -- to counter multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis.
One person who was at the Harvard gathering said some colleagues suggested to Farmer that he was being given an opportunity to make a real impact on US policy, and they urged him to take up the challenge.
New England reps split on war funding
The New England delegation divided on the issue today as the House approved funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as the US winds down its involvement in the former and increases its push in the latter.
The $97 billion measure includes President Obama's war funding request as he promises to withdraw most combat troops from Iraq by August 2010 and sends 21,000 more troops and military trainers to Afghanistan and It adds nearly $12 billion, including money for new weapons and military equipment and more foreign aid. The bill also includes a pledge that any Guantanamo Bay detainees will not be released on US soil.
Among Massachusetts representatives, Michael Capuano, Barney Frank, Edward Markey, James McGovern, Richard Neal, John Tierney, and Niki Tsongas voted no. Stephen Lynch and John Olver supported the funding and William Delahunt did not vote.
Both Maine representatives, Michael Michaud and Chellie Pingree, voted no, while both of Rhode Island's, Patrick Kennedy and Jim Langevin, voted yes.
New Hampshire's delegation split, with Paul Hodes voting yes and Carol Shea-Porter opposing the funding.
Vermont's Peter Welch also voted no.
The overall tally was 368-60, with 200 Democrats and 168 Republicans voting yes and 51 Democrats and 9 Republicans voting no.
At town hall, Obama pressures Congress on credit card bill
President Obama held another town hall today, this one in New Mexico and this one focused, at least in his opening remarks, on helping consumers with credit card woes.
At Rancho Rio High School in suburban Albuquerque, the president renewed his pledge to sign a reform bill by Memorial Day.
“It’s time for strong and reliable protections for our consumers. It’s time for reform that's built on transparency, accountability, and mutual responsibility – values fundamental to the new foundation we seek to build for our economy,” Obama said.
The House passed a bill last week that would impose new restrictions on credit card issuers on raising interest rates and charging late fees and that would require more disclosure to consumers.
The Senate is debating similar legislation, but on Wednesday rejected an effort to cap interest rates at 15 percent. Some Democrats and consumer groups say a limit on interest rates is needed to put real teeth into the bill.
"These practices have only grown worse in the midst of the recession," he said.
Obama said struggling families are even putting food and other basics on their credit cards, deepening their debt. One in five Americans are paying more than 20 percent on their balances, he said.
He did acknowledge that some families irresponsibly maxed out their credit cards as they borrowed too much. "We have contributed to our own problems," he said.
He also noted that New Mexico was one of the western states that Obama brought into the Democratic fold with his message of change and economic renewal.
"That's exactly what we've been doing," he told the crowd, reciting the legislative accomplishments so far. "I believe we're moving in the right direction, step by step."
(His full remarks are below, followed by the question-and-answer session.)
The White House said the audience of about 2,300 will include about 50 local credit cardholders who have submitted letters and emails to the president sharing their frustrations with the credit card industry.
Their profiles and a White House primer on the issue are below:
FULL ENTRYMcGovern fights Afghan war funding
against sending more troops to Afghanistan. (By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff)
By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- Representative James McGovern of Massachusetts, who has launched the only effort in the US House to oppose President Obama's plans for the Afghan war, received an unexpected boost of support today from a group of Afghan and Iraqi war veterans, who raced around Capitol Hill lobbying for his bill.
Congress is expected on Thursday to swiftly approve the $94.2 billion war funding bill, which would support the 21,000 additional combat troops and military trainers that Obama plans to deploy. But McGovern's bill, which he plans to file Thursday, would require the Pentagon to come up with an exit strategy by the end of the year.
The veterans, who are part of a small but growing group of Americans who oppose the Afghan war, traveled to Washington this week, shadowed by the Brave New Foundation, a California-based nonprofit film company that produces social justice documentaries and has launched a campaign called Rethink Afghanistan.
Realizing that it could not stop the supplemental, the group focused instead on getting more support for McGovern's bill.
"Without an exit strategy, then the mission is doomed to fail," said Jake Diliberto, who fought in Afghanistan in 2001 as a Marine. Diliberto, who said he is now getting his master's degree in ethics from Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., said that he strongly believed in the mission, but that the US presence has grown extremely unpopular among Afghans, as civilian casualties have increased.
Former Marine Corporal Rick Reyes, who also served in Afghanistan shortly after the US invasion, said he never thought he would lobby Congress. But by midafternoon, he had met with representatives from 20 offices. The group planned to fan out and meet with 100 more.
"So far the response has been positive, but you never know how they will vote," said Reyes, who believes that the United States was made less safe by the operations in Afghanistan. He said his team was ordered to break down doors and beat people who later turned out to be innocent.
Still, many members of Congress are reluctant to question a war that is directly linked to an attack on the United States, not to mention a popular president.
Representative Raul M. Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat who chairs the Progressive Congressional Caucus and shares skepticism about the troop increase, told the veterans that their message is still a hard sell.
"I think there is a sense that there is no other option," he said, adding that people routinely ask him "'What do we do if we don't do this?' "
Grijalva told the vets that an atmosphere of fear of opposing the president has permeated Capitol Hill over the past eight years. But he said he has not faced much backlash for his anti-war stance, despite the fact that 15 percent of his constituents are veterans.
"I support Barack very much but I think sometimes we tell our friends and colleagues that we have to part ways," he said.
But so far, the only member of Congress to introduce legislation to restrain Obama's actions on Afghanistan is McGovern, a Worcester Democrat and an outspoken opponent of the Iraq war. (Click here to read the bill.)
So far, 60 members of Congress have already signed onto the bill, which McGovern opted to file as stand-alone piece of legislation, not linked to the supplemental.
"After 8 years, he is getting a sinking feeling that we are getting in deeper and deeper into Afghan without any idea how we are going to get out," said Michael Mershon, a spokesman for McGovern. "He feels very strongly that no matter who the president is, or whether he has a 'D' or an 'R' next to his name, if you believe our military efforts need to have a clearly defined strategy, then that's what you have to fight for."
Obama reverses course on detainee photos
President Obama has insisted he would listen to his commanders on the ground before making decisions as commander in chief.
And it appears he did just that, reversing himself on releasing dozens, if not hundreds, of new photos that purportedly show abuses of detainees.
According to press reports, the top US commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan told Obama that their troops could be in greater danger if the new photos are released this spring.
UPDATE: In a brief appearance to mostly call for peace in Sri Lanka, Obama confirmed his decision.
"This is not a situation in which the Pentagon has concealed or sought to justify inappropriate action," he said. "Rather, it has gone through the appropriate and regular processes. And the individuals who were involved have been identified, and appropriate actions have been taken.
"It's therefore my belief that the publication of these photos would not add any additional benefit to our understanding of what was carried out in the past by a small number of individuals. In fact, the most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in greater danger."
"Any abuse of detainees is unacceptable," he added. "It's against our values." (His full remarks are below.)
An Obama administration official told the Associated Press that the president told his legal advisers last week that he agreed that releasing the photos would endanger US troops. Obama wants the issue to go back to the courts, although federal appeals judges have ruled the photos could be released.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama has been debating the issue for several weeks.
The photos "have the potential to cause harm to our troops," Gibbs told reporters.
They could also get in the way of investigations of detainee abuse, he said, and don't help the probes but only add a "sensationalistic" element.
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told the AP that military commanders "are concerned about the impact the release of these photos would have for the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq," and that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates shares their concerns.
The images will reportedly show mistreatment at locations other than Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, where photos emerged in 2004 of soldiers posing with detainees, some naked, being held on leashes or in painful positions.
The Pentagon had planned to release the latest photos by May 28 in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.
And the civil liberties group quickly criticized Obama's reversal.
"The decision to suppress the photos is profoundly inconsistent with the promise of transparency that President Obama has made time after time," ACLU lawyer Jameel Jaffer told the AP.
But military groups praised Obama's change of heart.
"This is the very best news we could hear," American Legion Commander David Rehbein said in a statement, "and we applaud the president for his response to those, like The American Legion, who are putting the welfare of our troops and our country ahead of political considerations."
Rehbein made similar arguments as the military commanders in an opinion piece first published in the Wall Street Journal.
Biden issues stimulus scorecard
Vice President Joe Biden, put in charge of the $787 billion economic stimulus package, submitted his first status report today.
The highlights of the first 77 days under the recovery act (through May 5), according to the White House:
· 150,000 jobs have been created or saved
· More than $88 billion has been made available for programs and projects
· More than 3,000 transportation construction projects have been funded in 52 states and territories
· Ninety-five percent of working families have begun getting tax credits in their paychecks
· COBRA health insurance premiums have been reduced by 65 percent
· Unemployment benefits have increased by $25 a week
· States have drawn down $15.7 billion in medical assistance funds, allowing them to avoid budget cuts
· Thirteen states have qualified for funds to improve education programs and save education-related jobs
"Looking ahead, an additional 600,000 jobs are expected to be created or saved under the Recovery Act in the next 100 days and billions of dollars in contracts and grants are expected to be awarded in the coming months," the White House said. "The report finds that the anticipated funds are already having an effect on economic and job growth as private sector companies staff up to meet expected demand for their products under Recovery Act programs and state and local governments adjust their spending plans ahead of receiving additional Recovery Act funds."
UPDATE: Republicans noted, however, that more independent analyses by the New York Times, the Associated Press, and others have suggested that the stimulus cash is trickling out or going to places not in as dire need as others.
Obama optimistic on healthcare
President Obama held a pep session this morning to rally House Democratic leaders behind his healthcare overhaul plan.
"We've got to get it done this year," he said.
"And we don't have any excuses," he added. "The stars are aligned."
And, Obama said, he is "deeply encouraged" that a bill can emerge before Congress leaves for its August recess, pointing to health industry leaders who opposed sweeping change in the 1990s offering this week to cut costs by $2 trillion over the next decade.
"We're starting to see a shift," Obama said. "They recognize the time is now."
He met in the Oval Office with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, and House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller.
Obama's full remarks are below:
FULL ENTRYObama rallies grassroots support on healthcare
With momentum appearing to grow for a healthcare overhaul, President Obama is calling once again on his grassroots army to push Congress over the finish line this year.
Obama's backers received an email appeal overnight to sign an online declaration of support for his Obama's core principles: reduce costs, guarantee choice, and ensure all Americans have quality, affordable healthcare.
Mitch Stewart, director of Organizing for America, noted that on Monday healthcare industry leaders offered to cut costs by $2 trillion over 10 years.
"The health care crisis is not new, but it's getting worse," Stewart wrote the 17 million supporters. "For decades, real health care reform has been blocked by special interest lobbying and political point-scoring. We simply cannot go any further down this dangerous road of delay and denial. But we don't have to.
"The most important reason this round of health care reform will be different is you. Last fall millions of regular people came together and did the impossible. Now, we've got to roll up our sleeves, join hands with those new to our movement, and do it again," he added.
"Congress is already hammering out the details of the health care package, and it could still go any number of ways. Our representatives need to understand that when the President lays out these three bedrock principles, Americans of every stripe are standing with him."
Boston group backs Notre Dame invite to Obama
A Boston-based group of Catholics is trying to build support for Notre Dame's invitation for President Obama to give the commencement speech on Sunday.
That decision has been criticized by bishops and others who oppose honoring Obama when his positions on abortion and stem cell research, among other issues, conflict with church teachings.
But today, Catholic Democrats launched a website that includes a "statement of support" petition that in praises Catholic colleges that "thoughtfully engage students – and indeed all Catholics – to think critically about matters of faith and public policy."
The site also includes a video that highlights Obama's faith and polls that show Catholic support for the president.
"Our network of supporters across the country have joined together in support of excellence in Catholic higher education, and of Notre Dame in particular, against the kind of extremist attacks we've all heard," Patrick Whelan, president of Catholic Democrats, said in a statement. "We are providing another perspective - one that reflects the mainstream view of Catholics - to shed light on this fabricated controversy. Our goal is to provide our fellow Catholics with the resources and information needed to bring some rationality back to the public debate."
"Catholics voted for President Obama by a larger percentage than the general population and they continue to support him because of his actions on the issues they care about most - including the economy, health care, poverty, torture - issues that reflect values of Catholic Social Teaching," added Steve Krueger, national director of Catholic Democrats. "We hope that our efforts will promote some balance in the public square and will direct attention to the Catholic sensibility of bringing both faith and reason to bear on the moral issues of our time.
Kerry-led panel holds hearing on new Pakistan plan
Richard Holbrooke, the special US envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, is testifying today before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as it consider President Obama's new strategy for the intertwined nations.
Obama is sending 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan, agreed to the replacement of the top US general in Afghanistan, announced Monday, and supports a bill being pushed by Senator John F. Kerry to increase aid to Pakistan's government to $1.5 billion a year.
Holbrooke testified that "a stable, secure, democratic Pakistan is vital to US national security interests."
"We must support and strengthen the democratic government of Pakistan in order to eliminate once and for all the extremist threat from al-Qaeda and affiliated terrorist groups," he continued in prepared remarks.
Relations between the US and Pakistan have been "inconsistent," he added. "In Pakistan, many believe that we are not a reliable long-term partner and that we will abandon them after achieving our counterterrorism objectives. Many in the U.S. question the dedication of some elements of the Pakistani government to ending safe haven for terrorists on Pakistani soil. But our engagement has to be aimed at putting our relationship on a better long-term footing."
(His full prepared remarks are below.)
In his opening statement at the hearing, Kerry, the committee's chairman, declared that "with its nuclear arsenal, terrorist safe havens, Taliban sanctuaries and growing insurgency, Pakistan has emerged as one of the most difficult foreign policy challenges we face."
The Massachusetts Democrat said that Obama's meetings last week with Pakistani President Asif Zardari and Afghan President Karzai were "a significant step forward," but much work remains to succeed with a "bold new strategy."
"Since President Obama called on Congress to pass a Pakistan aid bill, the dangers of inaction have risen almost by the day. The government has struck an ill-advised deal that effectively surrendered the Swat Valley to the Taliban. Predictably, this emboldened the Taliban to extend their reach ever closer to the country’s heartland. In recent days we have seen encouraging signs that Pakistan’s Army is finally taking the fight to the enemy, but much remains to be done," Kerry said, according to prepared remarks released by the committee.
"Even as we help Pakistan’s government to respond to an acute crisis, we also need to mend a broken relationship with the Pakistani people. For decades, America sought Pakistani cooperation through military aid, while paying scant attention to the wishes of the population itself. This arrangement is rapidly disintegrating. Today an alarming number of Pakistanis actually view America as a greater threat than Al Qaeda. Until this changes, there’s little chance of ending tolerance for terrorist groups— or persuading any Pakistani government to devote the political capital necessary to deny such groups sanctuary and covert material support."
The additional aid is an important first step, Kerry said. " Our aid to Pakistan aims to achieve more than just good deeds: It will empower the civilian government to show that it can deliver its citizens a better life.
His full opening statement is below:
FULL ENTRYObama wins one, loses one on nominees
As President Obama tries to finish filling out his team, he is making progress today on one opening, while he'll have to start over on another.
Senator David Vitter of Louisiana, bowing to criticism that he was leaving the Federal Emergency Management Agency without a leader just weeks from the start of hurricane season, has relented and lifted his hold on Obama's nominee, Craig Fugate.
Vitter, who wanted answers on Hurricane Katrina recovery, wrote acting FEMA administrator Nancy Word that Fugate has offered assurances that the flood-zone rebuilding issues would be resolved, "allowing for the crucial rebuilding of key infrastructure," the Associated Press reports.
The AP also says that Chuck Hurley, CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, has withdrawn his name to become the administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration after criticism from some environmental groups about his stand on tougher fuel efficiency standards and MADD's funding from auto manufacturers.
Obama hopes to jump-start Middle East peace talks
The White House this morning announced a series of meetings later this month between President Obama and key partners for a Middle East peace effort.
New Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be the first to come to Washington, on May 18. He will be followed by President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt on May 26, and by President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian authority on May 28.
"With each of them, the president will discuss ways the United States can strengthen and deepen our partnerships, as well as the steps all parties should take to help achieve peace between Israelis and Palestinians and between Israel and the Arab states," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a statement.
Engage, Obama tells Americans
The key players remain the same, but the White House today renamed its office that deal most closely with everyday Americans and gave it a new mission.
The Office of Public Liaison is becoming the Office of Public Engagement, which will be the "front door" for Americans into the White House and will focus on getting information from them though special public events and activities on its website.
“This office will seek to engage as many Americans as possible in the difficult work of changing this country, through meetings and conversations with groups and individuals held in Washington and across the country,” Obama said in a video announcement.
More fuzzy math on jobs?
Critics -- including many Republicans and some economists -- have questioned President Obama's assertion that the economic stimulus package will create or save 3.5 million jobs.
It is exceedingly difficult, they note, to prove that a job was "saved." "If we lose over a million jobs since the stimulus passed, the administration can still claim to save 150,000. 'Save' is a communications department's greatest 'saving grace," the office of House GOP whip Eric Cantor said in an email today.
The skeptics are sure to have a field day with the new report from the president's Council of Economic Advisers that revises the estimate of job creation from the $787 billion stimulus package.
Besides repeating the 3.5 million jobs figure as of the fourth quarter of 2010, the report introduces a new number -- 6.8 million "job-years" saved or created hrough the end of 2012.
"For some purposes, looking at the effects at a single point in time is not the most useful approach," the report says. "Since the economy is likely to be operating below capacity for several years, job creation at any time over the next several years is valuable.
"Thus, a second way to look at the employment effects of the program is to estimate the number of job-years the program will create over the President's first term. A job-year means simply one job for one year."
The job-years include "direct jobs" created by government-sponsored projects, "indirect jobs" created at suppliers who make materials used in projects, and "induced jobs" created elsewhere in the economy from increased spending by workers and companies.
To read the report, click here.
Americans for Tax Reform, a group critical of Obama, noted that federal statistics show 1.9 million jobs lost since Obama took office.
"Obama and his economic advisors have resorted to the invention of highly questionable new metrics such as the number of ''saved' jobs and – making its debut today -- the number of 'job-years' created," the group said today.
It cited Senator Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, responding to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner during a hearing: "You created a situation where you cannot be wrong. If the economy loses 2 million jobs over the next few years, you can say yes, but it would've lost 5.5 million jobs. If we create a million jobs, you can say, well, it would have lost 2.5 million jobs. You've given yourself complete leverage where you cannot be wrong, because you can take any scenario and make yourself look correct."
Federal deficit rises even higher
That $1.3 trillion deficit that President Obama likes to say he inherited whenever questioned on his spending?
Well, it has ballooned to a projected $1.8 trillion. And Obama has no one to blame but himself -- and the economic crisis, which has helped force the federal government to borrow about 50 cents of every $1 it forks out.
The deficit figure for the current budget -- which ends Sept. 30 -- is about quadruple last year's number. And that figure was an all-time record.
Since George W. Bush left office, the economy has gone further in the tank, and Obama and Democratic allies in Congress have pushed through a $787 billion stimulus package and a $410 billion supplemental budget bill.
The White House is now predicting the deficit will be $87 billion higher than expected for the 2010 budget year that begins Oct. 1, rising to $1.3 trillion.
Obama pushes for credit card reform
President Obama uses his weekly Internet and radio address today to pressure Congress to pass a credit card reform bill by Memorial Day.
"Americans know that they have a responsibility to live within their means and pay what they owe," the president says. "But they also have a right to not get ripped off by the sudden rate hikes, unfair penalties, and hidden fees that have become all-too common in our credit card industry. You shouldn’t have to fear that any new credit card is going to come with strings attached, nor should you need a magnifying glass and a reference book to read a credit card application. And the abuses in our credit card industry have only multiplied in the midst of this recession, when Americans can least afford to bear an extra burden."
Obama called in the heads of major credit companies to the White House last month. Afterwards, industry representatives said those in the meeting discussed the need for a balance between protecting consumers and keeping credit available during the recession.
The House last week passed legislation to restrict abusive credit card practices and eliminate sudden increases in interest rates and late fees. The Senate is expected to vote next week.
"It is past time for rules that are fair and transparent," Obama says in his address. "That is why I have called for a set of new principles to reform our credit card industry. Instead of an 'anything goes' approach, we need strong and reliable protections for consumers. Instead of fine print that hides the truth, we need credit card forms and statements that have plain language in plain sight, and we need to give people the tools they need to find a credit card that meets their needs. And instead of abuse that goes unpunished, we need to strengthen monitoring, enforcement, and penalties for credit card companies that take advantage of ordinary Americans."
His full address is below. To see the web video, click here.
Obama will speak to Muslims from Egypt
While he already addressed Muslims around the world during his trip to Turkey, President Obama will give his official speech to Muslims that he promised on June 4 in Egypt, the White House announced this afternoon.
Spokesman Robert Gibbs said that the following day, the president plans to visit Germany, stopping in Dresden, which was fire-bombed by the Allies during World War II, and the Buchenwald concentration camp where thousands of Jews and others were killed by the Nazis.
The day after that, Obama will be in France to join in the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy.
Asked why Egypt was picked, Gibbs said, "It is a country that in many ways represents the heart of the Arab world. And I think it will be a terrific opportunity for the president to address and discuss our relationship with the Muslim world."
The trip will be Obama's second major foreign tour, following his trip last month to London for G-20 summit, then to Europe for meetings with NATO allies, then Turkey.
Obama wants stepping stone for jobless
With the new jobless numbers offering that "glimmer of hope" he has been pitching, President Obama today to offered more help to the unemployed.
The lower figures, he said, are no "solace" to the laid-off who can't find jobs and struggle to support their families. And to emerge stronger from the recession, the nation's workforce must come out stronger out of the downturn.
So he laid out proposals to allow people without work to enroll in community college and other education and training programs without sacrificing their unemployment checks. He also wants to make it easier for the jobless to qualify for financial aid for colleges by not basing their eligibility on their prior year's income when they had a job.
The current rules are "senseless" when workers need to prepare themselves for jobs that often require more training. He cited the case of a Maine woman who did get help because the state already has such regulations.
"That's what our unemployment system should be, not just a safety net, but a stepping stone to a new future," Obama said.
Obama also announced a new website (click here) where laid-off workers can find out more about educational opportunities. He also announced that Jill Biden, the vice president's wife who has taught at community colleges, will lead an effort to raise awareness of what they offer.
Obama spoke hours after the Labor Department reported that the pace of layoffs slowed in April, when employers slashed 539,000 jobs, the fewest in six months. But after revised, higher numbers of layoffs in February and March, the unemployment rate rose to 8.9 percent, the highest in more than a quarter century. And since the recession began in December 2007, the economy has lost 5.7 million jobs
The layoffs are "still a sobering toll" and it could take years to recover from the recession, the president said. (His full remarks are below.)
The National Employment Law Project praised Obama's initiatives, saying in a report that despite federal law barring states from denying unemployment benefits to workers in “state-approved training,” many states only allow limited access to benefits.
“In a time when unemployment is at near-unprecedented levels, with long durations of joblessness and substantial job loss -- and with the federal government picking up the tab for 20 to 53 weeks of extended jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed, it is critical that states adopt this change to give workers the chance to develop skills that will help them find sustained work and stay afloat while they do so," the group's policy co-director, Maurice Emsellem, said in a statement.
Representative John Boehner, the House Republican leader, also jumped on the numbers, using them to criticize Obama's game plan. "About two and a half million jobs have been lost since the beginning of the year, yet some here in Washington continue to believe that we can borrow and spend our way back to prosperity," Boehner said in a statement. "Rather than working across the aisle on plans to create more jobs, rebuild Americans' savings, and reinvigorate the housing market, the spending, taxing, and borrowing binge that the Administration and Congress have set out on in the first four months of this year isn't helping our economy."
Barack rising fast on baby names list
A lot more parents are naming their kids after President Obama, but not enough for "Barack" to make the top 1,000 boys' names. But watch out this year.
The Social Security Administration, which tracks the nation's most popular baby names, said today that "Barack" did set what is believed to be a record by skyrocketing more than 10,000 spots -- from number 12,535 in 2007 to 2,409 in 2008.
It predicts that Barack will jump into the top 1,000 for 2009.
Within the top 1,000 boy's names, the biggest jump was for Jacoby, moving up 200 spots to number 423.
The agency's commissioner Michael Astrue, a die-hard Red Sox fan, attributed the rise to the appeal of last year’s star rookie centerfielder, Jacoby Ellsbury, the agency said in a news release.
The largest jump within the top 1,000 was on the girl's side, for Khloe, apparently related to Khloe Kardashian from the reality show “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.” It rose 469 spots to number 196 in 2008, up from 665 in 2007 and 960 in 2006 (her first year on the list).
Overall, Emma supplanted Emily as the most popular girl's name, while Jacob stayed atop the boy's list. The full top 10 lists are below:
Latino group disappointed in Obama budget cuts
Predictably, Republicans bashed President Obama's budget, the details of which were submitted on Thursday.
But Democrats, too, are questioning some of the $17 billion or so in cuts. And so are Democratic-leaning advocacy groups.
Add to that list today the National Council of La Raza, the largest national civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States, which joined Republicans in noting that some of the proposed trims were unsuccessfully pushed by former President Bush, but from a different political perspective.
“What we have seen so far with the budget is discouraging and suggests that some of the key priorities of the Latino community are not those of the administration. I am very surprised that the Obama administration in its first budget would mirror similar cuts made by the Bush administration,” Janet Murguía, the council's president and CEO, said in a statement.
She cited the funding for health programs serving Latinos, and unemployment programs, even though the jobless rate among Hispanics has reached 11.4 percent. The council also expressed concern in "the lack of investment" in programs for parents, family literacy, and English learners.
“We realize this is just a proposal and Congress has the opportunity to deliver a budget that works for all Americans and we will continue to work with the Administration and Congress to achieve that,” Murguía added.
A Mother's Day gift list
A liberal-labor coalition takes a whimsical approach in a new Mother's Day-themed web video urging Americans to support President Obama's economic agenda.
The video from Americans United for Change -- a major ally for the president in organizing grassroots support -- features old-timey organ music and a series of scenes of children offering their mothers what they really want.
"Equal pay (and flowers)," it says on screen as a young girl holds out a bouquet.
Then, "more college aid for our kids (and less laundry)" as kid throws clothes out of a basket.
And finally, "health care we can count on (and breakfast in bed)" as two kids hold out a tray.
The spot ends with a call to call Congress: "Tell them to support President Obama's agenda for families."
Kennedy praises FDA nominee
Senator Edward M. Kennedy this afternoon praised President Obama's pick for Food and Drug Administration commissioner, saying that a respected scientist is needed to restore morale at the agency that oversees the nation's food and drug safety.
Dr. Margaret Hamburg, a Harvard Medical School graduate and bioterrorism expert who served as New York City's health commissioner, also told the Senate committee considering her nomination that she wants to restore public confidence in the FDA.
"Dr. Hamburg is widely respected for her expertise in community health, bio-defense, and nuclear, biological, and chemical preparedness," Kennedy said in a statement entered into the record for the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing. "Her expertise is valuable for problems we now face, such as combating food-borne illness, cooperating with other agencies to address the new flu outbreak and drug-resistant diseases, and protecting our food and drug supplies."
If confirmed by the Senate, one of her first duties will be overseeing development of a vaccine for the new swine flu.
UPDATE: Hamburg breezed through the hearing, with no committee members expressing opposition, the Associated Press reports.
"The agency is facing a range of new and daunting challenges," Hamburg told senators. "These include the globalization of food and drug production, the emergence of new and complex medical technologies, and the risk of adulteration or deliberate terror attacks on our food and drug supplies."
"It’s been clear for some time that the agency has been chronically underfunded," Kennedy said in his statement. "Its budget per American citizen each year amounts to little more than the cost of a fast food meal. The regular intake of fast food is not the well balanced diet we need to be healthy, and it can’t be good for the FDA either.
"The agency needs more than additional funds, however. Morale is low. In recent years, science has often taken a back seat to political pressure. It’s a sad state of affairs when a court rules that the “FDA acted in bad faith and in response to political pressure” and orders the agency to base a decision on science."
Obama breaks from Bush on prayer day
President Obama's latest break from his predecessor is drawing some ire among some Christian groups.
While former President Bush held formal events in the White House each year to mark the National Day of Prayer, Obama is opting today for a private observance and issuing an official proclamation.
UPDATE: In the proclamation, Obama takes a decidedly ecumenical tack. He does not mention the nation's Judeo-Christian heritage.
Instead, the president emphasizes compassion, thanks the service of members of the military, and cites the "one law that binds all great religions together: the Golden Rule and its call to love one another, to understand one another, and to treat with dignity and respect those with whom we share a brief moment on this Earth."
"Our world grows smaller by the day, and our varied beliefs can bring us together to feed the hungry and comfort the afflicted; to make peace where there is strife; and to lift up those who have fallen on hard times," the proclamation says.
Praising the armed forces, he says "it is because of them that we continue to live in a nation where people of all faiths can worship or not worship according to the dictates of their conscience."
"I call upon Americans to pray in thanksgiving for our freedoms and blessings and to ask for God's continued guidance, grace, and protection for this land that we love."
(Click here to read the proclamation.)
"We are disappointed in the lack of participation by the Obama administration," Shirley Dobson, chairwoman of the National Day of Prayer Task Force, said in a statement. "At this time in our country's history, we would hope our president would recognize more fully the importance of prayer."
The theme for the 58th annual observance is "Prayer... America's Hope" and is based on Psalm 33:22: "May your unfailing love rest upon us, O Lord, even as we put our hope in you."
But other religious groups praised Obama for dialing back the observance, and accused the task force of trying to exclude non-Christians. Dobson is the spouse of James Dobson of Focus on the Family, a politically active Christian conservative group.
"It is a shame that the National Day of Prayer Task Force seems to think it owns the National Day of Prayer," the Rev. C. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, said in a statement. The alliance sent a letter to Obama urging him to make this year's observance more inclusive of other faiths.
"Once again, the Task Force is misrepresenting the purpose of this national observance," Gaddy added. "President Obama is not the pastor-in-chief of the nation and Shirley Dobson's Task Force is not the spiritual judge of the president's personal or official actions."
Obama: Budget cuts add up to 'real money'
The relatively paltry size and breadth of his budget cuts are getting widely panned so far, but an undaunted President Obama declared this morning that he is streamlining government to get rid of wasteful or ineffective spending.
He formally unveiled a list of 121 proposed budget cuts totaling nearly $17 billion -- barely a dent in the $3.4 trillion federal spending plan that Congress has approved for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1.
Obama acknowledged some of the cuts he wants are less than $1 million. That might be considered a pittance in Washington, he said, but most Americans still see the dollar amounts as significant -- and the savings "add up."
"Even by Washington standards, that should be considered real money," he said.
"We have to admit that there is a lot of money that's being spent inefficiently, ineffectively, and, in some cases, in ways that are actually pretty stunning," he said.
"Some programs may have made sense in the past -- but are no longer needed in the present. Other programs never made any sense; the end result of a special interest's successful lobbying campaign. Still other programs perform functions that can be conducted more efficiently, or are already carried out more effectively elsewhere in the government.
As an example of obsolete programs, he cited a long-range radio navigation system that costs $35 million a year. "Now there's GPS," he said.
About half the trims would come from defense programs and the other half from domestic programs, but at the same time Obama is proposing significant increases in some domestic priorities. About 80 of the targeted programs are new to the cut list, and some of the cuts, Obama conceded, will be painful.
That list is only a start, he and his top budget aides argue, but they also acknowledge that much bigger savings are more likely through the healthcare overhaul that the president wants.
"We recognize that there remain looming challenges to our fiscal health beyond that -- challenges that will require us to make healthcare more affordable and to work on a bipartisan basis to address programs like Social Security," Obama said. "So what we're proposing today does not replace the need for large changes in non-discretionary spending."
But Republicans are deriding the cuts as insignificant.
On the Senate floor, Senator Judd Gregg said the savings would have no impact on the federal deficit, projected at $1.5 trillion this year, especially when Obama is adding back "massive spending."
He likened what Obama proposes to taking a "few pieces of sand off the desert."
Obama's full prepared remarks are below, followed by a White House fact sheet on the cuts:
Obama to detail budget cuts
President Obama plans on Thursday to unveil a list of 121 budget cuts totaling nearly $17 billion, the latest installment of his pledge to scrub the federal budget "line by line" for wasteful spending.
A senior White House official told reporters that the cuts would total nearly $17 billion in the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1 and more in subsequent years, with about half the cuts from defense programs and the other half from domestic programs.
"This is an important step in the process, but it's only a step in the process," said the senior administration official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity to discuss the proposals before they are made public. "In many cases we have multiple programs that are doing the same thing, and that drives up administrative costs unnecessarily....We are searching for things that work and trying to cut back on things that do not work."
One example the official cited is a long-range radio navigation system that costs $35 million a year but has been made obsolete by the prevalence of global positioning systems. "It's not used, it's unnecessary, it costs us $35 million a year, and we perpetuate it just through inertia," the official said.
Another is saving $142 million by no longer making payments to states to clean up abandoned mines that have already been cleaned up, and a third is to have the Department of Education use email and videoconferencing instead of stationing an attaché in Paris. That would save $632,000 a year, the official said.
The official said that about 80 of the targeted programs are new and that much bigger savings are possible through the healthcare overhaul that the president wants.
The $17 billion, however, is only a drop in the proverbial bucket when the federal deficit that's likely to exceed $1.5 trillion this year.
And Republicans quickly pooh-poohed the list, asserting that former President Bush proposed even larger cuts last year -- $1 billion and 30 cuts more, by one accounting.
Obama encouraged after Afghan-Pakistan huddle
After meetings with the presidents of Afghanistan and Pakistan, President Obama declared this afternoon that progress is being made in how the three nations are cooperating to fight militants and prevent them from carving out a stronghold where more terrorist attacks can be plotted.
Obama met separately with Afghan leader Hamid Karzai and Pakistani leader Asif Ali Zardari, then huddled together with the two men, who also pledged to ramp up the battle.
Obama also pledged "every effort" to prevent civilian casualties in the war in Afghanistan, amid reports that dozens might have been killed in a US strike this week.
"We just wanted to say that we've had an extraordinarily productive day," Obama told reporters. "And what is represented around the table is not just three Presidents but rather it's ministers, agency heads at every level, and that reflects the kind of concrete cooperation and detail that is going to ultimately make a difference in improving opportunity and democracy and stability in Pakistan and in Afghanistan."
Obama's full remarks are below:
Ad spoofs funeral directors on Obama health plan
A liberal advocacy group goes for some gallows humor in its latest ad support President Obama's healthcare proposals.
The MoveOn.org spot focuses on the push by Obama and many Democrats for a government healthcare plan that would compete with private insurers. The insurance industry is dead set against it, saying it would put insurers out of business and offering a series of concessions to stop the proposal in its tracks.
Tuesday, the industry's main lobbying group told the Senate Finance Committee it would do away with an insurance surcharge that affects 5.7 million women and offered to accept new consumer protections.
In the ad, two men complain about the public plan option.
"It'll be a disaster for us," one says.
"A public healthcare plan means affordable healthcare for everyone," the second says. "You know what that means.
"Healthy people living longer," the first answers.
"This guy's killing us," the second chimes in.
The camera pans out, and it turns out the men aren't insurance lobbyists. Instead, they're funeral directors.
Biden, Kerry offer support, tough love for Israel
By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- Vice President Joe Biden today said a viable Palestinian state, existing peacefully with Israel, "must be achieved" -- sending a strong signal that the Obama administration will push Israel's new right-wing government to move towards peace with Palestinians.
In a speech before 5,000 delegates to the annual conference of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, one of Washington's most powerful lobbying groups, Biden said: "Israel has to work toward a two state solution and -- you are not going to like my saying this -- but [do] not build more settlements, dismantle existing outposts, and allow the Palestinians freedom of movement . . . This is a show-me deal. Not based on faith. Show me."
Biden's tough love on Israel took up one line in a speech that was otherwise devoted to reiterating Obama's commitment to Israel's security, and Biden's own decades-long personal connection to Israel, starting from the day he met the chain-smoking Golda Meir, Israel's fourth prime minister, when he was a young senator.
But Biden's words could signal rough times ahead for Israel's new right-wing prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, who has backed away from endorsing the creation of a Palestinian state. Netanyahu is slated to meet Obama at the White House for the first time on May 18. Today, Obama met with Israeli President Shimon Peres.
At AIPAC, Senator John F. Kerry, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, also called on Israel to stop building settlements on Palestinian territory occupied after the 1967 war.
"Nothing will do more to show Israel's commitment to making peace than freezing new settlements activity," the Massachusetts Democrat told the audience, to slight applause. "Settlements make it more difficult for Israel to protect its own citizens. New settlements...don't just fragment a future Palestinian state. They also fragment what the Israeli defense forces must defend, they undercut [moderate Palestinian president Mahmoud] Abbas, and strengthen Hamas by convincing the Palestinians that there is no reward for moderation."
Kerry warned that the " window of opportunity for a two-state solution is fast closing."
Both Kerry and Biden sweetened their message with pledges of unflinching support for Israel's security.
Kerry received his most sustained applause when he suggested that Israel should not be expected to pull out of the West Bank any time soon.
"Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon, only to face Hezbollah; Israel withdrew from Gaza, only to face Hamas rockets. Israel is not about to let the same thing happen in the West Bank, nor should they," Kerry said.
Kerry, who recently traveled to Gaza and Syria, also said he pressed during his trip for the release of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and a halt to rocket fire on Israel.
In his speech, Biden also warned that if diplomacy fails to curb the "grave danger of a nuclear-armed Iran," then the United States will have greater international support to "consider other options."
Biden also urged Israel's Arab neighbors to show they are serious about an Arab proposal to normalize relations with the Jewish state if Israel gives up occupied land.
"Now is the time for Arab states to make meaningful gestures to show the Israeli leadership and the people to show that the promise...is real and genuine," Biden said.
Their full remarks are below:
FULL ENTRYObama announces global health effort
The White House announced today that it is seeking $63 billion for a six-year drive to fight illness and disease around the world.
President Obama cited the swine flu outbreak as one reason for the initiative.
"In the 21st century, disease flows freely across borders and oceans, and, in recent days, the 2009 H1N1 virus has reminded us of the urgent need for action," he said in a statement. "We cannot wall ourselves off from the world and hope for the best, nor ignore the public health challenges beyond our borders. An outbreak in Indonesia can reach Indiana within days, and public health crises abroad can cause widespread suffering, conflict, and economic contraction. That is why I am asking Congress to approve my Fiscal Year 2010 Budget request of $8.6 billion -- and $63 billion over six years -- to shape a new, comprehensive global health strategy. We cannot simply confront individual preventable illnesses in isolation. The world is interconnected, and that demands an integrated approach to global health."
The Associated Press reports that Jack Lew, an assistant secretary of state, called the effort "an extraordinary step to save the lives of men, women and children," while praising former President George W. Bush's fight against HIV-AIDS, particularly in Africa.
Obama's full statement and a White House fact sheet are below:
Battle lines drawn on climate bill
Trying to shore up support for his climate change proposals, President Obama called three dozen House Democrats into the White House today.
More than a month ago, Representatives Edward Markey of Massachusetts and Henry Waxman of California introduced a sweeping bill that would set strict new limits on greenhouse gases, cutting emissions by 20 percent by 2020 and by 85 percent by 2050.
The bill -- which calls for pollution credits to be given or auctioned off to utilities and businesses -- has stalled because of industry opposition, criticism from Republicans, and concerns from some Democrats over the so-called cap-and-trade system.
While Obama's spending blueprint calls for generating $650 billion by auctioning off the credits and using most of the windfall to help with higher energy prices, some are pushing to give away many of those permits to ease the cost on business.
Republican critics, meanwhile, call cap-and-trade an energy tax that will hurt families and small businesses. House Republicans held their own session on global warming and released a list of at least 31 congressional Democrats either concerned or opposed outright to the proposal.
Kerry and Lugar call for new Pakistan policy
By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John F. Kerry and ranking Republican Dick Lugar today introduced a bill that would triple nonmilitary assistance to Pakistan to $1.5 billion annually for the next five years in a bid to help stabilize the democratically-elected government of president Asif Ali Zardari, who is besieged with a festering insurgency and a domestic financial crisis.
The aid plan, which Kerry attempted to get passed last summer, would fund roads, schools, and clinics at a time when many average Pakistanis have grown disillusioned with their government and the US-prompted war against Taliban militants who have taken control of large parts of the country.
When asked at a news conference whether the funding would come too late to help Zardari, Kerry acknowledged that "we have lost a lot of time."
But the Massachusetts Democrat said the money would be an important signal of America's long-term commitment to Pakistan, where many see the United States as a fair-weather friend who will withdraw its aid as soon as its goals are accomplished.
"This legislation is the first time we have made a longer-term commitment," Kerry said. "While governments may change, I don't believe the country itself is about to fall apart."
"The dangers of inaction are rising almost by the day," Kerry added in a speech on the Senate floor. Kerry said that the bill "will empower the moderates, who will have something concrete to put forward as evidence that friendship with America bring rewards as well as perils."
Zardari is due to meet President Obama for the first time Wednesday as part of a trilateral summit with Afghan president Hamid Karzai aimed at countering growing violence in the region. On Thursday, Kerry and Lugar, of Indiana, will host a 70-person lunch at the Capitol for Zardari, Karzai, and the US special envoy to the region, Richard Holbrooke, to discuss the plan.
Aides said that the bill was aimed at giving the Obama administration and USAID wide discretion, given the rapidly-changing situation on the ground.
Kerry urged the administration to use "the vast majority of these funds" on nonmilitary economic assistance, but left the door open for some of the money to be used for military purposes, if necessary.
Congress will not dictate which institutions, or even which parts of Pakistan, would receive the funds, leading some analysts to doubt that the money will reach the federally-administered tribal areas, the home of Pakistani Taliban, which has long been starved of development funding.
A similar aid bill introduced in the House that included nearly two-dozen pages of detailed conditions drew scathing criticism from Pakistani officials who said they could not accept aid with such strings attached. But the Kerry-Lugar bill, which has been endorsed by the Obama administration, contains only a few modest conditions -- such as the requirement that Obama certify that the Pakistanis are fighting terrorists -- although Obama can also waive the conditions.
Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's ambassador to the United States, could not be immediately reached for comment.
But Mark A. Siegel, a partner at Locke Lord Strategies, a lobbying firm retained by the Pakistani government, praised Kerry for introducing the bill.
"The world has a lot at stake in the success of the government of Pakistan in defeating terrorism," he said. "If Pakistan wins, the world wins."
The full bill summary is below, followed by Kerry's prepared speech on the Senate floor:
FULL ENTRYObama unveils tax crackdown
In all the 100-day polls that gave him generally high marks, President Obama found himself faulted in one area -- not being tough enough on Big Business and Wall Street.
So both for political and budgetary reasons, it makes sense that this morning he unveiled a crackdown on corporate tax loopholes and offshore tax havens -- plus 800 more tax agents to enforce the changes.
Introduced by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Obama said that while nobody likes paying taxes, most do their duty, but some shirk their responsibility -- "aided and abetted by a broken tax system."
The current tax system rewards US companies for moving jobs to other countries and for moving profits offshore, the president said.
(His full remarks are below.)
His proposal would eliminate some tax deductions for companies that earn profits in countries with low tax rates. It would also make it illegal for US citizens to use tax havens in the Bahamas or Cayman Islands.
The changes, which require congressional approval and would not take effect until 2011, would increase the Treasury's take by about $210 billion over the next decade. They represent only a first step toward an overhaul of international financial regulations Obama has promised.
Though Obama offers to offset the corporate tax change by making permanent a research tax credit, the proposal is likely to face stiff opposition from business groups and their allies in Congress.
Americans for Tax Reform called it a "job killing" tax increase, asserting that US corporate taxes are already the highest among industrial countries and that US companies face double taxation on their profits.
Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, citing his own legislative efforts to close offshore tax shelters, praised Obama's proposals.
“For five years we’ve been pushing to reform the tax code to end deferral and reward companies that create jobs at home not those that hide money offshore,” Kerry, a senior member of the Finance Committee, said in a statement. “I’m glad President Obama is taking action on an issue that has long needed attention and I will work closely with the administration to simplify and reform our international tax system.”
A White House summary of the proposal is below:
Obama headed to southwest
The White House announced this afternoon that President Obama will take another road trip next week -- this time to the Southwest, where officials are on the front lines of the immigration and border security debate and where Democrats are trying to solidify inroads.
Obama will hold events next Wednesday in Tempe, Ariz., a Phoenix suburb, and Thursday in Albuquerque, N.M.
Obama won New Mexico, among the swing states he put in the Democratic column. He lost Arizona, home to GOP presidential nominee John McCain.
Obama talks to lawmakers on court pick
President Obama called two key senators on the Judiciary Committee today as he mulls his pick to replace David Souter on the Supreme Court.
Obama talked to Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who switched to the Democratic party last week, and to Orrin Hatch of Utah, who has already expressed some concern that Obama might nominate an activist liberal. Meanwhile, conservative Jeff Sessions of Alabama is in line to become the Judiciary panel's ranking Republican with Specter's switch.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, disclosing the early phone discussions, reiterated Obama's desire for the nominee to have real-life experience.
"I think the president described that there should be a diversity of experience. I am sure he will look at candidates for diversity in background," Gibbs said.
"But again, I think the president is looking for somebody with a record of excellence, somebody with a record of integrity, somebody who understands the rule of law, and somebody who understands how being a judge affects Americans' everyday lives."
For high court, Obama could seek moderation, empathy
President Obama, confirming that Supreme Court Justice David Souter will retire in June, said this afternoon that he will seek a nominee "with a sharp and independent mind and a record of excellence and integrity" and an understanding of the real world.
"I will seek someone who understands that justice isn't about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a casebook; it is also about how our laws affect the daily realities of people's lives, whether they can make a living and care for their families, whether they feel safe in their homes and welcome in their own nation," Obama said, interrupting his press secretary's daily briefing to say he had talked to Souter.
"I view that quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people's hopes and struggles, as an essential ingredient for arriving at just decisions and outcomes."
The president said he told Souter he is 'incredibly grateful for his dedicated service." (Souter's resignation letter is below.)
Obama said that Souter had shown what it is like to be a "fair-minded and independent judge."
Obama said he plans to name someone by the time the court's new term starts in October, and will consult with lawmakers of both parties.
(His full remarks are below.)
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that since the transition, officials have been making preparations for a Supreme Court appointment.
Gibbs also reaffirmed that Obama will pick someone who supports a woman's right to choose abortion and Roe v. Wade, but denied that that amounted to a litmus test. The president wants someone with a diverse background, Gibbs said.
What kind of jurist will Obama look for to replace Souter? Based on what he said as a candidate, perhaps someone very much like Souter, at least in a more moderate, restrained judicial philosophy.
While the president was rather circumspect during the campaign, he did suggest he would like those with real world experience and empathy for the vulnerable, possibly expanding the pool of candidates beyond the usual farm team of federal appeals court justices. (All nine justices now are former federal appeals court judges.)
In an interview with the Detroit Free Press editorial board last October, he praised Souter and Justice Stephen Breyer as "very sensible judges. They take a look at the facts and they try to figure out: How does the Constitution apply to these facts? They believe in fidelity to the text of the Constitution, but they also think you have to look at what is going on around you and not just ignore real life.
"That's the kind of justice that I'm looking for," he continued on. "Somebody who respects the law, doesn't think that they should be making the law, but also has a sense of what's happening in the real world and recognizes that one of the roles of the courts is to protect people who don't have a voice."
He added that the "special role" of the court is to protect "the vulnerable, the minority, the outcast, the person with the unpopular idea."
"We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom," Obama said at a Planned Parenthood conference in 2007. "The empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that's the criterion by which I'm going to be selecting my judges."
In the Detroit interview, while he also praised the more liberal Earl Warren, William Brennan, and Thurgood Marshall as "heroes of mine," he added, "that doesn't necessarily mean that I think their judicial philosophy is appropriate for today."
Obama went on to say that while activist judges were needed to "break that logjam" on racial discrimination, he wasn't sure the same was needed today. "In fact, I would be troubled if you had that same kind of activism in circumstances today."
UPDATE: Republicans are also playing things close to the vest.
"I'm not going to talk about any particular nominees," Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, a former Senate Judiciary Committee chairman who could become the panel's senior Republican again with the party switch by Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.
But speaking generally on MSNBC, Hatch said he wants a nominee who will not make law and or act as a "superlegislator from the bench, but rather will interpret the law and defer to elected officials.
That should be the most important criteria for selection -- not real-life experience or empathy with women or minorities, he said.
"It's going to be a very interesting matter," Hatch said. "These are some of the most important positions in the world."
Meanwhile, CNN reports that Specter believes a second woman on the court "would be a good idea."
"I think that given the proportion women in our society, 1 out of 9 is underrepresented. But the court could use some diversity along a number of lines," he said at a Philadelphia news conference.
Specter said he would like to see Obama consider African-American, Hispanic, and female candidates, and said he is looking for a nominee with a good education, strong professional experience, and "a determination to follow the Constitution and to follow statutes enacted by Congress and not to take upon himself or herself to make new laws."
"I have never had a litmus test, Specter said, according to CNN. "I have supported very conservative nominees like Justice [Antonin] Scalia and very liberal nominees like Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I think that's the way it ought to be handled."
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said this afternoon he agrees with Obama's focus on real-life experience and very comfortable with an emphasis on diversity.
"I think the president has pretty well nailed it," Whitehouse said on MSNBC. "Obviously, you have to be able to meet the intellectual demands of the court. I hope that it is someone who brings a broad experience to the court. And I think as the president said, it's very important that people see the sense of justice that motivates our legal process as a real one and as a practical one, and as one that hits home in America's families and neighborhoods, and not something that's ideological or mechanical or very remote. And I think the president's committed to doing that."
He added, "I think it's clear to all of us that the court is unbalanced in the direction of white males, and that both gender and ethnic diversity would be useful on the court."
Leahy issued this statement on Souter and the coming nomination fight: "Justice Souter has served the nation with distinction for nearly two decades on the Supreme Court. I have admired his commitment to justice, his admiration for the law, and his understanding of the impact of the Court’s decisions on the daily lives of ordinary Americans.
"Throughout his career, he has been committed to the law and not to ideology. New Englanders treasure our strong sense of independence, and Justice Souter fits the independent Yankee mold. He has a first-rate legal mind. I have known him to be an honest and tireless person who has given years of his life in service to this country.
"Of course, we have all known that his deep love for New Hampshire would take him away from the Court some day. Nonetheless, I am sad to see a gifted jurist, a dedicated public servant and a decent man leave the bench. We have long been neighbors in New England, and I look forward to seeing him at home.
“Now more than ever, while the country is in the throes of an economic recession, and fighting to strengthen our economic and national security, Americans are looking to Washington for leadership and cooperation. I know that as President Obama selects a nominee to replace Justice Souter, he will continue to consult with senators from both sides of the aisle as he has this year with so many nominations. In exercising their important roles in the confirmation of the next Supreme Court Justice, I hope that all senators will take this opportunity to unify around the shared constitutional values that will define Justice Souter’s legacy on the Court.”
Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, issued his own statement: "I thank Justice Souter for his service and wish him well in his future endeavors once he leaves the Supreme Court. I trust the president will choose a nominee for the upcoming vacancy based on their experience and even-handed reading of the law, and not their partisan leanings or ability to pass litmus tests. A Supreme Court nominee needs to be able to fulfill the judicial oath of applying the law without prejudice, and not decide cases based on their feelings or personal politics.Once there is a nominee, I will work to ensure that their record is thoroughly reviewed and that there is a full and fair debate.”
Obama wins one, loses one
President Obama this afternoon praise the House's passage of a bill designed to protect consumers from sudden increases in interest rates and late fees.
The legislation, which House Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank of Massachusetts helped shepherd, passed by a bipartisan vote of 357-70.
"Today, under the leadership of Representatives Barney Frank, Carolyn Maloney, and Luis Gutierrez, members of both parties in the House of Representatives came together to protect American consumers, paving the way toward real, meaningful credit card reform," Obama said in a statement.
"While Americans have a responsibility to live within their means and pay what they owe, credit card companies have a responsibility to set rules that are fair and transparent. The principles I have long supported would help ensure that these responsibilities are met: strong and reliable consumer protections; credit card forms and statements that have plain language in plain sight; tools that can help people make an informed choice about what credit card to use; and beefed up monitoring, enforcement, and penalties. And building on what we have achieved today, I will work with Congress in the weeks to come so that I can sign a credit card reform bill into law that upholds these principles and upholds the interests of the American people."
Over in the Democratic-controlled Senate, however, a bill -- which Obama backed but didn't spend a ton of political capital pushing -- to spare hundreds of thousands of homeowners from foreclosure through bankruptcy was defeated.
A dozen Democrats joined Republicans in the 51-45 vote to shelve the legislation.
Tackling immigration
A Senate panel today begins the hard slog toward an overhaul of immigration policy -- the goal that Congress punted during the Bush administration and the issue that animated the rank-and-file during last year's Republican presidential primaries.
The Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship will hold a hearing titled, "Comprehensive Immigration Reform in 2009: Can We Do It and How?"
Advocates hope it is the first step to a change that includes a path to citizenship for some of those already in the country illegally.
"For far too long, our state and local governments have been plagued by an out-of-date and broken federal immigration system. Now more than ever, Congress must take the necessary steps to reform our immigration system in a way that honors our laws, rewards honesty and hard work, and fosters economic prosperity," Benjamin Johnson, executive director of the American Immigration Law Foundation, said in a statement.
"The upcoming hearing marks a new day in the conversation on immigration. Rather than dwell on the problems of our broken system, we will hear a discussion that focuses on solutions....This is a discussion that must take place throughout the country because resolution of our immigration crisis will require all sectors of American society to work together to create an immigration system that works for our nation."
The National Council of La Raza, the nation's largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization, also praised the hearing. “For far too long, we have allowed a bullying minority to block the road to solutions and seed intolerance, yet recent elections have demonstrated that Americans want leaders who will solve tough problems, including immigration,” Janet Murguía, NCLR president and CEO, said in a statement.
The group wants the overhaul to include: Getting the 12 million undocumented people in our country to come forward, obtain legal status, learn English, and assume the rights and responsibilities of citizenship; creating smart enforcement policies that uphold national security; cracking down on unscrupulous employers and take away their incentives for hiring undocumented workers; widening legal channels that reunite families and allow future needed workers to come to the U.S. with the rights and protections that safeguard our workforce and prevent the dramatic increase in deaths along the border; and enacting proactive measures to advance the successful integration of new immigrants into our communities.
Pressed on the issue during his news conference Wednesday night, President Obama confirmed his support for comprehensive reform, but said that his administration must lay the groundwork first -- most notably improving border security so Americans are confident that illegal immigrants won't flood the country.
"We can't continue with a broken immigration system. It's not good for anybody," Obama said. "It's not good for American workers. It's dangerous for Mexican would-be workers who are trying to cross a dangerous border. It is putting a strain on border communities who oftentimes have to deal with a host of undocumented workers, and it keeps those undocumented workers in the shadows, which means they can be exploited at the same time as they're depressing US wages."
He said he expects to convene a working group "to start looking at a framework of how this legislation might be shaped. In the meantime, what we're trying to do is take some core -- some key administrative steps to move the process along to lay the groundwork for legislation, because the American people need some confidence that if we actually put a package together we can execute."
"If the American people don't feel like you can secure the borders, then it's hard to strike a deal that would get people out of the shadows and on a pathway to citizenship who are already here, because the attitude of the average American is going to be, 'Well, you're just going to have hundreds of thousands of more coming in each year.' On the other hand, showing that there's a more thoughtful approach than just raids of a handful of workers -- as opposed to, for example, taking seriously the violations of companies that sometimes are actively recruiting these workers to come in -- that's again, something that we can start doing administratively," Obama continued.
"So what we want to do is to show that we are competent in getting results around immigration, even on the structures that we already have in place, the laws that we already have in place, so that we're building confidence among the American people that we can actually follow through on whatever legislative approach emerges. I see the process moving this first year, and I'm going to be moving it as quickly as I can."
UPDATE: As part of the administrative changes, the Department of Homeland Security issued policies today that put more emphasis on going after employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants, though it will still continue to arrest illegal workers.
The Bush administration was criticized by advocacy groups after a series of large raids that resulted in the arrests of about 6,000 workers last year.
"This is a good first step in realigning enforcement priorities," the Immigration Policy Center said. "However, DHS's ability to truly focus on abusive employers is limited by the fact that our current immigration system doesn't provide immigrants or legitimate employers the protections and tools they need to comply with the law. Rather than trimming around the edges, real reform must involve an overhaul of the entire system to ensure that enforcement of our immigration laws is effective, fair, and humane."
Some enchanted evening
Not surprisingly, but perhaps justifiably, conservative critics are all over the White House press corps for its not-so harsh interrogation of President Obama in the 100-day news conference Wednesday night.
On Fox News Channel, comedian-turned-commentator Dennis Miller complained about softball questions lobbed at Obama, saying that beauty pageant contestants have received tougher queries. He was referring to Miss California Carrie Prejean, whose answer in the Miss USA contest coming out in opposition to gay marriage stoked controversy, and in some eyes, cost her the crown.
Critics highlighted in particular the starry-eyed query from a New York Times reporter that will forever be known as the "enchanted question."
As in: "During these first 100 days, what has surprised you the most about this office, enchanted you the most about serving this in office, humbled you the most and troubled you the most?"
"Let me write this down," Obama replied to laughter from the assembled reporters.
"Surprised, troubled..." the Times reporter said helpfully.
"I've got -- what was the first one?" the president asked.
"Surprised."
"Surprised," Obama repeated.
"Troubled."
"Troubled," Obama repeated, writing that down.
"Enchanted," the Times scribe continued.
"Enchanted? Nice," Obama said to more laughter.
"And humbled."
"And what was the last one, humbled?" Obama asked.
"Humbled," the reporter confirmed. "Thank you, sir."
"All right. Okay," Obama started with more laughter. "Surprised. I am surprised compared to where I started, when we first announced for this race, by the number of critical issues that appear to be coming to a head all at the same time. You know, when I first started this race, Iraq was a central issue, but the economy appeared on the surface to still be relatively strong. There were underlying problems that I was seeing with health care for families and our education system and college affordability and so forth, but obviously I didn't anticipate the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
"And so the typical President I think has two or three big problems; we've got seven or eight big problems. And so we've had to move very quickly, and I'm very proud of my team for the fact that we've been able to keep our commitments to the American people to bring about change while, at the same time, managing a whole host of issues that had come up that weren't necessarily envisioned a year and a half ago.
"Troubled? I'd say less troubled, but sobered by the fact that change in Washington comes slow; that there is still a certain quotient of political posturing and bickering that takes place even when we're in the middle of really big crises. I would like to think that everybody would say, you know what, let's take a timeout on some of the political games, focus our attention for at least this year and then we can start running for something next year. And that hasn't happened as much as I would have liked.
"Enchanted? (Laughter.) Enchanted. I will tell you that when I meet our servicemen and women -- 'enchanted' is probably not the word I would use. (Laughter.) But I am so profoundly impressed and grateful to them for what they do. They're really good at their job. They are willing to make extraordinary sacrifices on our behalf. They do so without complaint. They are fiercely loyal to this country. And the more I interact with our servicemen and women, from the top brass down to the lowliest private, I'm just -- I'm grateful to them.
"Humbled by the -- humbled by the fact that the presidency is extraordinarily powerful but we are just part of a much broader tapestry of American life. And there are a lot of different power centers, and so I can't just press a button and suddenly have the bankers do exactly what I want, or turn on a switch and suddenly Congress falls in line. And so what you do is to make your best arguments, listen hard to what other people have to say, and coax folks in the right direction."
UPDATE: Asked about the question on MSNBC this afternoon, the reporter, Jeff Zeleny, said that Obama has well-rehearsed answers on the issues of the day, so he was seeking something different. Zeleny said it elicited some "telling," more personal responses.
(Fox's reporter was not called on by the president. Fox was the only broadcast network that didn't air the news conference, though its cable siblings, Fox News Channel and Fox Business, did.)
Republicans, including Romney, launch new group
Reeling congressional Republicans today launched a new effort days after their latest setback -- the defection of Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, putting Democrats within reach of potentially being able to push legislation through the Senate without a single Republican vote.
House GOP Whip Eric Cantor announced that the National Council for a New America will hold its first event on Saturday with former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who ran last year and could run again in 2012; Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, another possible 2012 contender; former Governor Jeb Bush, the former president's brother; and Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, a former national GOP chairman.
The council appears a way to rebut Democratic portrayals of the GOP as the "party of no" by pulling together a cohesive policy strategy by the opposition.
While acknowledging the GOP's image and electoral problems, Cantor and Senator John McCain, the GOP presidential nominee last year, disputed that the effort is a "rebranding" of the party.
On a conference call, Cantor told reporters that "what we're aiming to do is to join together in a conversation with the American people" on major looming issues such as healthcare, energy, and national security.
McCain called it an effort to include Americans across ideological spectrum -- Republicans, independents, and like-minded Democrats -- to come up with solutions to issues such as healthcare. "We're going to spread a wide tent," he said.
"This is not a Contract with America," McCain added, referring to the campaign promises that Newt Gingrich and Republicans used to win a House majority in 1994. "This is a conversation with America."
McCain also addressed reports that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, his vice presidential pick last year, was not invited, saying that she could be involved.
"We've reached out to her," he said.
The letter announcing the council is below:
Mass. poll: Obama more popular than policies
A new poll out tonight of Massachusetts voters echoes national surveys: President Obama is more personally popular than some of his policies.
The Suffolk University/7 News poll gave Obama an overall job approval rating of 66 percent, 67 percent said he made them "proud to be an American," and 56 percent approved of how he is handling the economy, though 61 percent opposed the bailouts of banks and automakers.
The survey also found that 68 percent believe that Obama is setting the right priorities as he expands Washington's role, though 54 percent say they prefer a smaller government providing fewer services.
Also, 54 percent of respondents said the president is bringing the change he promised during the campaign, 53 percent said he is doing enough to cooperate with congressional Republicans, and 50 percent said his programs are "just about right" and not too liberal or conservative.
On foreign policy, which was a weaker area for Obama during the campaign, 61 percent approve of his handling, 69 percent say he has improved the country's image abroad, and 91 percent supported his authorizing US Navy snipers to kill Somali pirates holding a Vermont ship captain hostage.
"Statistically, it doesn't get much better for an elected official than it is for Barack Obama today," David Paleologos, director of Suffolk's Political Research Center, said in a statement. "Whether one looks at popularity, performance, the economy, or foreign policy, Obama has touched all the bases in this poll."
Still, there are some alarms on the horizon. Despite Obama's actions to stem the worst recession in decades, 69 percent of voters said they believe the standard of living for the next generation will be the same or worse.
And Obama isn't quite as popular as first lady Michelle Obama (70 percent) or Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton (68 percent), who bested Obama in the Bay State's Democratic primary last year.
The survey, conducted Friday through Monday, has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.
(For the full Suffolk press release, click here.)
Obama: A 'good start' but 'plenty of work left'
President Obama opened his 100-day prime-time news conference tonight by declaring that he's off to a "good start" in building a foundation for economic recovery, but it's just a start and he won't rest until the country is back on solid footing.
"I'm proud of what we have achieved, but I'm not content," he said. "I'm pleased with our progress, but I'm not satisfied."
Not shying at all from the ambitious to-do list he has given himself, he added, "Millions of Americans are still without jobs and homes, and more will be lost before this recession is over. Credit is still not flowing nearly as freely as it should. Countless families and communities touched by our auto industry still face tough times ahead. Our projected long-term deficits are still too high. And government is still not as efficient as it needs to be.
"We still confront threats ranging from terrorism to nuclear proliferation to pandemic flu," he added in his third prime-time session with reporters. "And all of this means you can expect an unrelenting, unyielding effort from this administration to strengthen our prosperity and our security -- in the second hundred days, and the third hundred days, and all the days after that."
He mentioned a healthcare overhaul, clean energy, and tougher financial regulations. "So we have plenty of work left to do," he said. "It is work that will take time. It will take effort. But the United States of America, I believe, will see a better day. We will rebuild a stronger nation. And we will endure as a beacon for all those weary travelers beyond our shores who still dream that this is a place where all is possible."
He thanked the American people for their support and patience during trying times.
Following up on a town hall meeting this morning in suburban St. Louis, he catalogued some of the new administration's accomplishments so far, including new strategies for Iraq and Afghanistan, a ban on torture, and the budget that Congress passed just hours ago.
He said he was "gratified" by the quick passage of the spending blueprint, which "builds on the steps we’ve taken over the last one hundred days to move this economy from recession to recovery and ultimately to prosperity" by including "new investments in education that will equip our workers with the right skills and training; new investments in renewable energy that will create millions of jobs and new industries; new investments in healthcare that will cut costs for families and businesses; and new savings that will bring down our deficit."
He also tried to reassure Americans about the government response to the swine flu outbreak, saying that it is doing everything possible.
In answer to a question about closing the border to Mexico to stem the outbreak, he said it would be like closing the proverbial barn door too late since the virus is already in the country. It is much more effective, he said, to implement the preparations for any kind of flu outbreak and to encourage common-sense hygiene.
Asked about his ban on torture, he said that torture "corrodes" the character of the nation, that ending it takes away a recruiting tool from Islamic extremists, and that US intelligence can get the information anyway.
"This is a decision I'm very comfortable with," he said, asserting that waterboarding -- a harsh interrogation technique that subjects the person to near-drowning -- is torture.
Asked a series of questions about the office 100 days in, he said he was most surprised by the number of critical issues coming to a head at the same time, most sobered by the slow pace of change in Washington politics, most moved and gratified by the service and sacrifice of members of the US military, and most humbled by the lack of power in the presidency because there are other actors such as Congress.
At the end of the news conference, Obama addressed critics who say he wants to grow government and put his hands into private industry such as taking over the automakers.
He said he'd much prefer a "lean" portfolio, where the banks and auto companies are doing well, and he only had to deal with Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, healthcare, and energy.
"That's not the hand that's been dealt us," he said.
The full prepared excerpts are below:
FULL ENTRYCongress passes budget, a boon for Obama
Congress this afternoon handed President Obama another big victory to mark his 100th day in office by passing a spending blueprint that incorporates many of his major policy goals ahead on healthcare, energy, and other issues.
But the votes on the budget outline belied Obama's plea for bipartisanship.
The Senate voted 53-43 for the spending plan, with no Republican support, after the House voted 233-193 earlier today, again without a single Republican vote.
In his prepared opening statement for tonight's press conference, Obama says the budget "builds on the steps we’ve taken over the last one hundred days to move this economy from recession to recovery and ultimately to prosperity."
Newly-turned Democrat Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania voted "no," as he did earlier this month when it initially passed the Senate. Three other Democrats also voted no: Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, and Evan Bayh of Indiana.
And, still, Obama's allies declared victory.
"America’s workers applaud Congress for passing President Obama’s budget resolution that is a transformational blueprint for growing the middle class and making the economy work for everyone again," John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, said in a statement.
"Now, more than ever, it is crucial that we build an economy that works for working Americans. President Obama’s budget includes a huge down payment on national healthcare reform, investment in growing green jobs and addressing climate change and more funding for education. The budget also moves away from the failed economic policies of the past and includes tax cuts for middle-class working families, rather than for the wealthy and Big Business. "
“Facing the worst economic crisis in decades, President Obama took the oath of office 100 days ago with a bold agenda to turn our economy around, get Americans back to work and lay a solid foundation for future economic growth and prosperity. And he has done just that. The budget passed today by Congress affirms and supports that vision and addresses the President’s fundamental priorities: halving the deficit over the next four years, providing quality, affordable health care to Americans, improving education investing in the clean energy revolution while reducing our dependence on foreign oil,” added Democratic National Committee chairman Tim Kaine.
Tom McMahon, acting executive director, of the labor-liberal coalition Americans United for Change, said in a statement: “While President Obama inherited a crushing recession and the largest deficit in history, 100 days later the nation is on a clear path to economic recovery paved through the transformational budget Congress passed today. In addition to returning fairness to our tax code and beginning to take control of the federal deficit, the President’s budget recognizes that without fixing our broken health care system, without reducing our dependence on foreign oil, and without investing in tomorrow’s educated workforce, America’s struggling middle-class families will never get ahead. The investments called for in this budget for health care reform, education, and clean energy are essential for long-term economic prosperity. It also remains disappointing that many of the same conservatives members of Congress that enabled the very failed economic policies that got us into this mess once again turned their backs on middle-class families and just said ‘no’ today.”
The bill includes a parliamentary maneuver, which if a healthcare plan isn't passed by Oct. 15, would allow Democrats to push through a plan with a simple majority in the Senate, instead of the 60 votes normally required for such major legislation.
Obama: 'I don't want to let you down'
In the "Show-me State," President Obama declared today that he has shown in his first 100 days in office that he is keeping his pledges to bring change to Washington and to help America pick itself up.
"We have begun the work of remaking America....We've got a lot of work to do," he told hundreds gathered at a town hall meeting at Fox High School in Arnold, Mo., a St. Louis suburb,
He reminded the crowd that the last time he was in Missouri was two days before the November election -- and that his improbable victory only came because Americans in middle-class neighborhoods wanted something different.
"You're who I'm working for....I don't want to let you down," he said, previewing themes he is likely to discuss in his prime-time news conference at 8 p.m. EDT.
Obama listed his accomplishments: the $787 billion economic stimulus package, progress on unfreezing credit, an equal pay law. The House passed the bulk of Obama's spending blueprint this morning without a single Republican vote, and the Democratic-controlled Senate is expected to go along later today, but much of his ambitious to-do list is yet to be done.
The president said he is "pleased, but not satisfied" by what he's gotten done in the first 100 days, but he's flummoxed by those who say he is being too ambitious.
"The priorities we've acted upon are the things we said we would do during the campaign. It's not like anybody should be surprised...That's what you should expect from a president."
But he added that, "I'm not a miracle worker."
Much work lies ahead on education, energy, and healthcare, among other priorities, he said.
Obama also, somewhat defensively, mentioned his decisions to end the war in Iraq, to end torture of terrorist suspects and close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, and to ratchet up the fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
During the question-and-answer session with the audience, Obama also defended himself against accusations from Republicans and other critics that, as he put it, he's spending the country into bankruptcy "blah, blah, blah."
He noted that he inherited a projected $1.3 trillion deficit this year from former President Bush -- "That wasn't me" -- and that economists agree that in the middle of worst recession in decades, the government had to spend money on the stimulus and to shore up banks.
Repeating many of his campaign themes, he predicted that Americans will look back at the 100 days as the time when they reclaimed their future.
The town hall meeting is his favored forum, one where he can show off his communication skills and talent for connecting with people. "It's good to be out of Washington," he started his remarks. "....It is great to be back in the middle of America, where common sense often reigns."
And politically, Missouri is a swing state, like most of the 12 states he has visited in his first 100 days. In November, Obama barely lost Missouri, which was the last state to officially report its results.
Obama's full remarks and the question-and-answer session, as provided by the White House, are below:
FULL ENTRYObama through one man's lens
(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza )
President Barack Obama and Senator Ted Kennedy walk on the grounds of the White House, before signing of the Kennedy Service Act at the SEED School in Washington D.C.
As part of the 100-day commemorations, the White House has released 293 snapshots taken by its official photographer, Pete Souza.
They include photos of Obama meeting with various administration officials in different settings, a series of shots taken during his big foreign trip, of offbeat moments such as putting on the South Lawn, and quite a few of the first family, including the new first dog, Bo.
The photos capture Obama in more private moments and in various moods: upbeat, pensive, studious.
The photos also include one of the president getting help from Vermont Governor Jim Douglas moving a couch in the Oval Office, and another of Obama walking on the White House grounds with Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, who is battling brain cancer and is shown using a cane.
Souza is a South Dartmouth, Mass., native who graduated from Boston University. He took the White House job after working at the Chicago Tribune and as a journalism professor at Ohio University.
Sebelius confirmed as health chief
The US Senate this afternoon confirmed Kathleen Sebelius as health and human services secretary, completing President Obama's cabinet, after Democrats pointed to the swine flu crisis as showing the need for action.
She flew immediately to Washington and was quickly sworn in. Obama's remarks are below.
The 65-31 vote followed hours of debate on the Kansas governor's nomination, which had been held up by Republicans over concerns by her record on abortion, her views on a healthcare overhaul, and unpaid taxes.
Nine Republicans joined the Democratic majority in pushing Sebelius over the 60 votes she needed. They included Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine and Judd Gregg of New Hampshire.
Her backers said that her confirmation was essential now to help coordinate the government's response to the swine flu outbreak, which has been led so far by Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano.
Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, who is helping lead the charge for a healthcare overhaul, said Sebelius's confirmation would jump-start the work. She is expected to play a key role, though not as extensive as Obama's first nominee for the job, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, who was also supposed to be head of the White House office of healthcare reform before he withdrew over unpaid taxes.
“With the confirmation of Governor Sebelius, the commitment of the Administration and Congress to passing health care reform this year now moves into high gear," Kennedy said in a statement.
“In his first 100 days in office, President Obama has taken large steps toward putting America back on track. His leadership has produced a strong new investment in education, established the principles needed to guide the United States into a more energy efficient world, and made opportunities for national and community service far more available to all Americans. In the next 100 days, I’m confident that President Obama will have us well on the way to the landmark enactment of quality, affordable health care as a right for all Americans.”
Billy Tauzin, president and CEO of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, added his plaudits.
“Gov. Kathleen Sebelius is a wise choice to guide the President on shaping healthcare reform," he said in a statement. "Sebelius combines the vital combination of skills that it will take to accomplish this challenging job: Toughness and an intimate understanding of the healthcare challenges that face our nation during these tough economic times.
“We applaud the Finance committee’s endorsement of Sebelius and are pleased that the Senate as a whole quickly followed its lead. Clearly, achieving meaningful healthcare reform will be difficult, making it imperative for Sebelius to be confirmed in a timely manner," Tauzin added. "“It’s equally important for Congress to act rapidly to put a full-time Commissioner in place to head the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Consumers count on the FDA to help assure the safety of a myriad of products – including the life-saving anti-virals contained within the Strategic National Stockpile, which could be deployed in the event of an influenza pandemic."
"Today's confirmation of Gov. Kathleen Sebelius is a tremendous step forward in the effort to address comprehensive health care reform and in turn put our economy back on track," John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, said in a statement.
"Gov. Sebelius is highly qualified and throughout her career, she has shown a unique ability to work with members of both parties to find solutions to pressing problems. As Governor and former health insurance commissioner of Kansas, she is a proven fighter for the rights of patients and consumers. We look forward to working with Secretary Sebelius for real solutions to the problems of working families who deserve quality and affordable health care."
Marcia Greenberger, co-president of the National Women's Law Center, applauded the Sebelius's confirmation.
“Governor Sebelius has a strong record on protecting women’s legal rights, child care and early education, and healthcare," Greenberger said in a statement. "Her stellar career and track record provide reassurance to the American public that she is highly qualified to lead HHS, and that she will make meeting the needs of women and children a priority of the Department. As health care reform moves forward, the country now has a strong HHS Secretary who understands the needs of women and their families, and can bring the particular barriers faced by women to the table."
Anti-abortion groups had marshalled their resources to oppose Sebelius, a Catholic who personally opposes abortion but who vetoed a series of abortion restrictions as governor.
Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, commended the Senate vote.
“We applaud the Senate’s vote to confirm the eminently-qualified Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to serve in this critical position,” Keenan said in a statement. “Anti-choice advocates tried every desperate trick in the book to derail her confirmation, but this vote shows that a majority of senators understand that Americans are tired of the antagonistic politics of the past. As our country faces challenges on a number of fronts, especially on the issue of affordable health care, we look forward to ensuring that women’s health and sound science are a priority, rather than the failed political maneuvering that damaged this agency during the previous Bush administration.”
Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, added in a statement:
“We applaud Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ confirmation as secretary of health and human services. She is an excellent choice to lead HHS and has a proven track record of increasing access to affordable care. As countless women and their families struggle to afford quality health care during these difficult economic times, the need for health care reform that improves health outcomes is immediate. Her ability to work in a bipartisan fashion will serve her well as the Obama administration and Congress tackle the critical issue of health care reform for American families. We look forward to working with her and the administration to expand access to care and lower health care costs.”
While they lost this fight, anti-abortion activists said it had energized their supporters.
“Despite the results of tonight’s vote, we’re finding that more and more Americans are waking up to the danger of President Obama’s nominations of extreme abortion advocates to serve in his administration,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of th Susan B. Anthony List, said in a statement.
“The high profile Sebelius confirmation battle has generated new interest and brought thousands of new activists on board for the pro-life cause. This grassroots energy will only increase our momentum as we confront the next round of President Obama’s extreme pro-abortion nominees, beginning with former NARAL Legal Director Dawn Johnsen. We expect all pro-life Senators will oppose Dawn Johnsen’s nomination for Office of Legal Counsel, and their support will be critical to keeping her extreme abortion views out of the White House.”
FULL ENTRYSpecter switching parties
Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, facing a tough reelection battle, announced today that he is switching from Republican to Democrat to seek reelection in 2010.
The stunning move could swing the balance of power in the Senate, giving Democrats the control of 59 seats. And if Al Franken, as expected, is seated in the Minnesota race, it would give Democrats a potentially filibuster-resistant majority of 60 seats and would help President Obama push through his agenda.
Specter said he has had growing differences with the Republican Party and when he was one of only three Republicans to support the president's $787 billion stimulus plan, the differences became irreconcilable.
"I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans," Specter said in a statement on his campaign website.
"When I supported the stimulus package, I knew that it would not be popular with the Republican Party. But, I saw the stimulus as necessary to lessen the risk of a far more serious recession than we are now experiencing."
"Since then, I have traveled the State, talked to Republican leaders and office-holders and my supporters and I have carefully examined public opinion. It has become clear to me that the stimulus vote caused a schism which makes our differences irreconcilable," he added. "On this state of the record, I am unwilling to have my twenty-nine year Senate record judged by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate. I have not represented the Republican Party. I have represented the people of Pennsylvania."
Specter goes on to say that he won't be a party-line vote for Democrats, just as he wasn't for Republicans.
"While each member of the Senate caucuses with his Party, what each of us hopes to accomplish is distinct from his party affiliation," he said in his statement. "The American people do not care which Party solves the problems confronting our nation. And no Senator, no matter how loyal he is to his Party, should or would put party loyalty above his duty to the state and nation."
At 79 and in his fifth term, Specter is one of a handful of Republican moderates remaining in Congress in a party now dominated by conservatives. Several officials told the Associated Press that secret talks that preceded his decision reached into the White House, involving both Obama and Vice President Biden, a longtime colleague in the Senate. Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, a Democrat, as well as Democratic leaders in Congress also were involved, added the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose details.
At a news conference this afternoon, Specter reiterated his statement, saying that the "Republican party has moved farther and farther to the right" and he found himself "more at odds" with Republicans and more in tune with Democrats.
He acknowledged that his prospects for winning the Republican primary were "bleak," but also emphasized that there are many priorities he wants to push, including more money for medical research, immigration reform, and Middle East peace.
"This is a painful decision," he told reporters.
He said he understands the dismay of some supporters, but said he's dismayed by some of the criticism pointed his way. "Disappointment runs in both directions," he said.
Specter also declared that he will not give up his independent thinking.
"I will not be an automatic 60th vote," he said, citing his continuing opposition to a Democratic bill to make it easier for unions to organize.
The AFL-CIO's legislative director, Bill Samuel, said that the labor groups looks "forward to continuing an open and honest debate" on the bill.
"This is a new day for the Employee Free Choice Act and labor law reform," Samuel said in a statement. "Sen. Specter has said all along that he recognizes the need to reform our broken labor law system and we will continue to work with Congress to give workers back the freedom to form and join unions..."
Angry Republicans said Specter was just looking out for his own political future.
Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, told reporters that the "defection" threatens to leave Obama's power unchecked by Congress.
He also noted that a recent poll found a majority of Americans want Congress to provide a check on Obama's agenda
Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele also warned of what Specter's shift could mean.
"Well, It has a big impact," he said on CNN. "There's no doubt about it. I mean, certainly in the Senate, this puts the Democrats one step closer to 60 votes, which is a huge problem, not for the party per se but for the country. To give one party control absolutely without the appropriate checks and balance in the Senate is problematic."
Steele also said that Specter did not give him advance notice which is "another form of disrespect that I don’t countenance. I mean, you know, at least give me a call or give the party leadership a call and let us know, this is what I'm thinking, this is where I'm going, so that, you know, it can be repaired."
He portrayed Specter's decision as purely one of political survival. "Senator Specter had very few options at this point," Steele told CNN. "He had stepped on the toes of a lot of Republicans with his vote to on the stimulus bill, which was a core principle for us in terms of our views on economics.
"And you know, admittedly, a lot of Republicans weren't happy about the end of the Bush administration in terms of putting in motion this bailout process. But to have the senator confirm that, really, you know made it tough. And so, I think he saw that tough primary challenges coming ahead for him. I think he also saw a tough re-election in a general election."
Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine cast Specter's move as more evidence that Republicans have lost touch with Americans.
“Over nearly three decades in the United States Senate, Senator Specter has represented the people of Pennsylvania with honor, conviction, and an allegiance to deeply held principles that I know will continue to inform his decisions as a member of the Democratic caucus," Kaine said in a statement this afternoon. "Senator Specter courageously supported the President's economic recovery package while most Republicans played politics with our nation's economy. The Senator's willingness to set politics aside and be part of finding solutions to our nation's problems will find a welcome reception in the Democratic Party. Coming on the heels of Democrat Scott Murphy's victory in a Republican leaning congressional district in New York state, Senator Specter's decision is additional proof that the Republican Party is in serious trouble because it has lost touch with the American people and their desire for change which was so on display in November.
“As Senator Specter noted, the Republican Party has drifted far to the right and seems more interested in ideology, conflict and obstruction than in working constructively to address the nation's problems, and no longer appeals to moderates, including Senator Specter," Kaine added. "I commend Senator Specter on his decision to work with President Obama and Senate Democrats to help turn our economy around, create jobs and put the country back on the right track. We are thrilled to welcome Senator Specter into the Democratic fold and he can count on our full support."
Kaine later sent an appeal to 253,000 grassroots activists on the DNC email list in Pennsylvania asking them to welcome Specter, and sent similar requests via Facebook and Twitter.
"This is big," the DNC chairman wrote. "Senator Arlen Specter has just switched from the Republican Party. He's now a Democrat. A Republican for 43 years, Senator Specter has chosen to leave a party that he says has moved far to the right and join Senate Democrats as they work with President Obama to turn our economy and our country around."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Specter's move "very exciting, very exciting for the American people, because now we can get things done without explaining process."
"It shows that the country is going in a new direction," Pelosi said on CNN. "And we would hope to do that in a bipartisan way now with all of the diversity of thinking within our very independent-thinking party."
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama talked to Specter this morning and told him he was "thrilled" to have him join the Democrats. Specter said the president has agreed to campaign for him in the Democratic primary.
Vice President Biden issued a statement late this afternoon: “I welcome my old friend to the Democratic Party. Senator Arlen Specter is a man of remarkable courage and integrity. I know he will remain a powerful and independent voice for Pennsylvania and the country.”
UPDATE: The White House announced tonight that Obama, Biden, and Specter will make a joint statement at the White House on Wednesday morning.
Senator John F. Kerry welcomed Specter to the Democratic caucus.
"This is a big moment. When Jim Jeffords left the Republican Party, he was the canary in the coal mine warning of Bush era ideological excess, and Senator Specter’s decision eight years later signals its tipping point. This is now officially a Republican Party where moderates need not apply, and a Democratic Party under President Obama that welcomes all perspectives and is determined to find consensus to move America forward," Kerry said in a statement.
“Arlen Specter is guts and grit personified, and he remains as independent as ever. He’s always been a thoughtful voice on everything from science and research to twenty first century infrastructure, and I look forward to working with him in our Caucus.”
Americans United for Change, a labor-liberal coalition that is helping push Obama's agenda, also enthusiastically greeted Specter.
“Senator Specter’s announcement today ought to send a piercing message to the Limbaugh-Led Party of No that doing nothing but stand in the way of President Obama’s efforts to turn the economy around is serving only to further dwindle their numbers," the group's acting executive director, Tom McMahon, said in a statement. "Why? Because amid the worst economic crisis in generations, the American people want positive and constructive solutions from their representatives – not bitter “revenge” politics and more of same failed polices of the past. Senator Specter understands that. That’s why, despite the grumbling from his Republican colleagues, he put middle-class Pennsylvania families first and supported the President’s jobs and economic recovery plan.”
But some Pennsylvania Democrats aren't fully embracing their new colleague.
Representative Joe Sestak, who was preparing to run for the Senate nomination, didn't say he's giving up those plans now and said repeatedly that he wants to know what principles and goals Specter is running for, not what he is against.
"I'm going to have to wait," Sestak said on MSNBC. "Is that the type of individual we want to move us forward."
FULL ENTRYSwine flu outbreak emerges in immigration debate
Some advocates of tighter immigration rules are jumping on the swine flu public health emergency to call for the closing of the border with Mexico, including a ban on all air and ground traffic and importation of products.
"The Obama administration's failure to secure our borders against a possible pandemic is putting American lives at risk at a time when days and hours matter," said William Gheen, head of the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, accusing the Obama administration of "treating Mexico like a 51st state, instead of separate nation."
The group also pointed out that Obama does not have a secretary of Health and Human Services -- though that is due to Republican opposition to his nominee, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius -- and has not appointed a surgeon general or head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"Obama was playing golf Sunday. Instead, he should have been addressing the nation, securing the borders, and filling the gaps in our government leadership from an emergency command center!" Gheen said. "He refuses to send troops to the border to stop the violence from spilling over or the Mexican flu from crossing into America. Instead we get second tier bureaucrats telling Americans to wash our hands and cover our mouths when we cough like a bunch of 1st grade students."
UPDATE: White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said during his regular briefing that the government response is "in no way" hampered by the absence of a permanent health secretary or CDC chief.
The CDC did say this morning that closer border monitoring has started, with officials asking those crossing the border about their health. There have been more 1,600 swine flu infections and dozens of deaths reported in Mexico.
The Senate Judiciary Committee, meanwhile, plans to start hearings Tuesday on comprehensive immigration reform, including a path to citizenship for some of those who entered the country illegally.
UPDATE: The National Council of La Raza, the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States, today condemned the assertions by groups linking the swine flu outbreak to the immigration issue.
“As an organization that works to improve health outcomes for all Americans, we believe that Americans are right to be concerned about reports of swine flu outbreaks in Mexico, California, New York, and Texas. The administration's declaration of a public health emergency this weekend was a prudent, routine step,” Janet Murguía, NCLR president and CEO, said in a statement.
“Public health experts are unanimous about key measures required in situations like this,” Murguía's statement continued. “If affected individuals are driven underground and deterred from seeking treatment or reporting their illness, it will hamper the authorities' ability to accurately track the disease's progress or develop the most effective vaccines.
“It's unfortunate that certain individuals with an obvious axe to grind are shamelessly exploiting a public health emergency for their own purposes. It's not surprising that some are implying that all immigrants are a threat to our health—that's standard fare on the hate group circuit. Ironically, the very act of attempting to demonize and stigmatize entire groups, and even entire countries, is likely to impede these and other critical steps that the authorities are taking to protect all Americans from the spread of the flu.”
Fainting over Obama
President Obama's tour of government agencies has had the feel of campaign rallies -- screaming supporters, stump speeches, etc.
And today at the FBI came another similarity -- an employee at the event apparently fainted.
Obama took it in stride, as usual, pointing out the person, asking others to give some space and water, calling on a paramedic. He told the workers that it happened all the time while he was running for president last year, and the person was almost always just fine.
"People were falling out all the time," he said with a smile.
Obama's full remarks are below:
Message for Obama backers
President Obama's grassroots army is being urged today to help him follow through on the "foundation for change" he has built during his first 100 days in office.
"A lot of attention will be given to this largely symbolic day, and the truth is that what we do every day after it will be just as important -- if not more. But our accomplishments in this time have been remarkable, and they're having real effects on people and communities throughout the country," David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager last year, told supporters in an email. He now heads Organizing for America, the vehicle affiliated with the Democratic National Committee that includes Obama's millions of supporters.
"This new direction would not have been possible without you. But our biggest tests are yet to come, and the future is ours to shape. Let's seize this moment together so history will show that, at this defining crossroads, a generation of Americans put their country on the path to long-term security and prosperity."
The message includes a link to check what has been done for each state.
In advance of Obama's town hall Wednesday in suburban St. Louis, Organizing for America is holding a "listening tour" event today in St. Louis.
"Today, we're here with one goal in mind - to listen," said Dan Herman, the group's state director for Missouri. "The historic dedication and commitment of our supporters is what brought us victory in November and is what will help us advance President Obama's bold vision for the country over the coming years. They, more than anyone else, know what approaches will work best in their community and were eager to hear from them."
White House: Obama not exposed to swine flu
It was one of the stranger sidelights of today's tempest of coverage over the increasingly serious swine flu outbreak:
Did President Obama get exposed to the deadly strain when he shook hands with a Mexican official earlier this month?
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was peppered with questions this afternoon about Obama's contact on April 16 with the official, who fell ill and died soon afterwards.
Gibbs said that the president's doctors say that there's nothing to be worried about -- that Obama has exhibited no symptoms -- and that it's not confirmed that the Mexican official actually died from swine flu.
"Having talked to the doctors directly about this, the president's health was never in danger. The president, nor anybody that I know of traveling with him in either a governmental or press capacity, has shown any symptoms that would denote cause for any concern," said Gibbs, who did say that the White House was not warned about the outbreak before the visit, a stop on the way to the Summit of the Americas.
To try to quelll the speculation once and for all, the White House ended up issuing a statement late this afternoon from the Mexican embassy saying that the official did not die of swine flu.
"Mr. Felipe Solís, director of Mexico’s National Anthropology Museum died on April 23rd, a week after he welcomed Presidents Obama and Calderón at the Museum. He died of complications of a preexisting condition and not of swine flu,” said embassy spokesman Ricardo Alday.
The White House also took the unusual step of issuing a Q&A on the situation. It's below:
FULL ENTRYFox won't show Obama press conference
This is sure to fire up liberals who believe Fox is nothing more than a Republican mouthpiece.
Fox announced this afternoon that it will not air President Obama's news conference on Wednesday night, marking his 100th day in office and the third primetime Q&A session of his administration .
And its refusal -- in contrast to other networks -- is not even to make sure "American Idol" isn't preempted. Rather, the Associated Press reports, Fox plans to air its regular schedule that night, which in that time slot is the Tim Roth drama "Lie to Me," which is the lead-in to Idol.
Executives at Fox, owned by News Corp., would not comment on the decision, AP said, but it noted that Fox didn't carry a prime-time speech by President George W. Bush in November 2001.
Fox plans to send viewers to Fox News Channel and Fox Business Channel, which will both air the press conference.
More praise for Obama in polls
Two more polls offer plaudits for President Obama as he nears the 100-day mark.
A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released this afternoon, his job approval rating is at 63 percent, and 75 percent say he has the leadership and personal qualities a president should have. That latter figure is above the 66 percent who said so just before the November election.
But a smaller majority, 57 percent, say they agree with Obama on the issues that matter the most to them.
And in a New York Times/CBS News poll, more than two-thirds of the poll’s respondents say he is different kind of politician, because of his style of governing and his personal qualities more than his policies.
Partisan fight over healthcare
As congressional negotiators resume today putting the final touches on a spending blueprint, the biggest bone of contention is Democrats' intent to include a fast track for a healthcare overhaul.
Republicans are incensed by the maneuver, known as reconciliation, that would allow Democrats to push through a healthcare bill with a simple majority vote in the Senate, rather than the 60 votes typically required for such major legislation.
Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, who was President Obama's pick for commerce secretary until his last-minute withdrawal, compared Obama to Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez in accusing him of strong-arming the Congress.
“I can understand shaking Hugo Chavez’s hand, but I can’t understand embracing his politics,” Gregg, the senior Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, said today, according to the New York Times.
NBC, meanwhile, reports that the top Senate Democrat, Harry Reid, is trying to calm Republicans. Under the Democrats' plan, they would only use the fast-track tactic if a bill isn't passed by Oct. 15.
"Make no mistake -- we are determined to reform health care this year." Reid said in a letter today to Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. "Our strong preference is to do so by working alongside you and your caucus."
Koh nomination hearing on Tuesday
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee announced this afternoon that the hearing for Yale Law dean Harold Koh's nomination as the State Department's top legal adviser will be Tuesday afternoon.
Koh, who is also believed to be on the short list for the Supreme Court, is facing growing opposition from conservatives, who say that he puts too much stock in foreign legal opinions.
Koh has been an outspoken critic of the Bush administration's decisions on torture and other issues.
Just today, Frank Gaffney, a former Reagan administration official, said on the website of his Center for Security Policy that the Foreign Relations Committee "will have an opportunity to demonstrate why the framers gave the Senate the constitutional power to confirm presidential appointees. If they fail to exercise that power vigorously with respect to the nomination of Harold Koh to be the top State Department lawyer, they will not only have been derelict. They will be accomplices to an assault on our Constitution that will ultimately result in an unprecedented, and likely permanent, derogation of the Senate's vital role and responsibilities."
McGovern, other lawmakers arrested at Darfur protest
(Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Rep. Jim McGovern is arrested by US Secret Service agents in front of the Sudanese Embassy while demonstrating against the genocide in Darfur.
WASHINGTON -- Representative James McGovern was locked up on misdemeanor charges today after demonstrating against the "crimes against humanity'' that Darfur activists blame on the Sudanese government.
After a brief series of speeches in front of the Sudanese embassy, the Massachusetts Democrat and four other members of Congress stood quietly and refused to move to the other side of yellow police tape -- a deliberate act they knew would get them arrested. After giving the small group of demonstrators three chances to move, police approached the lawmakers and activists and bound their wrists loosely behind their backs with plastic restraints.
The protestors were taken to a police station in northwest Washington, where they were expected to be fined $100 and released within a few hours.
UPDATE: McGovern was released this afternoon on a charge of crossing a police line.
McGovern -- forgoing a tie and belt, which would have been confiscated before his lock-up -- noted that he had been arrested three years ago for demonstrating for action in Darfur, where millions have died from sectarian violence and where the State Department has declared a genocide is underway.
"I don't want to be here in 2012, calling on the Sudanese government to stop the killing,'' McGovern said. "We need to care. We need to act. Every life is of equal value.''
The lawmakers -- who also included Democratic Representatives John Lewis of Georgia, Donna Edwards of Maryland, Lynn Woolsey of California, and Keith Ellison of Minnesota -- want the Sudanese government to allow international aid organizations back into Darfur to ease the escalating humanitarian crisis there. Further, the group wants President Obama to pressure the international community -- including China, which has influence in Sudan -- to force the Sudanese government into action.
Sudanese President Umar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir "has a choice," McGovern said. "He can choose to let the humanitarian groups return; he can choose to end the violence and the killing; and he can choose serious negotiations for a just and lasting peace. Or he can continue to commit crimes against humanity -- crimes with which he is already charged -- and charges that will one day catch up with him and bring him down."
Jerry Fowler, head of the Save Darfur Coalition, added in a statement: "We know President Obama and members of his administration care passionately about ending the Darfur crisis and promoting peace in Sudan. As President Obama nears his 100th day in office this week, he can demonstrate that Sudan is a strategic priority for the United States by committing to build a multilateral coalition for peace and investing in the diplomacy necessary to achieve an equitable and lasting solution for Darfuris and all Sudanese."
Democrats say Obama laying 'foundation for change'
Laying the groundwork for President Obama reaching his 100-day milestone on Wednesday, the Democratic National Committee announced a new TV ad today asserting that Obama has laid the foundation for his bold agenda on energy, healthcare, jobs and other issues
"The strides the president has made in stabilizing the economy, creating jobs, providing healthcare for children and ensuring equal pay in the workplace are just the beginning of a bold agenda for change the President has laid out and they are just the beginning of what the President is prepared to accomplish on behalf of the American people," DNC Chairman Tim Kaine said in a statement.
"As the President and Democrats in Congress continue to work towards a stable and thriving economy, affordable health care for all, and an energy-independent United States, we implore Republicans to end their strategy of just saying no and instead contribute to the national dialogue of ideas and solutions inspired by President Obama. Looking ahead to the next 100 days and beyond, I hope the Republicans will join us in helping to build a stronger, more prosperous nation upon the solid foundation for change built by this President.”
In the 60-second spot, which is to air Tuesday and Wednesday, Obama is shown on the campaign trail promising action on the economy, equal pay, and children's healthcare -- and signing legislation on each of those.
“Now is the time to act boldly and wisely — to not only revive this economy but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity. Now is the time to jump-start job creation, restart lending, and invest in areas like energy, health care, and education that will grow our economy, even as we make hard choices to bring our deficit down," Obama is shown telling a joint session of Congress.
“A Foundation for Change,” it says on screen at the end. "A Bold Plan For The Future.”
Swine flu shows need for science, Obama says
President Obama declared this morning that "science is more essential....than ever before" for the nation's security, health, and economy.
And the proof, he said, is the swine flu outbreak that has killed more than 100 in Mexico and shown up in the United States, though with no fatalities yet.
Obama told the National Academy of Sciences that he is closely monitoring the outbreak, which he called a "cause for concern, but not a cause for alarm." The public health emergency was declared Sunday as a precaution, he said, to make sure officials have everything they need to contain the illness.
The president's speech was a follow-up to his decision last month to reverse President Bush's limits on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research -- and an accompanying pledge to take the politics out of science.
He repeated that promise this morning -- and also announced a pledge to increase research and scientific funding to a level equal to that during the space race to the moon, amounting to 3 percent of the gross domestic product.
In his speech, Obama also announced a new President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, which will help "formulate policy in the many areas where understanding of science, technology, and innovation is key to strengthening our economy and forming policy that works for the American people," the White House said.
“This council represents leaders from many scientific disciplines who will bring a diversity of experience and views. I will charge PCAST with advising me about national strategies to nurture and sustain a culture of scientific innovation,” Obama said.
The advisory council will be headed by John Holdren, whom Obama appointed as director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy.
“This PCAST is a group of exceptional caliber as well as diversity, covering a wide range of expertise and backgrounds across the relevant science, engineering and innovation fields and sectors. The President and I expect to make major use of this extraordinary group as we work to strengthen our country’s capabilities in science and technology and bring them more effectively to bear on the national challenges we face,” Holdren, who had been director of the Program on Science, Technology, and Public Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, said in a statement.
The co-chairman of the council will be Eric Lander, director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and Professor of Biology at MIT, Professor of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School, and member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research.
Obama's full prepared remarks are below, followed by the White House summary of his proposals:
Conservative group warns on healthcare
Opponents of Democrats' healthcare proposals today launched a $1 million TV ad that asserts that President Obama and his allies are on the path to more government control and less patient choice.
The ad from the Conservatives for Patients' Rights Action Fund says that a provision in the $787 billion economic stimulus package to measure the effectiveness of care and treatment would copy national health plans in Canada and Britain.
The spot then features opponents of the government health plans in those countries warning of patients losing their choice of doctors, and some actually dying as they wait for care.
The ad ends with the announcer urging viewers to call Congress "you won't trade your doctor for a national board of bureaucrats."
In the budget outline they plan to pass this week, Obama's Democratic allies in Congress plan a parliamentary maneuver that would make it easier to pass a healthcare overhaul by requiring only a simple majority vote.
Also, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee announced this afternoon that a working group will hold a hearing on Tuesday about the lessons learned in the states, specifically on covering residents.
Those scheduled to testify include Jon Kingsdale, executive director of the Massachusetts Health Insurance Connector; Eileen McAnneny, senior vice-president of Associated Industries of Massachusetts; Susan Besio, director of the state Office of Vermont Health Access; and Barry Chen, board member of the Vermont Program for Quality in Health Care.
Harvard prof snubs Notre Dame over Obama invite
There's more fallout today in the growing controversy over the invitation that the University of Notre Dame issued to President Obama to give the commencement speech next month.
The Globe's Michael Paulson reports that Harvard professor Mary Ann Glendon, who was appointed US ambassador to the Vatican by President Bush, has decided not to accept a prestigious medal at the same ceremony.
Biden highlights energy efficiency
Vice President Biden hit the road today to tout the economic stimulus package's help for weatherization and energy efficiency programs.
He toured Serious Materials Chicago, a window factory that is reopening, responding to increased demand for energy-saving building products. The factory previously housed Republic Windows and Doors, which closed in December, prompting a highly publicized protest by workers against the company and against Bank of America, which had withdrawn its financing despite receiving a taxpayer bailout.
“What I have seen here today at Serious Materials Chicago inspires me and brings to life the real impact the Recovery Act is already having, just in the short time since our work began,” Biden, who was joined by Senators Dick Durbin and Roland Burris, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, and company CEO Kevin Surace, said in a statement. “Everywhere I go, I am hearing stories just like this one – stories of hard workers filling good jobs, our $8 billion investment in weatherization and energy programs re-opening doors and our tax credits creating new demand for energy-saving materials. This is the story of our new economy - and this is the story of the Recovery Act.”
Under the $787 billion stimulus package, $8 billion is available for state and local weatherization and energy efficiency efforts through the Department of Energy -- $5 billion through the Weatherization Assistance Program and another $3 billion for the State Energy Program.
Obama vows to slash deficits
President Obama uses his weekly Internet and radio address today to try to burnish his spendthrift credentials, promising to rein in federal spending to build a firm foundation for economic recovery.
"All across America, families are tightening their belts and making hard choices," he says. "Now, Washington must show that same sense of responsibility.
Saying it's "time to fundamentally change the way that we do business in Washington," he announced that he supports "pay-as-you go" legislation that would require any new spending or tax cuts to be simultaneously paid for -- a bill that fiscal hawks have been clamoring for since Democrats took control of Congress after the 2006 election.
He also announced a new incentive for departments to cut costs: "Agencies that identify savings will get to keep a portion of those savings to invest in programs that work."
The president also said he will establish a way for every government worker to submit cost-saving ideas, and convene a forum later this year for private businesses to share their innovative reforms.
"We must also recognize that we cannot meet the challenges of today with old habits and stale thinking," he says. "So much of our government was built to deal with different challenges from a different era. Too often, the result is wasteful spending, bloated programs, and inefficient results."
His speech comes as Congress is primed to give final approval next week to a spending blueprint, largely based on Obama's, that would mean annual deficits of $500 billion or more for years to come.
Obama has been criticized for unleashing a flood of budgetary red ink with his $787 billion economic stimulus package, and a subsequent $410 billion spending plan for the rest of this fiscal year.
But he notes, again, that he inherited a record $1.3 trillion deficit this year, and that the stimulus spending was needed to lift the nation out of the worst recession in decades.
"We cannot sustain deficits that mortgage our children’s future, nor tolerate wasteful inefficiency," Obama concludes. "Government has a responsibility to spend the peoples’ money wisely, and to serve the people effectively. I will work every single day that I am President to live up to that responsibility, and to transform our government so that is held to a higher standard of performance on behalf of the American people."
Obama says he's ready to battle on student loan reform
Saying he feels their pain, President Obama today reached out to families struggling to pay college bills, highlighting his plan to revamp student loan programs to cut out private middlemen.
Obama wants to end the private Federal Family Education Loans program that the White House says costs taxpayers an unnecessary $5 billion a year by using private firms as brokers.
"That is a premium we can no longer afford," he said, saying the system is "rigged" to give profits to "special interests" without any risk.
He told reporters that "wasteful subsidies" are worsening the paradox facing the country: a college education is more important than ever, but the cost of attending is also higher than ever.
"The stakes could not be higher," he said.
Obama said he wants to boost the percentage of Americans attending college to the world's highest again, and a key part of that is reforming the student loan system.
He acknowledged that private loan companies vehemently oppose the change. "They are gearing up for battle," he said. "So am I."
(His full remarks are below, along with a White House summary of his proposal.)
The private student loan industry has also been beset by allegations of kickbacks to college officials to steer students to the loans. Investigations by Congress and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo found that some lenders had secret deals to give colleges or their staffs consulting fees, company shares, and other perks.
Obama's choice on Armenia
Will he or won't he -- declare the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians a genocide, that is?
It turned out, neither.
President Obama tried to thread the needle on the issue, not actually using the word "genocide" -- but acknowledging he has used the word before -- in the annual presidential statement he issued today marking the 94th Armenian remembrance day.
Most scholars consider the deaths of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turks during World War I the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey, however, steadfastly denies that a genocide occurred, arguing the death toll has been vastly inflated and blaming civil war and unrest.
Obama called the killings "one of the great atrocities of the 20th century."
"History, unresolved, can be a heavy weight. Just as the terrible events of 1915 remind us of the dark prospect of man’s inhumanity to man, reckoning with the past holds out the powerful promise of reconciliation," he said in the statement.
"I have consistently stated my own view of what occurred in 1915, and my view of that history has not changed. "My interest remains the achievement of a full, frank and just acknowledgment of the facts."
Instead, Obama looked forward, noting that Turkey and Armenia, which have no diplomatic ties, jointly announced on Wednesday that they were getting close to a reconciliation.
"The best way to advance that goal right now is for the Armenian and Turkish people to address the facts of the past as a part of their efforts to move forward," Obama's statement said. "I strongly support efforts by the Turkish and Armenian people to work through this painful history in a way that is honest, open, and constructive. To that end, there has been courageous and important dialogue among Armenians and Turks, and within Turkey itself. I also strongly support the efforts by Turkey and Armenia to normalize their bilateral relations.
(His full statement is below.)
During his campaign, Obama described the deaths as a genocide. But during his high-profile visit earlier this month to Turkey -- now a crucial US ally -- he also shied away from using that description.
"History is often tragic, but unresolved, it can be a heavy weight. Each country must work through its past. And reckoning with the past can help us seize a better future," he told the Turkish parliament. "I know there's strong views in this chamber about the terrible events of 1915. And while there's been a good deal of commentary about my views, it's really about how the Turkish and Armenian people deal with the past. And the best way forward for the Turkish and Armenian people is a process that works through the past in a way that is honest, open and constructive."
However, when pressed by a reporter about using the word "genocide," Obama replied, "Well, my views are on the record and I have not changed those views."
The issue is life-or-death for Armenian- and Turkish-Americans, and both sides have an army of lobbyists in Washington pressing their case. The Hill newspaper reports today that a bill for the United States to formally recognize the deaths as a genocide has passed the 100-cosponsor mark.
Turkey and Armenia have no diplomatic ties, but they jointly announced on Wednesday that they were getting close to a reconciliation.
"We've already seen historic and courageous steps taken by Turkish and Armenian leaders," Obama told the Turkish parliament. "These contacts hold out the promise of a new day. An open border would return the Turkish and Armenian people to a peaceful and prosperous coexistence that would serve both of your nations. So I want you to know that the United States strongly supports the full normalization of relations between Turkey and Armenia. It is a cause worth working towards."
Democrats near budget deal
A working federal budget deal would end President Obama's $400 middle-class tax cut after next year, but would make it easier to pass a healthcare overhaul, according to press reports.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and congressional aides are telling the Associated Press and Bloomberg News today that the tentative agreement to use a parliamentary procedure, known as reconciliation, that would allow the healthcare plan to pass with a simple majority vote, rather than the 60 votes needed to overcome a Republican filibuster.
The decision is sure to anger Republicans, who oppose many of Obama's health proposals, but it makes it much more likely that a sweeping plan will pass.
Democrats do not plan to use the tactic on another controversial proposal -- so-called cap-and-trade legislation to cut carbon emissions.
Negotiators for the House and Senate, both controlled by Democrats, are pulling together a compromise from the slightly different versions of the $3.6 trillion spending blueprint that each chamber passed and that both preserved most of Obama's agenda.
Gore gives blessing to climate change bill
Former Vice President Al Gore, who won a Nobel prize for his crusade on climate change, gave his stamp of approval today to House Democrats' bill to tackle global warming.
He is testifying before a House committee holding hearings this week on a bill introduced by Representatives Edward Markey of Massachusetts and Henry Waxman of California.
Gore urged lawmakers to overcome partisan differences and take action to reduce greenhouse gases, calling the climate issue the most important ever before Congress.
"We are, along with the rest of humanity, facing the dire and growing threat of the climate crisis," he testified, according to the Associated Press. Gore argued that Congress must act to "restore America's leadership of the world and begin, at long last, to solve the climate crisis."
The legislation would seek to cut carbon emissions by 20 percent by 2020 and by 85 percent by 2050 and also create a renewable energy standard that requires wind, solar, and other renewable sources to meet 25 percent of US energy needs by 2025. One of its most controversial components is to establish a cap-and-trade system to push utilities and industry polluters to meet those goals.
The Obama administration supports many aspects of the bill, but told the committee this week that it wants to work with Congress to fine tune it. Republicans and some Democrats say the legislation would cause dramatically higher energy prices.
Industry leaders warned in testimony yesterday that consumers would be hit with higher prices if the measure does not give electric utilities allowances to emit greenhouse gases.
Harvard's Carter confirmed to top Pentagon post
By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- Harvard professor Ashton Carter has won confirmation as the Pentagon's top acquisitions official, after weeks of delay caused by two Alabama senators looking out for a home-state defense program.
Carter's nomination was approved on a voice vote by the Senate late Thursday, said a spokeswoman for the Senate Armed Services Committee, which held his confirmation hearing.
Republicans Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions, who used the Senate prerogative of putting a "hold" on the nomination, dropped their objection after seeking assurances that Carter will not change the specifications for the $35 billion refueling tanker contract being sought by Northrop Grumman Corp., which would build the plane in Mobile, Ala.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who hand-picked Carter, met earlier Thursday with Shelby on the issue.
Carter comes to the job with no weapons-buying experience or ties to the arms industry. Rather, he is a long-time academic and leading authority on arms control. He replaces John Young, who has served as undersecretary of defense for acquisitions since November 2007.
Summers a little sleepy
Larry Summers, President Obama's top economic adviser, is catching some flak for appearing snoozy at a White House meeting today.
As Obama spoke after a private meeting with credit card industry executives, Summers appeared to doze off, closing his eyes, supporting his face with his fist at one point, and wiping his face at another. There are items with photos here and here.
The former Harvard president has been putting in long hours, of course, trying to help Obama find ways to resuscitate the economy.
Supporters criticize Sebelius delay
Republican opposition is holding up Kathleen Sebelius taking office as health and human services secretary and completing President Obama's cabinet.
And her supporters are none too happy.
The Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday sent the Kansas governor's nomination to the full Senate, but when the top Senate Democrat, Harry Reid, tried to bring up the nomination today, Republican leader Mitch McConnell objected, pushing the vote into at least next week.
Republicans have criticized Sebelius's ties to a Kansas abortion doctor and her views on healthcare reform. Anti-abortion groups have lobbied against Sebelius, a Catholic who personally opposes abortion, for her actions as governor on the issue.
NARAL Pro-Choice America today sent out an email alert to supporters urging them to contact their senators.
"Just a couple of hours ago, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ nomination to lead the Department of Health and Human Services hit a serious road block," the email says.
"Anti-choice senators blocked a vote today in response to pressure from the big 10 of the anti-choice movement. James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America, and seven other anti-choice groups sent a letter yesterday calling on the Senate to block Gov. Sebelius’ nomination. There’s no way we can allow far-right radicals like James Dobson or Wendy Wright to obstruct this critical nomination."
John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, also criticized the delay.
"Senate Republicans are obstructing the confirmation of Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and ignoring the American voters' mandate for new leadership and an end to the status quo, especially when it comes to our nation's broken healthcare system," he said in a statement. "Gov. Sebelius is part of that new leadership, and she will bring to the position of Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services new vision rooted in experience.
"Throughout her career and as health insurance commissioner of Kansas, Sebelius has shown a commitment to fighting for consumers' and patients' rights. As governor of Kansas, Sebelius has a proven record of working with leaders on both sides of the aisle to solve problems."
UPDATE: Late today, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele called on Obama to withdraw Sebelius's nomination unless she answers more questions on abortion, saying that she has not been forthcoming about her ties to a Kansas abortion doctor, George Tiller.
"Significant questions remain about Gov. Kathleen Sebelius' evolving relationship with a late-term abortion doctor as well as about her position on the practice of late-term abortions," Steele said in a statement, the Associated Press reports. "If Gov. Sebelius and the Obama administration are unwilling to answer these questions, President Obama should withdraw her nomination."
The White House declined to comment. A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid dismissed Steele's complaints.
"This is nothing more than a baseless attack from someone desperate to stake a claim as the leader of the leaderless Republicans and get right with the right-wing of his party," said Reid spokesman Jim Manley.
Afghan vets give senators first-hand accounts
By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- One held the hand of a dying fellow soldier and told himself that the sacrifice would not be in vain. Another watched an Afghan tribal leader risk his life to seek American protection for his village -- only to be told that it was not possible. A third interviewed insurgents who expect American troops to get tired and go home. A fourth beat suspected terrorists, only to find out later that they were innocent.
The veterans of the Afghan war testified today before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about a seven-year conflict that has attracted little debate, even as President Obama sends reinforcements to take on the Taliban.
The hearing took place as instability in Afghanistan spreads through neighboring Pakistan, and a day after the 38th anniversary of committee chairman John F. Kerry's testimony -- as a Vietnam veteran -- against that war in 1971.
Today, the young veterans gave a sobering picture of the failures of US policy, but none advocated a complete withdrawal.
However, one veteran -- Rick Reyes, a former corporal in the US Marines -- called Obama's decision to send 17,000 additional combat troops to Afghanistan "a mistake."
"At a minimum, this occupation needs to be rethought," he said.
Reyes, who was among the first US forces sent to Afghanistan after the 2001 terrorist attacks, said he arrested suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda in their homes based on tips by paid informants.
"Almost 100 percent of the time, we would find that the suspected terrorists were just innocent civilians," he said. "We began to feel we were chasing ghosts. How can you tell the difference between members of the Taliban from an Afghan civilians? The answer is: You can't."
In his written testimony, Reyes said he and his fellow Marines sometimes broke "hands, arms, legs" and wrecked homes during their midnight raids. But he did not describe these incidents to the committee today, saying later that he did not want to distract from his message of opposition to a troop increase.
However, three other Afghan vets argued passionately for a stepped-up US commitment, saying the mission could be saved by more troops and smarter tactics.
Westley Moore, a former Army captain who led a program that persuaded moderate Taliban to pledge allegiance to the new Afghan government, called the 17,000 additional troops "a paltry number" compared with what is required to protect the population in the rural areas.
"We are underfunded and undermanned in Afghanistan," he told the senators. "We asked two brigades to have coverage over a 1,600-mile area that is. . the most dangerous terrain in the world."
Moore said it would send the wrong message to the world if the United States were to simply leave.
"[The Taliban's] entire strategy depends on our political and national will faltering," he said. "Many of them are fond of saying, 'The Americans have the wristwatches, but we have the time.' "
Obama remembers the Holocaust
Speaking today at a Holocaust remembrance ceremony in the august Capitol rotunda, President Obama urged the world not to tolerate the hatred and injustice that can lead to such horror if even good people just stand by.
"We gather today to mourn the loss of so many lives and celebrate those who saved them, honor those who survived, and contemplate the obligations of the living," he said. "It is the grimmest of ironies that one of the most savage, barbaric acts of evil in history began in one of the most modernized societies of its time, where so many markers of human progress became tools of human depravity.
"Science that can heal, used to kill. Education that can enlighten, used to rationalize away basic moral impulses. The bureaucracy that sustains modern life, used as the machinery of mass death, a ruthless, chillingly efficient system where many were responsible for the killing, but few got actual blood on their hands."
The president also paid tribute to those who tried to save Jews and others, including five "righteous men and women" from Poland. "We are awed by your acts of courage and conscience. And your presence today compels each of us to ask ourselves whether we would have done what you did. We can only hope that the answer is yes," he said.
And he assailed those who deny the Holocaust happened and further hatred and intolerance.
"Today and every day we have an opportunity as well as an obligation to confront these scourges, to fight the impulse to turn the channel when we see images that disturb us or wrap ourselves in the false comfort that others sufferings are not our own," he said.
"Instead we have the opportunity to make a habit of empathy, to recognize ourselves in each other, to commit ourselves to resisting injustice and intolerance and indifference in whatever forms they may take, whether confronting those who tell lies about history or doing everything we can to prevent and end atrocities like those that took place in Rwanda, those taking place in Darfur. That is my commitment as president. I hope that is yours as well."
The event was sponsored by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, which designated this year's theme as “Never Again: What You Do Matters.” A video of the ceremony is on its website.
“The notion that the Holocaust was the result of the actions of one man or a handful of leaders is false,” museum director Sara J. Bloomfield said in a statement. “The ability to carry out the genocide depended upon the participation of tens of thousands and the acquiescence of millions. This year, as we remember the victims of Nazi Germany and its collaborators, let us reflect on our own responsibilities in a world of rising antisemitism and continuing genocide.”
While Obama mentioned the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, which the State Department has called a genocide, advocacy groups called today on Obama to do more to stop the killing.
The open letter from the groups, including the Massachusetts Coalition to Save Darfur, urges the Obama administration to embark on a "public diplomacy blitz" to get more countries to demand that Sudan not interfere with humanitarian relief, conduct a private diplomatic effort to explore how governments could force out Sudan's president, and to pressure Sudan to implement a peace agreement.
The text of the full letter is also below:
Honoring Gators, Obama renews playoff push
President Obama paid tribute to the national champion Florida Gators during the traditional White House visit today.
But he continued pushing for a playoff system to determine the college football title.
"I don't want to stir up controversy," Obama said. "You guys are the national champions -- I'm not backing off the fact we need a playoff system. But I have every confidence that you guys could have beat anybody else. And so we'll see how that plays itself out."
Florida won its second BCS title in three years in January with a 24-14 victory over Oklahoma in Miami, but many analysts and fans say the poll- and computer-driven system doesn't necessarily match the two best teams.
"I noticed they got all quiet after that," he added, as the Florida players laughed. "But you know, I'm one of those politicians -- I don't just tell you what you want to hear, I tell you what you need to hear."
Obama nominates former Harvard prof for Asia post
President Obama wants another former Harvard official to join his administration, in a key diplomtic post in Asia.
The White House said this afternoon that Obama plans to nominate Kurt Campbell, formerly associate professor of public policy and international relations at Havard's Kennedy School of Government and assistant director of Harvard's Center for Science and International Affairs, as assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs.
He is now CEO and co-founder of the Center for a New American Security, described as an organization dedicated to advancing a strong, centrist national security strategy. He is also director of the Aspen Strategy Group and as chairman of the Editorial Board of the Washington Quarterly.
According to the White House, Campbell previously served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Asia and the Pacific in the Pentagon, a director on the National Security Council Staff, deputy special counselor to the president for NAFTA in the White House, and White House fellow at the Department of the Treasury. Campbell also served as the Co-Chairman of the recently completed 9/11 Pentagon Memorial Fund. He served as an officer in the U.S. Navy on the Joint Chiefs of Staff and in the Chief of Naval Operations Special Intelligence Unit.
The White House also announced that Obama plans to nominate Philip Mudd as undersecretary for Intelligence and Analysis, Department of Homeland Security; Eric P. Schwartz, assistant secretary for Population, Refugees and Migration, State Department; and Edward M. Avalos, under secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs, United States Department of Agriculture.
"As we work to solve the problems our nation faces, my administration will be strengthened by the addition of these dedicated individuals. I am confident that they will meet the expectations the American people demand and deserve of their public servants,” Obama said in a statement.
Obama will answer questions on 100th day
Besides another installment of his town hall tour, President Obama plans a prime-time news conference to mark his 100th day in office.
The White House announced this afternoon that Obama will hold his third such event at 8 p.m. on Wednesday from the White House.
It previously announced that Obama plans a town hall in suburban St. Louis earlier that day.
Obama calls in credit card industry
President Obama waded back in today into the issue of credit cards, which would seem to be a political winner but which the industry warns could backfire in the tattered economy.
He met privately with leaders of the credit card industry, pushing to cut costs for consumers and rein in practices that squeeze people into paying much higher fees or interest rates than anticipated.
After the private session, Obama told reporters that as the administration tries to free up credit and prevent a similar economic crisis, the credit card industry needs to become "more stable, more effective, more consumer-friendly."
"We want to preserve the credit card industry,but we also want to do away with abuses," he said, pausing, then declining to even characterize the "discussion" with the executives.
Those include interest rates being jacked up, undisclosed fees being imposed, and consumers not getting enough information, he said.
He said he delivered a message to the industry leaders: "There's going to be action in Congress. Our administration is going to be pushing for reform."
Any reform, he said, should include measures to stop the abuses and more accountability. (Read the White House rundown on the principles below.)
Both the House and Senate are considering a credit card "bill of rights" to limit the ability of credit-card companies to raise interest rates and fees and to require greater disclosure. The House Financial Services Committee, led by Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, approved its version on Wednesday.
But the banking industry is warning that the push for legislation could make even less credit available during the economic crisis.
"President Obama has been a strong proponent of cleaning up the practices of the credit card industry since he was a Senator and he called for measures to strengthen consumer protection in the credit card market during the campaign," the White House said.
It also released a list of attendees: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, economic advisers Larry Summers and Christina Romer, policy adviser Valerie Jarrett; David Bohne, President, USAA Savings Bank, USAA; Patrick Burke, Senior Vice President and Chief Operations Officer, HSBC Card and Retail Services; Paul Galant, CEO, N.A. Cards, Citi; Pamela Joseph, Vice Chairman, Payments, US Bancorp; Christopher McWilton, President, US Markets, MasterCard Worldwide; David Nelms, CEO, Discover Financial Services; Kevin Rhein, Division President, Wells Fargo Card Services and Consumer Lending, Wells Fargo and Company; Ryan Schneider, President of Cards, Capital One Financial Corporation; Lawrence Sharnak, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Consumer Cards, American Express; William Sheedy, Global Head of Strategy, VISA U.S.A., Inc.; Gordon Smith, CEO, Chase Card Services, JPMorgan Chase & Co.; Richard Struthers, President, Global Card Services, Bank of America; Lloyd Wirshba, Chief Executive Officer, Barclaycard US; and Edward L. Yingling, American Bankers Association.
100 days of partisanship
With President Obama primed to hit 100 days in office on Wednesday, Democrats and their allies are already seeking to crow about accomplishments -- and assail the Republican opposition as obstructionists.
The Democratic National Committee released a web video that says Republicans have delivered "100 days of no."
As each date appears on screen, one Republican leader after another is shown speaking against Obama and Democrats on various economic and other bills. At one point, Republican members of Congress are shown on the steps of Capitol Hill in unified opposition.
“Unfortunately, instead of joining President Obama in forging a new foundation for change, the Republicans have openly employed the same obstructionist, just-say-no approach that helped create the problems we currently face,” DNC spokesman Brad Woodhouse said in a statement. “As long as Republicans continue to rely on Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and Rush Limbaugh for their inspiration, Americans can only expect more of the same recycled Republican talking points and baseless criticisms from the party of no new ideas and no new leadership.”
A TV ad being unveiled this afternoon by the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees and Americans United for Change takes a somewhat more positive tack.
The spot, which is to appear starting Friday on national cable outlets, lists Obama's priorities passed by Congress and signed into law -- an expansion of health insurance for children, an equal pay law for women, the $787 billion economic stimulus package -- while noting that most Republicans opposed them.
"There have always been those who said no to progress," the narrator concludes. "But in times of crisis, Americans have never taken no for an answer."
UPDATE: House GOP leaders, meanwhile, sent a letter today to Obama complaining about their Democratic counterparts. Obama and Vice President Biden are scheduled to meet this afternoon with congressional leaders of both parties.
"Democratic leaders in Congress have so far ignored your call for a new era of bipartisanship in Washington -- however, the next 100 days can be different," the Republicans wrote. "We know that by working together, we can face our challenges and renew our nation, and we respectfully request that our meeting tomorrow serve as the beginning of a meaningful bipartisan conversation about the challenges we face."
Kerry panel listens to Iraq, Afghanistan vets
Senator John F. Kerry, opening a hearing with Iraq and Afghanistan veterans today, said while he resists comparisons to the Vietnam War, the conflicts in the two nations now do hold some parallels.
Once again, we are fighting an insurgency in a rural country with a weak central government. Our enemy blends in with the local population and easily crosses a long border to find sanctuary in a neighboring country. Our efforts to win the loyalty of the locals are hampered by civilian casualties and an inability to deliver the security that we promised more than seven years ago," he said, presiding over the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
"We ignore these similarities at our peril."
"There are fundamental differences, too," he added. "We have a responsibility to the men and women fighting in Afghanistan to understand those differences and adapt to them.
"First and foremost, the North Vietnamese never posed a direct threat to our country. The extremists we are fighting today in Afghanistan and across the border in Pakistan do represent a direct threat to the security of the United States.
They planned the attacks on New York and Washington that killed 3,000 Americans. They have killed hundreds of other innocents in terrorist attacks worldwide since then. And they are preparing new attacks on the United States and our interests even as we sit here today."
Unlike the divisive Vietnam conflict, Kerry said, there is universal support for the troops. "We are all standing on common ground now: We are saying thank you to the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who have served. We are not confusing the war with the warriors. So I want to thank you, your fellow veterans and those who are still serving," he said.
And while Kerry told USA Today earlier this week that he has concerns about the Obama administration's new strategy in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan, he sounded more optimistic today.
"There is much still to be done in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but our new focus creates a sense of determined optimism for us and our coalition allies," he said. "Better defined objectives should lead to a better battle plan for our troops. But this remains an immensely complicated task, one that leaves our troops simultaneously on the front lines of the struggle against extremists and in the absolute middle of nowhere."
As the Globe reported earlier this week, while Kerry and other antiwar veterans testified in 1971 before the committee, he did not invite members of the analogous group of critics to this hearing.
Kerry's full prepared remarks are below:
FULL ENTRYPoll: Obama's popularity breeds optimism
The economy is still in the tank, with only glimmers of hope. But a new poll suggests that President Obama's personal appeal is lifting the spirits of Americans.
The Associated Press-GfK survey released today found that for the first time in more than five years, more respondents believe America is on the right track than the wrong track.
In the poll, 48 percent said the country is headed in the right direction rose to 48 percent, up from 40 percent in February, while 44 percent say the nation is on the wrong track. Still, it's the first majority for "right direction" since January 2004, shortly after the capture of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
Coming up on 100 days in office, Obama's job performance rating is still high at 64 percent, though down slightly from 67 percent in February. Former President George W. Bush's approval ratings hovered in the high 50s after his first 100 days in office.
And though Obama pledged to lower the partisan rancor in Washington, he is receiving less backing from Republicans, with just 24 percent approving of his performance, down from 33 percent in February.
The poll also found that more than 90 percent of Americans consider the economy an important issue, the highest ever in AP polling, and 65 percent said it's difficult for them and their families to get ahead.
The survey, conducted April 16-20 by landline telephones and cell phones with 1,000 adults nationwide, has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
Democrats push for torture inquiry
Democrats are seizing on a newly declassified report on harsh interrogations conducted by the military of terror suspects to push for a full inquiry of the Bush administration's use of what critics call torture.
The 232-page report released Tuesday by the Senate Armed Services Committee concluded that the military's use of interrogation tactics -- such as stripping detainees, placing them in stressful body positions, and depriving them of sleep -- were authorized at the top levels of the Bush administration, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
"This exhaustive report offers more evidence of failures within the Bush Administration that allowed officials to set history and the law aside to torture detainees despite evidence such methods don’t work," Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, said in a statement today. “Our country is turning away from this dark moment. But we cannot afford to leave it behind until we fully understand what went wrong, and do what we can to ensure that America never again loses sight of its most sacred principles."
"This report is just one in a number of ongoing efforts to learn the whole truth about the Bush Administration's detention and interrogation program. I am an active participant in the investigation underway in the Senate Intelligence Committee, and I continue to believe that we will eventually need an independent commission of inquiry to provide unassailable recommendations to the nation.”
Besides the Intelligence Committee's investigation, Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont has been calling for a "truth commission." On Wednesday, President Obama appeared to open the door to an bipartisan congressional probe.
Top Bush officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, steadfastly claim that the interrogations produced information that helped prevent terrorist attacks. Cheney is seeking the declassification and release of memos that he says would show that.
UPDATE: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi today also endorsed the establishment of a formal "truth commission" to investigate Bush administration anti-terrorism policies, including an examination of the Justice Department lawyers who wrote the memos justifying the interrogations, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
The release last week of the four Justice Department memos has re-energized the push for an investigation or possible prosecution. "Our members are upset about it," Pelosi said of Democrats.
But Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said in a statement that he opposes such a commission "because all of the facts are readily available to the Department of Justice."
"As I have said before, once the administration has a key to the front door, which they've had for several months, all they have to do is find the right filing cabinets and open them, which they're already doing," Specter said.
Meanwhile, Senators John McCain, Joseph Lieberman, and Lindsey Graham sent a letter to Obama today strongly urging him not to prosecute government officials who provided the legal advice on interrogations.
“Pursuing such prosecutions would, we believe, have serious negative effects on the candor with which officials in any administration provide their best advice, and would take our country in a backward-looking direction at a time when our detainee-related challenges demand that we look forward," they wrote.
“Some of the legal analysis included in the OLC memos released last week was, we believe, deeply flawed," the senators added. "We have also strongly opposed the overly coercive interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, that these memos deemed legal. We do not believe, however, that legal analysis should be criminalized, as proposals to prosecute government lawyers suggest."
They concluded: “As you have made clear, we are a nation at war. Appreciating that reality, we look forward to working with you on the panoply of detainee issues, ranging from interrogation standards to the disposition of detainee cases, which will engage our country going forward. In the interest of national security, it is the future, rather than the past, on which we believe America's gaze must be fixed.”
On Earth Day, Obama stresses clean energy
Marking Earth Day, President Obama declared today that moving toward renewable energy is essential to America's prosperity and announced that his administration will for the first time lease federal waters for projects to generate electricity from wind as well as from ocean currents and other renewable sources.
"On this Earth Day, it is time for us to lay a new foundation for economic growth by beginning a new era of energy exploration in America," he said.
"The choice we face is not between saving our environment and saving our economy -- the choice we face is between prosperity and decline," he added. "We can remain the world’s leading importer of oil, or we can become the world’s leading exporter of clean energy. We can allow climate change to wreak unnatural havoc across the landscape, or we can create jobs working to prevent its worst effects....The nation that leads the world in creating new energy sources will be the nation that leads the 21st century global economy.
"America can be that nation. America must be that nation. And while we seek new forms of fuel to power our homes and cars and businesses, we will rely on the same ingenuity -- the same American spirit -- that has always been a part of our American story," he said after touring a $21 million wind turbine tower plant in Newton, Iowa, which last year took over the site of a Maytag appliance plant closed in 2007, costing the small city hundreds of jobs.
Obama said that opening federal waters "will open the door to major investments in offshore clean energy," including projects off the coasts of New Jersey and Delaware.
He said wind energy could generate as much as 20 percent of our electricity by 2030, creating as many as 250,000 jobs. (Read Obama's full remarks below.)
Now, wind-generated power totals less than 2 percent of all electricity generated, and other renewable sources another 1 percent.
UPDATE: Later today, the Interior Department issued long-awaited regulations governing such offshore renewable energy projects and how leases will be issued. The rules put in place revenue sharing with nearby coastal states that will receive 27.5 percent of the royalties that will be generated from the electricity production, the Associated Press reports.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told the AP that applications are expected for dozens of proposed offshore wind projects, many off the north and central Atlantic in the coming months, and that he expects the first electricity production from some of the offshore projects in two or three years, probably off the Atlantic Coast.
“These rules will unleash a wave of American clean energy development,” Representative Edward Markey of Massachusetts, who is co-author of energy legislation that includes ambitious targets for renewable energy, said in a statement. “Looking beyond our shores, to the winds, tides and waves for discoveries should not be the solitary providence of explorers, but for clean energy entrepreneurs who will chart the course to America’s energy independence.”
Obama's $3.6 trillion budget for next fiscal year that Congress is hashing out calls for $15 billion each year for ten years to develop clean energy including wind power, solar power, geothermal energy, and clean coal technology.
In his official Earth Day proclamation, Obama also stressed the need for action on global warming, as well as preserving America's natural resources. (To read the proclamation, click here.)
Vice President Joe Biden, meanwhile, announced $300 million in funding today from the stimulus package for state and local governments, and transit authorities to expand their fleets of clean, sustainable vehicles.
“For city and state governments across this country, every day is Earth Day thanks to the ambitious commitments they are making to green their vehicles and transit systems. Now it’s time for Washington to help them deliver on those promises,” Biden said in a statement. “From advanced battery cars to hybrid-electric city buses, we’re going put Recovery Act dollars to work deploying cleaner, greener vehicles in cities and towns across the nation that will cut costs, reduce pollution and create the jobs that will drive our economic recovery.”
Setting the stage for Obama's trip, his Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis sought to spread the word in an op-ed piece published in a half-dozen regional newspapers.
"This focus on jump-starting the creation of an American clean energy sector will be the foundation of the president’s energy policy," they wrote. "With the depletion of the world’s oil reserves and the growing disruption of our climate, the development of clean, renewable sources of energy is the growth industry of the 21st century.
"As part of this comprehensive policy, we must crack down on the corporations that pollute the water we drink and the air we breathe," they added. "Cracking down on these polluters in a real way will mean that we can finally tackle global warming and its potentially catastrophic effects – because ultimately, our approach to energy policy and combating the effects of global warming are two sides of the same coin."
The full op-ed -- which appeared in the Austin American-Statesman, Buffalo News, Denver Post, Montgomery Advertiser, Omaha World Herald, and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette -- is below:
Clinton questioned on abortion, torture
By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- House Republicans grilled Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton today on renewed US support for abortion overseas and on recently released memos detailing harsh interrogation techniques against terrorist suspects in CIA custody, prompting frank and often feisty exchanges with the nation's top diplomat.
At Clinton's first appearance before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Representative Dan Burton, an Indiana Republican, told Clinton that the harsh interrogation techniques -- which included mock drownings known as waterboarding -- "were cleared with the leadership of both the House and the Senate," apparently referring to classified briefings that some members received on the tactics.
"They knew about them," he said, adding that the CIA officials involved in the interrogations should not be prosecuted.
"We need both hands untied with our intelligence agencies to really stop terrorism."
Representative Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican, repeatedly asked Clinton whether the administration would declassify documents that former Vice President Dick Cheney has said paint the CIA interrogators in a more heroic light and show the important information produced from the interrogations.
Clinton said she had no knowledge of such documents. "It won't surprise you that I don't consider him a particularly reliable source," she said, to some laughter.
The Obama administration has walked a fine line on the issue, last week releasing the documents detailing the torture and declaring that those techniques would not be used again. But Obama has said he would not prosecute CIA officials who followed techniques they believed were lawful, although he left the door open for the investigation of those who went beyond the legal guidance and the Bush lawyers who gave the guidance.
Republicans also repeatedly attacked Clinton for repealing Bush-administration-era rules that prohibited US support for family planning overseas to abortion providers.
Representative Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican who is strong anti-abortion advocate, criticized Clinton for recently accepting an award in the name of Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, saying the group had "killed over 305,000 children by abortion in the US and millions more worldwide."
Clinton told Smith she respected his views, but gave a vigorous defense of the new family planning policy, to applause from the gallery. "We obviously have a profound disagreement," she told him.
Representative Jeff Fortenberry, a Nebraska Republican, asked Clinton if "forcing US taxpayers to fund abortion [overseas] is in keeping with the highest values of America," while Representative Bob Inglis, a South Carolina Republican, asked why Clinton had not been more outspoken during her visit to China about forced abortions.
Clinton said that she deeply opposes China's policy on forced abortion, and has been on record opposing that policy since her time as first lady.
"Why didn't you say it as Secretary of State?" Inglis asked.
"I just did," Clinton replied.
Clinton also promised not to deal with a power-sharing Palestinian government that did not recognize Israel's right to exist and did not renounce violence, although she said the administration wanted to "leave the door open" to Hamas participating in a unity government.
Clinton also said that, while the Obama administration wants to reach out to Iran to solve the impasse over its nuclear program, Tehran would face "crippling sanctions" if such talks do not succeed.
But Clinton reserved some of her most urgent statements for Pakistan, the troubled ally in the war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and the border region straddling the two countries.
"Pakistan poses a mortal threat to the security and safety of Americans and the world," Clinton said.
She urged Pakistani-Americans to "speak out more forcefully against a policy that is ceding more and more territory to the insurgents" who have advanced to territory that is "within hours" the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. She said the "existential threat" posed by the extremists to the state of Pakistan should not be underestimated, painting the picture of a nuclear-armed state that is in danger of collapsing.
Republicans bash Obama over terrorist report
Republicans are jumping all over an Obama administration report that raises the specter of disgruntled veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars aiding domestic terrorists.
The Homeland Security analysis, which surfaced last week, concluded that the recession and Obama's election is fueling a resurgence of right-wing extremist groups and that angry veterans might "boost the capabilities of extremists ... to carry out violence."
"The willingness of a small percentage of military personnel to join extremist groups during the 1990s because they were disgruntled, disillusioned or suffering from the psychological effects of war is being replicated today," the report said.
In a new web video, the Republican National Committee sarcastically offers a "Right and wrong 101" tutorial to the White House, saying that Obama might need a reminder because of his "radical background."
"Lesson number one: Heroes are not terrorists," the announcer says.
The video then goes on to detail the differences between terrorists and members of the military -- and how ordinary Americans feel about both.
Romney slams Obama on foreign policy
Mitt Romney, past and possible future GOP presidential hopeful, jumped today into the bashing of President Obama's foreign policy.
The former Massachusetts governor writes today in National Review's online edition that Obama has failed his first tests as commander-in-chief and damaged America's standing in the world by not objecting to verbal attacks on the United States and by apologizing for past actions.
"The words spoken by the leader of the free world can expand the frontiers of freedom or shrink them," Romney wrote in the op-ed.
Romney says that "when our nation was slandered," Obama "offered silence, smiles, and a handshake."
"Even more troubling than what he has or has not said is what he has not done," Romney adds. "Kim Jong Il launched a long-range missile on the very day President Obama addressed the world about the peril of nuclear proliferation. As one of the world’s most oppressive and tyrannical regimes is on the brink of securing the “game changing” capability to reach American shores with a nuclear weapon, the president shrinks from action: no seizure of North Korean funds, no severance of banking access, no blockade."
Romney concludes: "Vice President Biden was right that the new president would be tested early in his administration. What the world learned was not good news for freedom and democracy. The leader of the free world has been a timid advocate of freedom at best. And bold action to blunt the advances of tyrants has been wholly lacking. We are still very early in the Obama years — the president will have ample opportunity to defend America and freedom, and to deter nuclear brinkmanship. I am hoping for change."
Obama is also being assailed by the likes of former Vice President Dick Cheney and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who say he was too friendly with Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez at a summit over the weekend, and who offer a broader critique that the new president is being weak.
UPDATE: Obama told reporters today, "I wake up every day thinking about how to keep the American people safe. And I go to bed every night worrying about keeping the American people safe."
In an interview with CNN this afternoon, Romney elaborated on his critique of Obama's actions on North Korea's and Iran's nuclear programs.
"Well, with North Korea, I would have made it very clear that we're not taking military options off the table rather than saying there's 'nothing we can do about it,' " Romney said. "I'd make it very darn clear that America intends to defend itself and that North Korea continuing to flaunt its agreements is not something which we're going to find acceptable."
On Iran, he said, "We and our friends around the world can make it very difficult for them to get commercial credit, to get banking access, to be able to move goods in and out of their ports. There are a lot of things we can do, short of military action, that -- that can have an impact."
"But sitting back and just talking is not going to do anything to get North Korea or to get Iran to become reasonable and -- and backing away from this nuclear brinkmanship that they are pursuing."
Hill confirmed as envoy to Baghdad
The US Senate this afternoon confirmed Christopher Hill as the new US ambassador to Iraq, setting aside Republican objections about his lack of experience in the Middle East.
The vote was 73-23 for Hill, a veteran diplomat who hails from Rhode Island and who was an envoy to North Korea during the Bush administration.
“It took much longer than it should have, but I am pleased that Chris Hill has finally been confirmed as President Obama’s ambassador to Iraq," Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement. "He is one of the best diplomats we have in our country. Despite the significant security improvements, Iraq remains in a precarious state, and we need our Ambassador on the ground immediately. Ambassador Hill has personally assured me he will get to Baghdad as quickly as he can, and I look forward to working with him and supporting his efforts in any way I can.”
Some conservatives, notably Republican Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, attacked Hill's record on North Korea, accusing him of ignoring human rights abuses and negotiating a flawed nuclear disarmament pact.
Obama headed to show-me state for 100th day
President Obama will spend his 100th day in office in his favorite forum -- a town hall meeting -- in a swing state, the White House announced today.
Press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters that the town hall next Wednesday will be in suburban St. Louis. Obama "will give a progress report on the administration and take questions from Missourians about the administration's agenda looking forward," Gibbs said.
It's fitting, and not a huge surprise, that Obama, who promised to change Washington, would be outside it on the hustings on the milestone for his new administration. And it's intriguing that Obama picked a bellwether state, which he narrowly lost in November to Republican John McCain, but could very well need to win reelection in 2012.
McCain won by a mere 3,600 votes in Missouri, which was the last state to officially declare a winner.
Obama stresses national service
The White House is giving the full roll-out treatment for President Obama's signing today of a bill, named for Senator Edward M. Kennedy, that expands national service.
The $5.7 billion bill would triple the number of slots for AmeriCorps from 75,000 now to 250,000, as well as create new groups to help the poor, veterans, and others.
This morning, Obama announced the nomination of Maria Eitel to be CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service, which oversees AmeriCorps, plus programs for senior and student volunteers. Obama requested $1.1 billion for the corporation in his 2010 budget, up about 25 percent, and included $200 million for AmeriCorps in the stimulus package.
“Maria brings a unique blend of skills and management experience that will help her successfully lead the corporation during our administration’s bold expansion of national service programs," Obama said in a statement. "Maria is genuinely passionate about the role of national and community service as a vehicle for engaging and mobilizing citizens in social change, and will bring new, creative thinking to the growth and mission of the corporation.”
Eitel is a vice president of Nike Inc., and president of the Nike Foundation, the company's charitable arm where she has led work to increase opportunities for disadvantaged girls around the world.
She also worked at Microsoft Corp., the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and MCI Communications Corp. From 1989 to 1992, she served in the White House of President George H.W. Bush as deputy director of media relations and later as special assistant to the president for media affairs.
In a conference call with reporters, Obama's domestic policy adviser, Melody Barnes, said that the president wants to "empower Americans to work alongside the government to solve our education and health care, energy independence problems and challenges."
Alan Solomont, the corporation's chairman and a major Massachusetts fund-raiser for Democrats, said the bill "comes at a pivotal moment for this nation because of the economic crisis, in particular, which is causing a hardship for millions of Americans."
Also, he said, the bill "comes at a time when a new generation known as the millennial generation is coming of age and looking to participate in something larger than themselves by serving communities and their country. And we have an earlier generation of baby boomers who are wanting to give back."
This afternoon, Obama and Vice President Biden plan to meet in the Oval Office with Kennedy and former President Bill Clinton, who started AmeriCorps in his administration. Then, they'll all go to the SEED school in Washington, where Kennedy is to introduce Obama for remarks calling on Americans to step up their volunteerism and community service. Following the signing, Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama will go to a service event, reportedly a tree-planting involving AmeriCorps volunteers.
The White House released the full guest list for the bill signing. The audience of approximately 200 people will include members of Congress, volunteers, and representatives from the corporation. Among the other dignitaries: former First Lady Rosalyn Carter, Caroline Kennedy, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, retired General Colin Powell; House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
UPDATE: "This is a wonderful day for our country, and for all Americans who will now have the opportunity to give back to their communities and to this nation we love so much," Kennedy said.
Introducing Obama, he said, "Today, another young president has challenged another generation to give back to their country....You have inspired a new generation of Americans with your own example and your call to service. You have walked the walk --and today, you pave the way for others."
(Kennedy's full prepared remarks are below.)
With Kennedy seated just to the right of Obama's lectern, the president departed from his prepared remarks to pay tribute to the senator, saying, "There are very few people who have touched the life of this nation in the same breadth."
"This is just an extraordinary day for him," Obama said, saying he is honored to call Kennedy a friend and colleague.
Kennedy rose to accept a standing ovation led by Obama, himself.
The president called the bill the "boldest expansion" of national service since the founding of AmeriCorps nearly two decades ago.
Obama handed the first pen he used to sign the bill to Kennedy. (The president's full remarks are below.)
Sebelius moves closer to health post
President Obama's cabinet is nearly complete after the Senate Finance Committee voted this morning to send to the full Senate the nomination of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius as health and human services secretary.
The vote was 15-8, a division caused in part by displeasure among some GOP senators about Sebelius' inaccurate response to the committee about how much campaign cash she received from George Tiller, a Wichita abortion doctor who is under investigation by Kansas' medical board over late-term procedures he performed.
According to the Associated Press, Sebelius told the committee that Tiller, who was acquitted of criminal charges involving the late-term abortions, had given her $12,450 between 1994 and 2001. But the AP found that Tiller and his abortion clinic donated an additional $23,000 between 2000 and 2002 to a political action committee Sebelius established to raise money for fellow Democrats. Sebelius apologized and called it an oversight.
Only two of 10 Republicans on the committee supported Sebelius. They were Pat Roberts from her home state of Kansas, and Olympia Snowe of Maine.
Obama's initial pick for the post, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, withdrew after tax discrepancies arose that forced him to pay more than $100,000 in back taxes and penalties. Sebelius had her own tax problems, acknowledging mistakes in three years of tax returns and paying more than $7,000 in back taxes to fix improper deductions.
The president wanted Daschle to lead a healthcare overhaul by also leading a new White House office of healthcare reform, but after his nomination foundered, Obama split the two jobs. Still, Sebelius will play a key role in remaking the health system
Democrats: Republicans do-nothings and hypocrites on budget
Rejoining the battle over President Obama's $3.6 trillion budget, Democrats are stressing another line of attack -- that Republican foes, besides not offering a real alternative, are being hypocrites.
In a new web video, the Democratic National Committee says that while the two top House Republicans -- John Boehner of Ohio and Eric Cantor of Virginia -- are accusing Obama and the Democrats of so much deficit spending that it threatens to bankrupt the country, they both voted for President Bush's budgets that vastly increased the national debt.
“Over eight years, Republicans nearly doubled the national debt,” it says on screen. “John Boehner and Eric Cantor were with Bush every step of the way. Now, Washington Republicans want you to forget what they did.”
"From the Party of No to the Party of Hypocrites?" the video ends.
Responded Antonia Ferrier, a spokesperson for Boehner: "We missed the part of the video where they defend their massive, fiscally-irresponsible budget that will double the debt in five years and triple it in 10. When the President's Budget Director concedes they are raising the deficit to unsustainable levels, I guess they have to do everything they can to blame everyone else."
"As we close in on President Obama's first 100 days, I would ask Virginia's Governor Tim Kaine if his partisan attack ads and disinformation campaigns are a calculated rejection of the President's attempts to change Washington,” added Brad Dayspring, a spokesman for Cantor.
Before leaving on their Easter recess early this month, the House and Senate each passed different versions of the spending blueprint that largely preserved Obama's priorities on healthcare, education, and energy. The leaders of the Democratic-controlled chambers are expected today to name members of a conference committee that will iron out a compromise version.
Gingrich: Obama weak like Carter
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich today joined the critics of President Obama's supposed chumminess with Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, a thorn in America's side for years, over the weekend at the Summit of the Americas.
And in accusing Obama of softness, Gingrich threw in painful blow for Democrats -- a comparison to Jimmy Carter.
“This administration is opposed to looking for oil in America, but bows to the Saudi king, embraces the Venezuelan dictator, I think it’s a very unhealthy strategy for us,” Gingrich said on Fox News Channel. “I think there is something fundamentally wrong with weakness in America, and then playing to placate dictators.”
“This does look a lot like Jimmy Carter," Gingrich added. "Carter tried weakness and the world got tougher and tougher because the predators, the aggressors, the anti-Americans, the dictators, when they sense weakness, they all start pushing ahead.”
On NBC's "Today" show, Gingich warned, "Everywhere in Latin America, enemies of America are going to use the picture of Chavez smiling and being with the president as proof that Chavez is now legitimate that he is acceptable."
Obama told reporters on Sunday that the symbolism of his joint appearance with Chavez is being blown way out of proportion."It's unlikely that as a consequence of me shaking hands or having a polite conversation with Mr. Chavez that we are endangering the strategic interests of the United States," the president said.
UPDATE: Former Vice President Dick Cheney is piling on, saying he "didn't think much" of the hand clasp.
"I mean, I've seen Hugo Chavez in operation before, and Daniel Ortega down in Nicaragua. These are people who operate in our hemisphere, but who don't believe in and aren't supportive of basic fundamental principles and policies that most of us in this hemisphere adhere to,” Cheney says in an interview airing tonight on Fox News Channel's "Hannity" show.
Cheney, who has accused Obama of making America less safe with foreign policy reversals, also said while he understands blaming the previous administration, he's concerned that the new president is appearing weak.
“What I find disturbing is the extent to which he has gone to Europe, for example, and seemed to apologize profusely in Europe, and then to Mexico, and apologize there, and so forth,” Cheney says, according to excerpts released by Fox News.
“And I think you have to be very careful. The world outside there, both our friends and our foes, will be quick to take advantage of a situation if they think they're dealing with a weak president or one who is not going to stand up and aggressively defend America's interests. The United States provides most of the leadership in the world. We have for a long time. And I don't think we've got much to apologize for."
Obama tries to boost CIA morale after torture memos release
Under fire for releasing a series of Justice Department memos on harsh interrogations of terror suspects, President Obama made a morale-boosting stop this afternoon at the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters.
Obama told about 1,000 employees that he will protect classified intelligence information, but defended the release of the memos.
"I know that the last few days have been difficult," he said. "As I made clear, in releasing the OLC memos, as a consequence of a court case that was pending and to which it was very difficult for us to mount an effective legal defense, I acted primarily because of the exceptional circumstances that surrounded these memos, particularly the fact that so much of the information was public, had been publicly acknowledged.
"The covert nature of the information had been compromised," he added. "I have fought to protect the integrity of classified information in the past and I will do so in the future. And there is nothing more important than protecting the identity of CIA officers. So I need everybody to be clear. We will protect your identities and your security as you vigorously pursue your missions. I will be as vigorous in protecting you, as you are vigorous in protecting the American people."
He argued again that ending harsh interrogations -- what critics call torture -- will make America more safe, not less so.
"What makes the United States special and what makes you special is precisely the fact that we are willing to uphold our values and our ideals even when it's hard, not just when it's easy; even when we are afraid and under threat, not just when it's expedient to do so. That's what makes us different," the president said.
"So yes, you've got a harder job and so do I. And that's OK, because that's why we can take such extraordinary pride in being Americans. And over the long term, that is why I believe we will defeat our enemies because we're on the better side of history. So don't be discouraged by what's happened in the last few weeks. Don't be discouraged that we have to acknowledge potentially we've made some mistakes. That's how we learn."
UPDATE: Meanwhile, former Vice President Dick Cheney is joining other Bush administration officials criticizing the release of the memos, and is now calling for the declassification and release of memos that he says shows the information gleaned from the interrogations.
“One of the things that I find a little bit disturbing about this recent disclosure is they put out the legal memos, the memos that the CIA got from the Office of Legal Counsel, but they didn't put out the memos that showed the success of the effort. And there are reports that show specifically what we gained as a result of this activity. They have not been declassified,” Cheney says in an interview airing tonight on Fox News Channel’s "Hannity" show.
“I formally asked that they be declassified now. I haven't announced this up until now, I haven't talked about it, but I know specifically of reports that I read, that I saw that lay out what we learned through the interrogation process and what the consequences were for the country,” according to excerpts released by Fox News.
“And I've now formally asked the CIA to take steps to declassify those memos so we can lay them out there and the American people have a chance to see what we obtained and what we learned and how good the intelligence was, as well as to see this debate over the legal opinions.”
Obama to sign service bill on Tuesday
President Obama on Tuesday will sign the landmark national service bill named for Senator Edward M. Kennedy, White House announced this afternoon.
The bill-signing event will take place at The SEED School of Washington, D.C., a public school with students who face challenges in school and at home. Kennedy is expected to attend, along with former President Bill Clinton.
"The president will give remarks on the bipartisan service legislation which will open up new opportunities for millions of Americans. He will call on people across the country to serve their communities and work together to tackle the nation's tough challenges," the White House said.
Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, and Senator Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican, pushed through the bill, which would increase the ranks of AmeriCorps to 250,000 from 75,000 positions over eight years and also create five groups to help poor people, improve education, encourage energy efficiency, strengthen access to healthcare, and assist veterans.
When Congress approved the legislation, Obama earlier praised Kennedy's role, saying that "it is fitting that this legislation is named after Ted Kennedy, a person who has never stopped asking what he could do for his country. This legislation is not just a tribute to the service to which he has dedicated his life, it is a call to action for the rest of us."
Obama to Cabinet: Time for belt-tightening
He didn't exactly come bearing gifts as he convened the first full Cabinet meeting of his administration.
Instead, President Obama told his cabinet secretaries (all but Kathleen Sebelius, not yet confirmed at health and human services) that they must join in the penny-pinching that many American families are trying to make ends meet with a goal of slicing $100 million from the federal budget in the next three months.
Obama said because of the economic crisis, his administration has had to spend gargantuan sums of money, including the $787 billion stimulus plan.
"However, moving forward we have an obligation to make sure this government is as efficient as possible" and to make sure no taxpayers money is being wasted to close any "confidence gap" the public has, he said.
He cited the sweeping cuts that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates proposed earlier this month, along with other trims. But he said more savings are needed and pledged that 100 unnecessary programs will be ended.
Obama also told reporters after the meeting that he is "extraordinary proud of the talent, diversity, and work ethic" of his team, which he said faced historic challenges in the first three months.
But the total savings is largely symbolic and a proverbial drop in the bucket -- far less than 1 percent of the $192 billion federal deficit just for March.
Obama's $3.6 trillion budget for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1 has been savaged, by some Democrats as well as Republicans, because it would mean a projected $9.3 trillion in deficits over the next decade.
The White House released a list of cost-cutting measures that agencies have already made, but many of them would be over several years. They include eliminating the job of education policy attaché at the US mission to UNESCO in Paris and closing the office to save $713,000 a year; no longer creating new seals and logos for Homeland Security programs, for which consultants were paid $3 million since 2003; and converting publication of judicial forfeiture notices from newspapers to the Internet, a change expected to save $6.7 million over the first five years.
Obama critics are ridiculing the savings.
"First the President wanted nobody watching him spend trillions of dollars - now he wants everyone watching him cut a tiny fraction," said the conservative-leaning Americans for Tax Reform.
"The British have an old saying: Penny-Wise, Pound-Foolish. This is taking this saying to new levels - not Pound-Foolish, but trillion dollar foolish."
The Heritage Foundation put out a graphic showing the $100 million goal as a tiny dot in comparison to the stimulus package and the additional $410 billion budget approved for the remainder of this fiscal year.
Asked whether the savings were a mere "drop in the bucket," Obama replied, "It is, and that's what I just said."
"None of these things alone are going to make a difference," he said, according to the press pool report. "But cumulatively that make an extraordinary difference because they start to set a new tone. And so what we're gonna do line by line and page by page, $100 million here, $100 million there, pretty soon even in Washington, it adds up to real money."
His full remarks are below, as is the full White House list is below:
FULL ENTRYObama back on road to tout clean energy
Finally back in Washington after globe-trotting trips to Europe and the Caribbean, President Obama plans to hit the road again this week to promote his alternative energy agenda.
The White House officially announced this afternoon that Obama will return to Iowa -- scene of his history-changing caucus victory last year -- on Wednesday, timed with Earth Day.
In Newton, Iowa, he plans to meet workers at Trinity Structural Towers, a former Maytag plant that now makes towers for wind energy production.
"Iowa, a leader in wind energy, is a perfect example of how a community can rebuild a local economy with investments in clean energy and efficiency. Trinity employs dozens of former Maytag employees and is part of the revitalization of a town hard hit by the closing of the Maytag plant," the White House announcement said. "President Obama will discuss components of his comprehensive energy plan, which include promoting clean energy innovation to help end our dependence on foreign oil, creating millions of new jobs, and preventing the worst consequences of climate change."
Obama's $3.6 trillion spending blueprint includes start-up spending on green energy, but even before House and Senate negotiators try to compromise, a proposed tax on carbon emissions is facing stiff opposition. Leading Democrats have also introduced a bill for a cap-and-trade system on carbon emissions.
Representatives Henry A. Waxman, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Edward J. Markey, chairman of the Energy and Environment Subcommittee, announced that the panel will hold four days of hearings starting Tuesday on the bill.
On Wednesday, top Obama administration officials are scheduled to testify, including EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, Energy Secretary Stephen Chu, and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. Also, industry and environmental leaders involved in the Climate Action Partnership will testify, including DuPont Chairman Charles Holliday, Jr.; Red Cavaney, senior vice president of ConocoPhillips; Jim Rogers, chairman, president, and CEO of Duke Energy Corp.; Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council; Meg McDonald, director of global issues for Alcoa Inc.; and David Crane, president and CEO of NRG Energy, Inc.
Also in conjunction with Earth Day, Senator John F. Kerry announced that the Foreign Relations Committee will hold a hearing Wednesday on negotiations on a new global warming pact.
The scheduled witnesses: Todd Stern, special envoy for climate change at the State Department; Helene Gayle, president and CEO of CARE; Ned Helme, president of the Center for Clean Air Policy; and Paul Camuti, president and CEO of Siemens Corporate Research.
“The global community is at a critical juncture in our efforts to craft a new, comprehensive agreement to respond to the urgent threat of global climate change,” Kerry said in a statement. “I believe that climate change truly is the challenge of our lifetime. The United States must exhibit firm and ambitious leadership to raise the bar internationally and ensure that our global response meets the scale of the challenge. This hearing provides an important opportunity to explore the Administration’s perspectives on the recent Bonn negotiating session and its plans for the upcoming Major Economies Forum, which I believe will be an essential venue for honest discussion and convergence of views.”
Kennedy, Baucus stay on course on healthcare
As Congress returns today from a two-week recess, Senators Edward M. Kennedy and Max Baucus reaffirmed their intention to push through a healthcare overhaul this year.
Baucus, a Montana Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat who leads the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, have been leading the charge so far. In a letter to President Obama, they announced what they called an "aggressive" schedule for their committees to draft comprehensive healthcare legislation in early June.
"We must act swiftly, because the cost of inaction is too high for individuals, families, businesses, state and federal governments," the senators wrote. "Comprehensive health care reform legislation will responsibly contain costs, improve quality, enhance disease prevention, and provide coverage to all Americans. We are committed to working with you, and with our colleagues in Congress, to enact legislation to achieve these long-overdue reforms without delay."
Obama has convened a White House summit on healthcare, where Kennedy, who is battling brain cancer, made an emotional appearance. He has also set aside a "downpayment" on healthcare in his $3.6 trillion proposed budget.
The full text of the letter is below:
Obama on N.Y. shooting
The president issued a statement of concern this afternoon about the shooting rampage in Binghamton, N.Y., where a gunman reportedly killed 12 people before killing himself.
“Michelle and I were shocked and deeply saddened to learn about the act of senseless violence in Binghamton, N.Y., today," said the statement from the White House. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims, their families and the people of Binghamton. We don’t yet know all the facts, but my administration is actively monitoring the situation and the Vice President is in touch with Governor Paterson and local officials to track developments.”
Obama to honor NATO's fallen
President Obama's weekend schedule, besides the anticipated NATO summit and European Union speech, includes a symbolic flourish and more bilateral meetings with European leaders.
The White House announced this afternoon that on Saturday morning, the president will join German Chancellor Angela Merkel and walk across the Passarelle Mimram, a pedestrian bridge over the Rhine River connecting Kehl, Germany, and Strasbourg, France. French President Nicolas Sarkozy will meet them at the center of the bridge, then they will all walk across the bridge to Strasbourg for a tribute to NATO military personnel, including those killed in action.
After the NATO summit, Obama plans to meet with leaders of Greece.
On Sunday, before the EU summit, Obama plans to meet with Czech President Vaclav Klaus and Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek. Laer, he will hold separate bilateral meetings with leaders of Spain and Poland, and plans to meet with former Czech President Vaclav Havel before leaving for Turkey and the final leg of his trip.
Gates set to announce 'fundamental' changes in Pentagon spending
By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates will announce "a fundamental shift" in the military's weapons budget on Monday, unveiling a series of cuts to big-ticket programs that he deems ill-suited to meeting current national security threats, the Pentagon said today.
"These are not changes to the margins. This is a fundamental shift," Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters.
Indeed, some press reports suggest the pruning of the Pentagon's $180 billion-a-year weapons acquisition plan will be more extensive than anticipated and potentially impact dozens of programs, including warships, aircraft, and combat vehicles, as well as missile defense systems and a new fleet of presidential helicopters.
New England-based defense firms such as Raytheon and United Technologies have been expected to take a hit from cuts in several high-profile programs -- potentially forcing layoffs of thousands -- but the full package of terminations and delays could be even more extensive than expected.
For example, defense trade publications are reporting that several warships as well as submarine construction could be affected -- cutbacks or delays that would harm the business of General Dynamics' two major shipbuilding facilities in New England: Bath Iron Works in Maine and Electric Boat in Connecticut.
As news of the decisions began leaking out late this week, Wall Street analysts were warning investors to expect a "bold" plan that would likely prompt a sell-off of major defense stocks.
"We believe [Gates'] proposal regarding these 40-plus programs will likely include proposed cancellations and bold, substantial cuts," Morgan Stanley's research division told investors in a note late Thursday. "Programs almost certain to be covered," the analysts predicted, citing "sources and trade press" reports, include all three major fighter aircraft programs, the F-22, F-35, and F/A-18, as well as the Littoral Combat Ship, a small warship designed to operate close to shores and is under contract to Bath.
The plan will have to go before Congress, which is under heavy pressure from lobbyists and constituents concerned about job losses to reverse some of the decisions.
Morgan Stanley predicted that announcing the cuts ahead of President Obama's full federal budget in May could take some of the heat off the new president and make Gates, who served as George W. Bush' defense secretary, the plan's chief salesman.
Gates, a former CIA director and deputy national security adviser who has served eight presidents, is highly respected by both parties and considered a particularly convincing advocate for why the cuts are in the best interest of the country. He has insisted that some conventional weapons programs must be cancelled or delayed in order to afford the tools needed to address terrorism and guerilla insurgencies, which he believes will pose far greater danger to the United States in the foreseeable future than opposing armies, navies or air forces.
An American in France
President Obama may have surpassed even Jerry Lewis as the most popular American in France.
But the trick will be to turn all that personal acclaim into political pressure to support the United States on security and economic issues.
Hosting the Obamas today on the second leg of their European sojourn, French President Nicolas Sarkozy continued his man-crush on the new president, effusively praising him. Sarkozy also gave Obama a tangible gift -- more development aid and training for police in Afghanistan.
"We totally endorse and support America's new strategy in Afghanistan," Sarkozy said at a news conference. (The transcript of the press availability is below.)
And the crowds were rapturous on the way to and inside a sports arena in Strasbourg for an Obama town hall meeting.
There, Obama sought to hammer home a message that without a partnership between America and Europe -- despite disagreements from time to time -- there is no way to address shared concerns and global problems.
"We must be honest with ourselves," Obama told the crowd. "In recent years, we've allowed our alliance to drift."
In part, he blamed the Iraq war, which most of continental Europe strongly opposed, but he also told the audience that Al Qaeda is still a threat and the alliance must still confront terrorism.
"I've come to Europe this week to renew our partnership," Obama said, assigning blame to both sides -- arrogance by America and a "failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world," and casual, sometimes "insidious" anti-Americanism in Europe.
"On both sides of the Atlantic, these attitudes have become all too common," he said. "They are not wise. They do not represent the truth."
(The transcript of the town hall is also below.)
What next on jobs?
Democrats, having succeeded in pushing through President Obama's sweeping budget blueprint Thursday night, are seizing on the new job loss numbers to suggest that more needs to be done to turn the economy around.
But after setting the stage for bruising battles on healthcare and alternative energy by passing the $3.5 trillion outlines, and after already passing the $787 billion stimulus plan, there's no consensus on what to do next. And Congress is about to start a two-week recess, leaving a leadership vacuum in Washington unless the leadership calls the rank-and-file back into session.
The US economy lost another 663,000 jobs last month -- raising the total this year to 2 million -- and the unemployment rate jumped to 8.5 percent, the highest since late 1983, the Labor Department said.
“Month after month, America’s working families have been bearing a heavier and heavier brunt of this recession, and now, even more families need our help," Senator Edward M. Kennedy, chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, said in a statement. "Our first priority in Congress is to do what’s required to create jobs and lend a real helping hand to as many struggling citizens and their families as possible. We’re firm in our resolve to meet these challenges and restore prosperity for all Americans.”
UPDATE: In a joint news conference with German leader Angela Merkel, Obama noted the jobs numbers and asserted that the G-20 agreement will aid the recovery, though there is no guarantee that more steps won't be needed.
"None of us can isolate ourselves from the global market," Obama said. "If we don't have concerted action, we will have collective failure."
The budget resolutions passed on party-line votes in the Democratic-controlled chambers. When they return from recess, House and Senate negotiators will have to reconcile the different versions, which both incorporate much of Obama's agenda.
“The sobering news today that 663,000 more Americans received pink slips last month signals that the economy is in even worse shape than we thought," Tom McMahon, acting executive director of Americans United for Change, a pro-Obama liberal-labor coalition, said in a statement. "President Obama inherited the nation’s worst economic crisis in generations and the thousands of Americans continuing to lose their jobs each day underscores the urgent to need for Congress preserve his transformational budget plan - a blueprint for rebuilding and renewing America’s economy and creating jobs - as it moves toward final passage.”
“The unemployment line is grower longer and longer every day. There could not be a worse time for the same old partisan games in Washington when so many people are losing their healthcare, their livelihood and dignity. We don’t need politics as usual; we need bold solutions from our leaders.”
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney raised the possibility of a second stimulus package.
"We need to get our economy back on track, create good paying jobs, and restore balance to the fundamental building blocks of our economy," he said in a statement. "President Obama’s budget is an important first step that includes a serious down payment on national healthcare reform, investments in growing green jobs and addressing climate change, essential funding for education and other programs that are crucial for working families.
"But we also must make broad-based economic changes to have sustained economic growth and an economy that works for everyone," he added. "At the G20 meeting President Obama attempted to get world leaders to be more aggressive in addressing their economic problems to make the United States’ stimulus package more effective. It was a successful meeting in many ways but in order to counter what is a global recession world leaders will need to do more and the United States may well need to pass a second stimulus package."
House passes Obama budget
This evening, the US House approved its $3.6 trillion budget outline, largely in line with President Obama's ambitious blueprint on healthcare, alternative energy, education and more -- after defeating a Republican alternative that slashed spending and taxes.
The vote in the Democratic-controlled House was 233-196, along party lines.
Obama called the passage "another step toward rebuilding our struggling economy.
"This budget resolution embraces our most fundamental priorities: an energy plan that will end our dependence on foreign oil and spur a new clean energy economy; an education system that will ensure our children will be able to compete in the economy of the 21st century; and health care reform that finally confronts the back-breaking costs plaguing families, businesses and government alike. And by making hard choices and challenging the old ways of doing business, we will cut in half the budget deficit we inherited within four years. With this vote comes an obligation to pursue our efforts to go through the budget line-by-line, searching for additional savings. Like the families we serve, we must cut the things we don't need to invest in those we do,” he said in a statement.
Democratic National Committee chairman Tim Kaine congratulated House Democrats for passing a very close cousin to the president's budget -- "a plan to help turn our economy around by slashing the deficit in half, making health care more affordable, reducing our dependence on foreign oil and investing in education. This vote today is a victory not only for this generation of Americans, but generations to come."
"Unfortunately, the unanimous vote by the House Republicans against the budget does not represent the principle of loyal opposition upon which this country was founded, but opposition purely for political gain," Kaine said in a statement. "While Republicans continue to cling to the failed policies of the past that created the current economic crisis, President Obama and Democrats have taken bold steps to restore stability and prosperity for all Americans. Today's vote affirms that the Party of No is more interested in playing politics than working with the Democrats and the President to solve our nation's problems on a bipartisan basis."
Later tonight, the Senate is expected to pass its modified version of Obama's $3.6 trillion blueprint.
The two Maine moderates, Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, provided key votes to pass Obama's stimulus package in February. And today, they reprised their role in rejecting an alternative to Obama's budget proposed by his Republican presidential rival, John McCain.
The Senate voted 60-38 to kill McCain's plan, which would have capped domestic spending and eliminated the income tax increases on people earning more than $200,000 and couples making more than $250,000 by letting Bush tax cuts expire. One other Republican and every Democrat present voted against McCain's plan.
The McCain amendment was one of the last major hurdles to passage tonight.
Anti-abortion forces go after Sebelius
So far, abortion has not emerged as a huge issue in the confirmation of Kathleen Sebelius for health and human services secretary.
But as she goes today before the Senate Finance Committee, which will vote whether to forward her nomination to the full Senate, conservatives are trying to put abortion front and center, while also highlighting her tax trouble -- she acknowledged paying about $7,000 in back taxes after "unintentional" errors in three years of returns.
UPDATE: Senators decided to wait to vote on Sebelius's nomination until they return from a two-week recess that starts Saturday, so that lawmakers have more time to review her responses on tax and other issues.
"Gov. Sebelius may not pay her own taxes, but has no qualms about using tax dollars to pay for others’ abortions. Even before she reported her tax issues Gov. Sebelius was manifestly unqualified to run America's health care system, as illustrated by her coddling of the abortion industry at the expense of Kansas women's safety. With her background, Gov. Sebelius can only be expected to politicize the office of HHS. Gov. Sebelius's difficulties illuminate an emerging pattern: that Obama nominates non-experts who cannot be relied upon to solve their own tax problems, let alone govern effectively," said a statement issued today by a who's who of anti-abortion conservatives.
They include Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council; Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America; David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union; Marjorie Dannenfelser, president, Susan B. Anthony List; Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform; Tom Minnery, vice president of government and public policy, Focus on the Family; and Don Wildmon, president, American Family Association.
"More acute than her tax problems, Gov. Sebelius is not to be trusted with any aspect of citizens' healthcare. As a member of the Kansas House of Representatives in the 1980s and 1990s Gov. Sebelius voted to weaken or eliminate even such modest measures as parental notification, waiting periods and informed consent. As governor, she twice has vetoed bills attempting to protect the health and safety of women by more tightly regulating abortion clinics. Gov. Sebelius has been endorsed by Planned Parenthood and they have conducted fundraising activity on her behalf. Clearly, Gov. Sebelius has a track record of politicizing common-sense health issues," they added.
Sebelius, a Catholic who personally opposes abortion, has not gone along with further limits as Kansas governor, though she did sign a bill on Friday requiring doctors to allow women to see ultrasound images of their fetuses before performing abortions.
In her prepared testimony, Sebelius said she wants to focus on prevention and primary care to help slow the rising costs of Medicare and Medicaid. On Tuesday, she told another Senate panel that she would make healthcare overhaul her mission.
Town hall, French-style
How will a Barack Obama town hall come off in France?
We'll find out Friday, as the new president holds a town hall meeting at Rhenus Sports Arena in Strasbourg with students and local residents. The town hall, even of the online variety, has been the favored forum for Obama during the campaign and since he took office to sell himself and his agenda.
The town hall, announced by the White House this afternoon, is part of a busy schedule on Friday, which also includes a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the Palais Rohan, a quick jaunt across the border to Baden-Baden, Germany, where Obama will meet with Chancellor Angela Merkel at the Rathaus.
Obama and first lady Michelle Obama will also attend a NATO concert. And in an appointment that will be closely watched by fashion mavens, Michelle Obama wil do lunch with her French counterpart, former model Carla Bruni-Sarkozy.
Obama claims success in summit
President Obama had reason to smile at his news conference today at the close of the G-20 economic summit.
After all the hype over dissension between Europe and America, the meeting of the world's leading economies produced a wide-ranging deal that includes some more stimulus -- though not nearly as much as the United States sought -- and more regulations wanted by Europe.
Obama said the agreement will mark a "turning point in the pursuit of global economic recovery," calling it an unprecedented package of coordinated actions and contrasting it to the delayed response to the Great Depression and the 1980s recession.
"Today, we've learned the lessons of history," the president said. "I know that in the days leading up to this summit, some confused honest and open debate with irreconcilable differences. But after weeks of preparation, and two days of careful negotiation, we have agreed upon a series of unprecedented steps to restore growth and prevent a crisis like this from happening again."
He added, "In an age when our economies are linked more closely than ever before, the whole world has been touched by this devastating downturn. And today, the world’s leaders have responded today with an unprecedented set of comprehensive and coordinated actions.".
Still, he said the crisis is causing real pain around the world for people losing homes, jobs, and the chance to go to college. He noted that new jobless numbers out today in the United States are the highest in a quarter-century.
Asked what out of the summit would directly help struggling Americans, Obama said that the US economy is inextricably linked with the rest of the world, particularly when it comes to exports. "We've got to make sure the global economy as a whole is successful," he said.
Obama said the leaders made significant progress in stimulating the world economy, reforming financial regulations, increasing transparency, and protecting the poor and voiceless He announced he would work with Congress on $448 million in aid. To see details on the aid, click here and here.
But Obama also said that the agreement is only a first step, and more steps might be needed. The G-20 will meet again in the fall and monitor progress, he said. (Read Obama's remarks and the subsequent transcript.)
The leaders pledged an additional $1 trillion to restore credit, growth, and jobs; agreed to renounce protectionism and pledged $250 billion in trade finance over the next two years; and outlined new measures, including a crackdown on tax havens and hedge funds and new rules on linking executive pay to performance.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who said he would not sign the final communique if it did not include enough progress on stricter financial regulation -- the diplomatic equivalent of walking out on the summit -- told reporters that the agreement represents "great progress."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who had expressed similar concerns that lack of regulation had led to the financial crisis, said the agreement was "a very, very good, almost historic compromise" that will create a "clearer financial market architecture."
In his press conference, the summit's host, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, bragged about unprecedented progress, according to the Associated Press.
"Today the largest countries of the world have agreed on a global plan for economic recovery and reform," Brown said. "For the first time we have a common approach to cleaning up banks around the world to restructuring of the world financial system. We have maintained our commitment to help the world's poorest. This is a collective action of people around the world working at their best."
Obama names pick for appeals court covering Connecticut, Vermont
President Obama today tapped a federal judge from New York to the US appeals court that covers Vermont, Connecticut, and New York.
If confirmed by the Senate, Gerard Lynch would tip the partisan balance in the 2nd Circuit, giving the court seven judges appointed by Democrats and six picked by Republicans. The court often presides over Wall Street-related financial cases.
Lynch was nominated along with Andre Davis, a Maryland federal judge who would serve on the 4th Circuit.
"Judges Lynch and Davis are two jurists with exceptional records of integrity and fairness," Obama said in a statement. "They will be voices of reason and evenhandedness on the Second and Fourth Circuits."
Lynch, appointed to the federal bench in 2000 by President Bill Clinton, has presided over several high profile cases including a sexual harassment claim by a former executive of NBA's New York Knicks against Madison Square Garden; and the perjury case of a rap artist, Lil' Kim, the Associated Press reports.
"Judge Lynch is a class act, a world-class legal mind, and one of the sagest judges of the district court," Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, told the AP. "We could not have a better nominee to this critical court."
Lynch's mini-biography from the White House is below:
Obama issues warning on missile test
In the first of three bilateral meetings today with foreign leaders, President Obama called for a "stern, united" world response if North Korea goes ahead with a long-range rocket launch that the unpredictable country says is a satellite launch but which other fear is a missile test.
Obama met with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak before the official G-20 economic summit sessions, and agreed to keep working together to stop North Korea's nuclear weapons program and to meet again in Washington on June 16.
The post-meeting White House statement is below.
Before the session, Obama called South Korea, where thousands of US troops still help keep the peace, "one of America's closest allies and greatest friends."
"We are very interested in discussing the economic crisis, which is the topic of the G-20 meeting," the president said. "But obviously we also have a great range of issues to discuss -- on defense, on peace and stability in the Korean peninsula, on the outstanding contributions that Korea has made with respect to the Afghanistan situation, and their global role and global leadership on issues like climate change."
Obama also has meetings scheduled today with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah.
Kerry seeks to restore diplomacy money
In his new Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy, President Obama last week highlighted and incorporated the proposal by Senators John F. Kerry and Richard Lugar to send $1.5 billion a year in humanitarian aid to Pakistan, conditioned on more help from Islamabad taking on terrorists.
Today, the Massachusetts Democrat and Indiana Republican stood up for Obama, introducing an amendment to restore $4 billion cut from the president's international affairs budget, specifically money to beef up the US civilian presence abroad as the administration tries to ramp up diplomacy.
UPDATE: The Senate voted this afternoon to approve Kerry's amendment.
"Returning diplomacy and development to their rightful place cannot be achieved through words alone: It takes money to drive civilian foreign policy -- and if it keeps us safer, as I believe it will, then that is money well spent," Kerry said on the Senate floor, according to prepared remarks released by his office.
"Full funding of the President’s international affairs budget is a vital step toward greater civilian capacity, and I urge my colleagues to support it," added Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
His full prepared remarks are below:
FULL ENTRYThe stimulus road show goes on
With President Obama across the pond trying to unify the worldwide response to the economic crisis, his cabinet is hitting the road today to trumpet the benefits of the economic stimulus package he championed back home.
Vice President Biden and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack traveled to North Carolina to highlight the Recovery Act's help to rural America. In Faison, they visited the Goshen Medical Center, a rural health clinic.
The medical center is getting $635,876 in stimulus money, enough to add seven jobs and treat 4,800 more patients, including 1,500 with no health insurance, the White House said.
“Community health centers are at the heart of many of our rural communities,” Biden said. “Sometimes, these clinics are the only health facilities for miles and miles. The Recovery Act’s investment is crucial meeting the health and medical needs of millions of Americans.”
(Biden's full remarks are below.)
In Pikeville, Biden and Vilsack stopped by the rural fire department’s main station, which is using stimulus cash to build a new firehouse big enough for ladder trucks. They also announced that the Agriculture department has begun disbursing the first installment of $10 billion in guaranteed housing loans.
About $1.76 billion will help 15,000 rural families and create or save approximately 7,500 jobs, the White House said. Once all the Recovery Act funding for rural housing is released ($7 billion directly to states and $3 billion held in reserve for higher need areas), the White House says that 42,500 jobs will be created or saved.
Kennedy and Kerry said that $37.2 million of the housing loan money will come to Massachusetts to help low-income individuals or households build, repair, renovate, or relocate a home, or to purchase and prepare sites.
“At this time of economic crisis, these funds could not come to Massachusetts at a more critical time. These guaranteed loans will allow Massachusetts citizens in hard hit, rural areas the opportunity to get back on their feet,” Kennedy said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Education Secretary Arne Duncan visited Doswell E. Brooks Elementary School in Capitol Heights, Md., to announce the first $44 billion for schools from the $787 billion stimulus bill.
The White House says that Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley and other state and local leaders will join Duncan on a tour of the award-winning school. It is part of the Prince George's County school district, the nation's 18th largest, which plans to use stimulus funds to avoid furloughs, layoffs, increases in class sizes, and other education program cuts.
Also starting this week, most employees will see a little extra in their paychecks as the $400-per-worker, $800-per-couple tax cut kicks in.
UPDATE: Senators John F. Kerry and Edward M. Kennedy said this afternoon that the tax credit means $1.2 billion for 2.4 million working families in Massachusetts.
“Working families struggling to make ends meet will soon have more money in their pockets,” Kerry said in a statement.
“Hard-working families across our Commonwealth are struggling to make ends meet,” Kennedy added. “This tax credit will bring them some relief over the next two years. President Obama was right to make it a big part of his economic recovery plan for the nation.”
President gives queen an iPod
For a White House that is meticulous about every small detail, President Obama might want to seek more help in the gift-giving department.
Maybe something more personal than consumer electronics would be nice.
Today, he gave Queen Elizabeth II an iPod. The BBC reports: "President Obama has given the Queen an iPod during their private meeting at Buckingham Palace. It contains footage of her state visit to the US in May 2007. The Queen has given the president a silver framed photograph of herself and her husband. The official picture is what she gives all visiting dignitaries."
As a secondary present, Obama also gave a rare songbook signed by Richard Rodgers of Rodgers and Hammerstein fame.
Last month, when British Prime Minister Gordon Brown visited Washington, Obama gave him a parting gift of 25 DVDs of classic American movies.
That got the cackles up of the British press, which noted that Brown offered the president a more thought-out present: an ornamental pen holder made from the timbers of the Victorian anti-slave ship HMS Gannet.
Obama to meet more world leaders
In between G-20 economic summit sessions, President Obama will continue his tour Thursday of leaders around the world, the White House announced this afternoon.
Laying out his schedule, the White House said Obama will meet with South Korean leaders first thing in the morning, London time. Sure to be high on the agenda is the upcoming launch of what North Korea says is a satellite, but which the United States, Japan, and South Korea say is a missile test.
He also plans to meet with top officials of Saudi Arabia and India, before holding a press conference at about 12:45 p.m. EST. The kingdom, of course, is crucial to any progress in the Arab world, and India is essential to dealing with Pakistan as well as issues including global warming.
Obama met today with the presidents of Russia and China, and announced plans to visit both countries later this year.
Budget battle ramps up
The battle over President Obama's budget is intensifying today with his grassroots army descending on Washington and congressional Republicans holding an event of their own.
In an unusual move, House and Senate Republicans joined together to unveil an alternative to Obama's $3.6 trillion blueprint, which they say will drive the economy further into the ditch and possibly bankrupt the country.
This time, Representative Paul Ryan, the top Republican on the House Budget Committee, took the wraps off an alternative that includes details and numbers. Democrats and the White House mocked the GOP when last week it produced a 19-page outline that was rather vague and had few numbers.
UPDATE: The GOP alternative calls for freezing non-defense discretionary spending for five years, for more tax cuts, and for starting to make changes to entitlement programs such as Social Security.
The plan would rescind the $787 billion stimulus plan next year, except for unemployment spending, and also rescind the additional money in the $410 billion spending plan Congress passed. It also rejects a cap-and-trade policy to cut greenhouse gases and move the country toward alternative energy, instead calling for more domestic oil and gas drilling.
With Democrats in control of both the House and Senate, the Republicans' plan will likely go nowhere. Democrats are already dismissing it. White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee said on MSNBC that it's appropriate that the plan was unveiled on April 1 because "this is the biggest April Fool's joke in history."
Senator Judd Gregg -- the New Hampshire Republican who was once Obama's nominee for commerce secretary but is now one of his most vocal critics -- said the GOP alternative is no joke, but a serious attempt to trim back the federal deficits.
He said on MSNBC that under the deficits projected under Obama's budget, the United States would not qualify for European Union membership.
Gregg also said that Republicans are offering a series of amendments in the Senate.
But the alternative is a political document, a way for Republicans to assault the economic policies of Obama and the Democrats.
"America is in the midst of a fiscal and an economic crisis. And, yes, the president did inherit this fiscal crisis. But the question is, is he fixing it or is he making it worse?" Ryan said at a news conference this morning.
"We believe that the president's budget, which comes to the floor of the House of Representatives today, makes our fiscal crisis much, much worse," Ryan said.
"Rather than getting spending under control, it sends spending out of control. Rather than keeping taxes low to create jobs, it chases ever higher spending with ever higher taxes and results in ever higher debt; not just a modest increase in our national debt, but an unprecedented, unsustainable increase in red ink," he said. "The president's budget is little more than a thinly veiled attempt by Washington to spend its way into prosperity, tax its way into tax relief, and borrow its way into debt reduction. This simply cannot work."
Democrats held a news conference in response, telling reporters that they remain united behind their tweaked version of Obama's budget, which they say will help rebuild the economy.
They also said the Republican alternative is not realistic.
"Going down the list, it gets to the point where even the Republicans, for the most part, will find it hard to live with something like this," said Representative John Spratt, chairman of the House Budget Committee. "I find it -- I find it very improbable that this can be put together in anything that would really have enough appeal to carry ever in the House or elsewhere on the Hill in either party, but that's what they will be leading with today."
Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine added his disdain.
“The House GOP budget would be just an April Fool’s day joke if it didn’t actually reflect the true priorities of House Republicans and what they would do if they had the votes in Congress to pass their own plan. Their budget relies on the failed economic policies that drove the U.S. economy into its deepest spiral in decades," he said in a statement.
“If House Republicans had their way and the budget they outlined today were adopted, President Obama’s economic recovery program, which is already saving and creating jobs throughout the country, would be gutted, Medicare as we know it would all but be all but eliminated, Social Security checks would be slashed and a proposed spending freeze on discretionary programs would cut essential services – from health care and support for veterans to education to job training - that Americans most depend on when the economy is in crisis."
Americans United for Change, one of the major labor-liberal groups backing Obama, lambasted the GOP budget.
“The Republican ‘alternative’ to the President’s budget aims to rewind and redo the same failed economic policies from the Bush-era that got us into this economic mess to begin with," the group's acting executive director, Tom McMahon, said in a statement. "House Republicans have come forward on April Fool’s Day with a budget that in all seriousness cuts new money from programs benefiting cops, teachers, and veterans so they can pay for more tax cuts for multi-millionaires and corporations that outsource American jobs. They could not have offered a more counterproductive, unstimulative “alternative” to the investments in healthcare, education, and clean energy the President is proposing – investments that will do far more to lay a solid foundation for growing the economy and creating jobs than tax breaks for millionaires ever have.”
Meanwhile, Organizing for America, the post-election Obama grassroots group, is dispatching dozens of volunteers today to the Democratic National Committee to deliver 642,000 pledges of support for the president's budget. The group is also urging supporters to call Congress.
And a new pro-Obama advocacy group has ads today in the Politico and Hill newspapers urging support for his budget, which sets ambitious goals on alternative energy, healthcare, and education.
"For the first time in years, we have an honest, fair and transparent blueprint to extend opportunity and security for families in all walks of life by expanding healthcare coverage, making college more affordable, developing clean sources of energy that reduce global warming and create good paying jobs to rebuild our middle class," says the ad placed by the Rebuild and Renew America Now coalition. "We believe these steps will set our nation on a responsible path -- making long-term investments in our nation's future while gradually reducing the deficit."
Obama's aunt has deportation delayed
By Maria Sacchetti, Globe Staff
Zeituni Onyango, an aunt of President Obama, will get to stay in the United States until at least February 2010 after an immigration judge in Boston today delayed her case.
"Praise God," Onyango said after a brief hearing that was closed at her request, holding her head high as she was surrounded by a throng of men in suits.
"Ms. Onyango case is being treated just like any other case before an immigration judge," Fatimah Mateen, a spokesperson for the court, told reporters, standing beneath a framed photograph of Onyango's nephew, the president.
Lawyers for Onyango, the half-sister of Obama's late father, had said Tuesday that they planned to present new evidence seeking to reverse a 2004 deportation order and allow her to stay in the United States. The lawyers would not disclose their strategy, such as whether they would focus on her numerous health problems, political unrest in Kenya, or another issue. The former computer programmer, whom the president called Auntie Zeituni in one of his books, is battling a neurological condition in addition to her back problems.
Onyango plans to apply for permanent residency in the United States, according to Mike Rogers, a spokesman for Onyango lawyers. While the lawyers legal strategy remains unclear, Rogers said he was instructed not to use the word asylum.
"The decision as to Ms. Onyango's request to stay permanently in the United States will be made during a second hearing," Rogers said.
She had been living illegally in a South Boston public housing complex, though she went to Cleveland to stay with relatives once her case became public just before the November election.
Obama said then he did not know of Onyango's immigration, and pledged to stay out of her case. She did attend his inauguration in January.
Obama meets Chinese, Russian leaders
Debuting on the world stage, President Obama is playing nice, pledging to listen and not lecture other leaders.
"I came here to put forward our ideas, but I also came here to listen, and not to lecture," Obama said in a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. "Having said that, we must not miss an opportunity to lead. To confront a crisis that knows no borders, we have a responsibility to coordinate our actions and to focus on common ground, not on our occasional differences. If we do, I believe we can make enormous progress."
Obama said while there are some disagreements, there is much more consensus on the approach to fixing the global economy.
"History shows us that when nations fail to cooperate, when they turn away from one another, when they turn inward, the price for our people only grows. That's how the Great Depression deepened. That's a mistake that we cannot afford to repeat," he added.
On the even of the G-20 economic summit in London, he is also meeting one-on-one with allies and potential enemies alike.
After their huddle, he and Russian President Dmitriy A. Medvedev announced that Obama will visit Moscow in July and that the two countries will try to reach agreement on cutting nuclear weapons stockpiles before an existing treaty expires at the end of the year.
And after their meeting, Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao to seek more cooperation on security and the economy, including a new dialogue.
Both joint statements, issued through the White House, are below:
Jewish group blasts Obama reversal
The Obama team is getting vehement criticism from some quarters for its latest break from the Bush administration.
The State Department announced today that the United States will seek election to the UN Human Rights Council, which the Bush White House had visibly boycotted because of its criticism of Israel and its refusal to criticize Sudan and other countries.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and UN ambassador Susan Rice said in a statement that the administration will join the council to help make it more effective as part of Obama's desire to create a "new era of engagement" with the international community, the Associated Press reported.
"Human rights are an essential element of American global foreign policy," Clinton said in the statement. "With others, we will engage in the work of improving the UN human rights system to advance the vision of the UN Declaration on Human Rights."
But Republican Jewish Coalition executive director Matthew Brooks ripped the decision, saying his group is "outraged."
"The Human Rights Council is an arena in which undemocratic regimes, such as Saudi Arabia, Cuba, and Angola, have equal standing with truly free countries such as Canada, France, and the United Kingdom," he said in a statement. "The Council's record of upholding human rights is abysmal. The Council has failed to address some of the most serious human rights abuses of our time, including those taking place in Darfur. It is especially blind to human rights abuses by its own member countries.
"On the other hand, the Council is a central venue for the most virulent Israel-bashing," Brooks added. "President Bush understood that there could be no positive result from American participation in an international body so inherently hostile to Israel and so fundamentally incapable of acting in defense of human rights. That President Obama has chosen to reverse American policy on this question is a blow to the US-Israel relationship and a cause for deep concern among American Jews."
Congress passes service bill
The US House this afternoon gave final congressional approval -- and sent to President Obama for his signature -- a bill that would dramatically expand public service opportunities.
The legislation is named for Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, who cowrote the initial version of it with sometime political ally Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah.
Kennedy returned to Washington last week, in part to vote for the bill, and received a standing ovation from his colleagues at the conclusion of the vote.
“Today’s House vote again demonstrates the high priority Congress gives to encouraging citizens of all ages in all communities across America to participate in public service," Kennedy said in a statement. "This legislation will enable many more Americans to do something for their country to meet the many challenges facing us. I look forward to the President signing this bill into law so that a welcome new era of national and community service can begin.”
UPDATE: President Obama issued a statement applauding the bill's passage.
“I congratulate the House on passing the bipartisan Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act. This is legislation that will usher in a new era of service in America, and I look forward to signing it into law when I return to Washington.”
“Because of this legislation, millions of Americans at all stages of their lives will have new opportunities to serve their country. From improving service learning in schools to creating an army of 250,000 Corps members a year dedicated to addressing our nation's toughest problems. From connecting working Americans to a variety of part-time service opportunities to better utilizing the skills and experience of our retirees and baby boomers. This legislation will help tap the genius of our faith based and community organizations, and it will find the most innovative ideas for addressing our common challenges and helping those ideas grow. But while our government can provide every opportunity imaginable for us to serve our communities, now it is up to each of us to seize those opportunities. I call on all Americans to stand up and do what they can to serve their communities, shape our history and enrich both their own lives and the lives of others across this country.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also applauded the bill's passage.
"Just one month ago, in his address to Congress, President Obama called upon Congress to pass legislation 'to encourage a renewed spirit of national service for this and future generations.' Today, The Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act is on its way to his desk to become law," she said in a statement.
"In times of great challenge, Americans always rise to the occasion. In these times, our economy, our healthcare system, and our schools need the help of the generous Americans who are willing to serve. And in so doing, our volunteers will save lives, heal disease, and create brighter futures for our children. By creating 175,000 new service opportunities - more than tripling the number of volunteers nationwide, and rewarding those who volunteer with real investments in their education, we are launching a new era of service. This new era of service will create a stronger nation for all Americans."
At a cost of $5.7 billion over five years, the bill would triple the size of AmeriCorps, started in 1993 under President Clinton, from 75,000 to 250,000 slots over eight years. It would also expand incentives for students and seniors to volunteer and create five groups to create service options in helping poor people, improving education, encouraging energy efficiency, widening access to healthcare, and assisting veterans.
The House vote was 275-149, with all 10 Massachusetts Democrats supporting the measure .
The measure won bipartisan support, though some Republicans criticized it as unnecessary government involvement in volunteerism.
After the Senate passage last week, Obama said in a statement that "our work is not finished when I sign this bill into law -- it has just begun."
"It is up to each of us to seize those opportunities," added the president, who says his time as a community organizer in Chicago in his early 20s helped give his life direction. "To do our part to lift up our fellow Americans. To realize our own true potential. I call on all Americans to stand up and do what they can to serve their communities, shape our history and enrich both their own lives and the lives of others across this country."
Panel endorses Afghanistan, Iraq envoys
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee today sent to the full Senate the nominations of some key members of President Obama's team.
By voice vote, the committee endorsed Karl Eikenberry to be ambassador to Afghanistan, Christopher Hill to be ambassador to Iraq, Esther Brimmer to be Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, Philip Gordon to be Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Rose Gottemoeller to be Assistant Secretary of State for Verification and Compliance, Richard Verma to be Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs, and Melanne Verveer to be ambassador at large for global women’s issues.
Obama honors Chavez
During his campaign, President Obama spoke often of his admiration for farm workers organizer Cesar Chavez and appropriated the Spanish translation of his "Yes we can" mantra.
Today, Obama, who made huge inroads among Hispanic voters, helping him turn Democratic blue several Western states in November, issued a statement marking what Chavez's 82nd birthday.
"Cesar Chavez's legacy as an educator, environmentalist, and as a civil rights leader who struggled for fair treatment and fair wages for America's workers is important for every American to remember.
"Having begun as a farmworker, Cesar Chavez eventually co-founded the United Farm Workers and struggled to provide hundreds of thousands of people with better working conditions and the chance to live a better life. The cause of fair treatment and fair wages for America’s workers lives on today through the work of countless others.
"Chavez’s rallying cry, 'Sí Se Puede' – 'Yes We Can' -- was more than a slogan, it was an expression of hope and a rejection of those who said farmworkers could not organize, and could not take on the growers. Through his courage, Cesar Chavez taught us that a single voice could change our country, and that together, we could make America a stronger, more just, and more prosperous nation.”
Democrats unveil global warming bill
By Lisa Wangsness, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- House Democrats today are unveiling their climate change legislation, a bill that would seek to cut carbon emissions by 20 percent by 2020 and by 85 percent by 2050.
The bill would also establish a cap-and-trade system to push utilities and industry polluters to meet those goals, according to a document obtained by the Globe.
The bill, which is being introduced by Representatives Henry Waxman of California, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Ed Markey of Massachusetts, chairman of the Energy and Environment subcommittee, would also create a renewable energy standard that requires wind, solar, and other renewable sources to meet 25 percent of US energy needs by 2025. And it would create an energy efficiency resource standard that requires utilities to achieve a savings of 15 percent of electricity and 10 percent of natural gas by 2020.
The legislation, which is on track for a committee vote in May, leaves open one of the most controversial aspects of the cap-and-trade system, which is how many pollution credits will be auctioned off and how many will be doled out for free. That would be settled in the coming weeks, as lawmakers weigh in on what they would be willing to accept.
Environmentalists are urging Congress to adopt a global warming policy in advance of international climate talks in Copenhagen scheduled for December, where leaders have agreed to update the Kyoto Protocol, which the Bush administration refused to sign.
In his first week in office, President Obama overturned Bush policy on climate change, ordering environmental regulators to reconsider allowing California, Massachusetts, and other states to set stricter auto emissions standards.
“This legislation will create millions of clean energy jobs, put America on the path to energy independence, and cut global warming pollution.” Waxman said in a statement. “Our goal is to strengthen our economy by making America the world leader in new clean energy and energy efficiency technologies.”
Markey added in a statement, “This legislation will create clean energy jobs that can’t be shipped overseas, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and make America the global leader in energy technology. We will create jobs by the millions, save money by the billions, and unleash energy investment by the trillions. Chairman Waxman and I will work with our colleagues to ensure that we are protecting American consumers and that our clean energy future helps all parts of the country.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi offered measured support, calling the Waxman-Markey bill "a strong starting point."
"The President has called for landmark legislation to launch a clean energy economy that will build prosperity and balance the needs of the American people and industry," she said in a statement. "As was the case with the Energy Independence and Security Act in 2007, House leaders will work closely with the committees of jurisdiction to advance this critical legislation.
"The final legislation will: create millions of new, green jobs; increase our national security by reducing our dependence on foreign oil; increase American competitiveness by making us a technology leader; meet the climate crisis with sound science; and reduce overall energy costs for consumers and businesses. We will continue to hear the best ideas about how to tackle the challenge from a broad range of stakeholders, with the intention of having legislation on the House floor this year. The scope of this effort is historic and overdue."
The US Climate Action Partnership -- a coalition of businesses and environmental groups -- also called the bill a good starting point.
"The discussion draft provides a solid foundation to create a climate strategy that both protects our economy and achieves the nation's environmental goals. It recognizes that many of these issues are tightly linked and must be dealt with simultaneously. We appreciate the thoughtful approach reflected in the draft and the priority the Chairmen are placing on this important issue," the partnership said in a statement.
"The draft addresses most of the core issues identified by USCAP in our Blueprint for Legislative Action and reflects many of our policy recommendations. Any climate program must promote private sector investment in vital low-carbon technologies that will create new jobs and provide a foundation for economic recovery. Legislation must also protect consumers, vulnerable communities and businesses while ensuring economic sustainability and environmental effectiveness."
The partnership includes some big corporate names, including Boston Scientific, that favor action on global warming.
Scott Paul, executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, had some praise for the bill.
"We are pleased that the Waxman-Markey draft bill recognizes the need to stop carbon leakage and ensure the competitiveness of our domestic industries," he said in a statement. "The right combination of rebates and border adjustments can help fulfill the mission of the bill: lowering carbon output while strengthening the domestic economy. As the legislative process moves forward, we are eager to work with Congress to make sure the rebate and border adjustment features are strong enough to hold other countries accountable for their contributions to greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gases are a global problem and a global solution is an imperative. The last thing Congress should want to do is offshore jobs and production to foreign manufacturers that have significantly larger carbon footprints, undermining the aim of climate change policy."
The summary of the bill and schdule is below. For more detail, click here.
FULL ENTRYObama flying high in polls
As President Obama wings his way to London (he's scheduled to arrive shortly before 3 p.m. EST), he goes with high-flying poll numbers.
The Washington Post-ABC News survey published today shows that his approval rating is at a lofty 66 percent. And perhaps more uplifting, the number of Americans who believe the country is on the right track -- despite all the economic problems -- is at 42 percent, up from just 8 percent before the November election.
And in a finding released this morning from a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey, 72 percent of Americans said that world leaders have respect for Obama -- compared to only 38 percent for President George W. Bush in 2005. Also, 86 percent of respondents said they believe Obama will do a good job on his first major foreign trip representing the United States.
Not a European holiday
The last time Barack Obama traipsed off to Europe, he was greeted by adoring throngs, excited beyond measure by the idea that he might be the next American president.
More than 200,000 came to see him speak last July in Berlin. The worship was such that Republican rival John McCain tried to boomerang it on Obama, comparing him in an Internet ad to bubble-headed celebrities like Britney Spears.
Now, Obama is the president, facing the reality of an economic crisis, and likely to hear some tough talk as he arrives at the G-20 economic summit in London.
This week, the crowds greeting Obama won't be as large. And some of them won't be cheering, but rather jeering him and other world leaders because of the global recession. An estimated 35,000 union members, environmentalists, and others marched in the first major protest over the weekend, and more are planned.
Obama shores up Democratic backing on budget
Before he leaves for Europe, President Obama urged congressional Democrats late today to have his back on his ambitious budget.
According to the White House account, he praised Democrats for passing the $787 billion stimulus package, then reinforced the high stakes of the votes this week on his $3.6 trillion budget.
"Calling his budget 'a distillation of core Democratic values,' he urged members of Congress to pass his blueprint for sustained economic growth," the White House said. After answering questions for about 30 minutes about his budget priorities, Obama again asked for support on his budget.
While Republicans have railed against Obama's plan, saying it risks bankrupting the country, some Democrats have also raised doubts about some of the spending and the deficits.
Boston activist gets Obama's ear on Sudan
The Rev. Gloria White-Hammond of Boston will be among a select group of activists who will huddle this afternoon with President Obama, members of Congress, and his special envoy to Sudan, General Scott Gration, ahead of Gration’s first trip to the war-torn nation.
Hammond, co-pastor at Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Jamaica Plain, is board chairman for the Save Darfur Coalition, whose president, Jerry Fowler, has also been invited, the coalition said.
Hammond, who was a pediatrician at the South End Community Health Center for a quarter century until she retired in 2007, has been focusing on the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, which the US State Department has declared a genocide.
"The group will be discussing the immediate humanitarian crisis in Darfur given [Sudanese leader] Bashir’s decision to expel many of the aid groups in the region; along with necessary measures that need to be taken in order to achieve long-term peace in the region," the coalition said.
After the meeting, Obama said the Sudan crisis is worsening and he hopes Gration can persuade President Umar-al Bashir’s government to allow aid groups back in the country.
The aid groups are needed back in Sudan to "avert an enormous humanitarian crisis,” Obama told reporters.
"Even as we're dealing with that immediate issue, we can't take our eyes off the longstanding conflicts in Sudan that have resulted in all of these persons being displaced," Obama said.
"This is going to be very difficult. It will be a time-consuming task. We don't expect any solutions overnight to the longstanding problems there. Fortunately, what has happened in Darfur has touched so many people around the world," he added. "And we have seen such an extraordinary mobilization of advocates, many of who are sitting at this table. We've got bipartisan interest on the part of members of Congress around this issue that I actually think that America can speak effectively with one voice and bring the moral and other elements of our stature to bear in trying to deal with this situation."
(His full remarks are below.)
Also after the session, Fowler issued a statement:
“The coalition was reassured to hear the Obama administration’s commitment to bring peace to Sudan during a meeting at the White House today with Darfur advocates and congressional leaders. During his trip to Sudan this week, it is critical that Special Envoy Gration convey to the Sudanese government that they now face a fundamental choice as a direct result of President Bashir’s actions. They must choose between continuing policies which have thrown the lives of millions of Sudanese civilians on the fire and have placed Sudan on a path toward greater international isolation, or reversing those policies and reconciling with an international community whose support for Bashir, and thus for Sudan, will only grow weaker as time passes.
“The coalition is also hopeful that Gration will soon travel to key capitals to directly engage with leadership and garner support for multilateral efforts to convince – and if necessary compel – the Bashir regime to reopen humanitarian access and make real progress towards achieving a true peace in Darfur. Bashir’s recent decision to expel 13 international aid organizations has left millions of Darfuri civilians at immediate risk of starvation and disease. With this expulsion, approximately 1.1 million civilians will soon run out of food, nearly 1 million will soon run out of potable water, and 1.5 million will be denied medical attention.
“During his campaign, President Obama often touted the power and necessity of using transformational multilateral diplomacy to address international crises. Ending the current humanitarian crisis in Darfur and bringing peace to Sudan calls for exactly this type of complete and fully resourced diplomatic effort. Gration’s role will be vital and must continue to be supported by the president’s engagement.”
Obama gets tough on automakers
President Obama this morning outlined his latest version of tough love for Detroit automakers, extending a federal lifeline, but giving the companies a deadline to put up or risk bankruptcy.
"We cannot and must not, and will not let our auto industry simply vanish," he declared at the White House. "This industry is like no other. It's an emblem of the American spirit; a once and future symbol of America’s success. It is what helped build the middle class and sustained it throughout the 20th century. It is a source of deep pride for the generations of American workers whose hard work and imagination led to some of the finest cars the world has ever known. It is a pillar of our economy that has held up the dreams of millions of our people.
"But we cannot continue to excuse poor decisions," Obama added. "We cannot make the survival of our auto industry dependent on an unending flow of taxpayer dollars. These companies – and this industry – must ultimately stand on their own, not as wards of the state. "
After rejecting restructuring plans the carmakers submitted, the president announced that the federal government is giving Chrysler 30 days to complete a proposed partnership with Italian automaker Fiat, with the promise of up to $6 billion in aid if they can make a deal. Chrysler has received $4 billion in federal help so far and had asked for $5 billion more.
Obama gave General Motors 60 additional days of operating money to restructure, but with a price -- GM chairman Rick Wagoner was forced out. Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, who has been advising the White House on the auto rescue, said on NBC's "Today" show that Wagoner "clearly is a sacrificial lamb." GM, after $13.4 billion in government loans, had sought as much as $16.6 billion more.
Obama said it is time for tough decisions, for no longer putting off facing fundamental problems.
"What we are asking for is difficult," he said. "It will require hard choices by companies. It will require unions and workers who've already made painful concessions to make even more. It will require creditors to recognize that they can't hold out for the prospect of endless government bailouts....Only then can we ask American taxpayers who have already put up so much of their hard-earned money to once more invest in a revitalized auto industry.
"But I am confident that if each are willing to do their part... then this restructuring, as painful as it will be in the short-term, will mark not an end, but a new beginning for a great American industry; an auto industry that is once more out-competing the world; a 21st century auto industry that is creating new jobs, unleashing new prosperity, and manufacturing the fuel-efficient cars and trucks that will carry us towards an energy independent future. I am absolutely committed to working with Congress and the auto companies to meet one goal: the United States of America will lead the world in building the next generation of clean cars."
He reached out to auto workers, who he said are among those suffering the most during the recession.
"The pain being felt in places that rely on our auto industry is not the fault of our workers. They labor tirelessly and desperately want to see their companies succeed. And it is not the fault of all the families and communities that supported manufacturing plants throughout the generations. Rather, it is a failure of leadership – from Washington to Detroit – that led our auto companies to this point," he said.
To reassure consumers during the uncertain period, Obama said the US government will stand behind warranties. (Click here for more detail.)
"It is my hope that the steps I am announcing today will go a long way toward answering many of the questions people may have about the future of GM and Chrysler," he said. "But just in case there are still nagging doubts, let me say it as plainly as I can – if you buy a car from Chrysler or General Motors, you will be able to get your car serviced and repaired, just like always. Your warranty will be safe. In fact, it will be safer than it’s ever been. Because starting today, the United States government will stand behind your warranty."
Obama's full remarks are below. For more detail on the plan, click here.
Fritz Henderson, GM's new CEO, issued a statement taking on Obama's challenge:
"Over the next 60 days, we will work around the clock, with all parties, to meet the aggressive requirements that have been set by the task force, and to make the fundamental and lasting changes necessary to reinvent GM for the long-term.
"We have significant challenges ahead of us, and a very tight timeline. I am confident that the GM team will succeed, and that a stronger, healthier GM will play an important role in revitalizing America's economy and re-establishing its technology leadership and energy independence."
"The administration has made it clear that it expects GM to expand and accelerate its restructuring efforts. I want the American people to know that we understand and accept this guidance. The road is tough, but the ultimate goal -- a leaner, stronger, viable GM -- is one we share."
Soon after Obama's speech, Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli said that his company and Fiat have reached a framework of a deal. "We appreciate the willingness of the task force, along with industry and financial experts, to consult closely with us in order to achieve this significant step," Nardelli said in a statement.
But so far, Obama's plan is not reassuring the markets. The bellwether Dow Jones industrial average has already plummeted more than 200 points.
The auto plan represents Obama's latest set of sweeping proposals as he juggles what he has acknowledged is a very full plate. Last week, Obama's team laid out a new bank rescue plan and a new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. On Tuesday, Obama heads overseas for the G-20 economic summit.
Obama taps former Miss. governor for Navy slot
President Obama today nominated former Mississippi Governor Ray Mabus to be secretary of the Navy.
Mabus, a Navy veteran who campaigned extensively for Obama last year, was governor of Mississippi from January 1988 to January 1992 and also served as US ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 1994 to 1996 under President Bill Clinton.
The White House also announced that Obama has nominated J. Randolph Babbitt as administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, among several other nominations.
The president is playing catch-up as he tries to fill the top ranks of his administration. The nomination process has been slowed by vetting of candidates, made more exacting by Obama's own ethics code.
The mini-biographies of the nominees announced today are below:
State Street CEO at White House
Ronald Logue, chairman and CEO of State Street Corp. in Boston, is among the banking chiefs meeting today with President Obama as he tries to build support for his administration's latest rescue plan to help banks divest "toxic assets," bad investments that are tying up capital and making it difficult for them to lend money.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who also unveiled proposals Thursday for tighter regulations of the financial sector, is also at the meeting, which comes days before Obama attends his first international summit, the G-20 Thursday in London.
According to the White House, Obama wants to "reiterate his belief that getting the economy back on track will require an understanding that each of us must look beyond our own short-term interests to the wider set of obligations we have to each other in order for America to succeed."
The others in attendance at the closed meeting, according to the White House: Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan Chase; Ken Chenault, American Express; John Koskinen, Freddie Mac; Robert Kelly, BONY-Mellon; Rick Waddell, Northern Trust; James Rohr, PNC; Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs; John Mack, Morgan Stanley; Vikram Pandit, Citi; John Stumpf, Wells Fargo; Cam Fine, Independent Community Bankers; Edward Yingling, American Bankers Association; Richard Davis, US Bank; and Ken Lewis, Bank of America.
UPDATE: Besides the toxic assets and tighter regulation, Obama and the bank executives also discussed the administration's plan to stem the rise in home foreclosures, executive pay, and the financial bailout program, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said afterwards.
"The president emphasized that Wall Street needs Main Street and Main Street needs Wall Street," and "that he had no agenda beyond working to get a solution, the right solution for our financial system and to get it stabilized and working again for the American people," Gibbs said during his daily briefing.
Democrats mock GOP on budget
Democrats have been giddily calling Republicans the "party of no," accusing the GOP of opposing President Obama's budget and economic plans without offering proposals of their own.
Now, they're chortling over the alternative budget outline that House Republicans unveiled on Thursday. The GOP is warning that Obama's $3.6 trillion plan will bankrupt the country and worsen the recession with tax hikes.
But Democrats are mocking the plan for its lack of detail.
"This DNC ad is brought to you by the number 0," a new web ad by the Democratic National Committee t says on screen.
"That’s how many numbers are in the GOP’s budget: 0," painting the number in bright red.
With whimsical music, the video then shows a series of cable talking heads remarking on the absence of detail. But Republicans will see more evidence of media bias.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs joined in the mocking on Thursday. Asked whether he had perused it, he replied, "I did. It took me several minutes to read it." The White House press corps laughed.
"I will note that ... there's one more picture of a windmill than there is of a chart of numbers. There's -- just for your knowledge, there's exactly one picture of a windmill."
A swearing-in with a point
President Obama took the time today to hold a second, purely ceremonial, swearing-in for Attorney General Eric Holder, reinforcing his pledge to enforce the law and uphold the Constitution without regard to politics and ideology.
"There are few more important jobs in our nation's government than that of attorney general," Obama said. "As president, I swore an oath to preserve, protect and defend our Constitution....And that's what's always distinguished this nation -- that we are bound together not by a shared bloodline or allegiance to any one leader or faith or creed, but by an adherence to a set of ideals. That's the core notion of our founding -- that ours is a 'government of laws, and not men.'
"But today, as we install the man charged with upholding our laws, we are reminded that the work of translating law into justice -- of ensuring that those words put to paper more than two centuries ago mean something for all of our people -- that is a fundamentally human process," Obama added. "That's why I sought to appoint an attorney general who understands that justice isn't about some abstract legal theory, or footnote in a casebook -- it's about how our laws affect the daily realities of people's lives: whether they can make a living and care for their families; whether they feel safe in their own homes and welcome in their own nation.
"I sought someone who recognizes the very real threats we face, but has the wisdom, in those hard-to-call cases, to find that fine balance between ensuring our security and preserving our liberty. And most of all, I was looking for someone who believes deeply enough in the American people's cause to serve as the American people's lawyer. And taken together, I think that's a pretty good description of our new attorney general."
The president's full remarks are below:
Dissent in Congress to Obama's Afghan plan
While most members of Congress agree with President Obama that US military might and diplomacy needs to refocus on Afghanistan, there are some dissenters.
A group of 14 House members, including Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, wrote to Obama late last month to object to his plan to send 17,000 more combat troops to the war-torn country.
They asserted that a continuing counterinsurgency war conflicts with the congressional resolution authorizing military action to prevent terrorist acts against the United States, and argued that the operation could harm US security.
"Mr. President, in reviewing the past history of Afghanistan and the nations that have failed to conquer it -- Russia spent nine years in Afghanistan and lost many billions of dollars and more than 15,000 Russian soldiers -- we urge you to reconsider the decision to send 17,000 additional troops and to resist pressure to escalate even further," wrote the group, which also includes Ron Paul of Texas, who sought the Republican presidential nomination last year.
Read the letter here.
Obama unveils Afghanistan plan
Outlining his new strategy for Afghanistan, President Obama declared this morning that the "situation is increasingly perilous" and the "safety of people around the world is at stake."
"Many people in the United States – and many in partner countries that have sacrificed so much – have a simple question: What is our purpose in Afghanistan? After so many years, they ask, why do our men and women still fight and die there? They deserve a straightforward answer," Obama said.
"So let me be clear: al Qaeda and its allies – the terrorists who planned and supported the 9/11 attacks – are in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Multiple intelligence estimates have warned that al Qaeda is actively planning attacks on the U.S. homeland from its safe-haven in Pakistan. And if the Afghan government falls to the Taliban – or allows al Qaeda to go unchallenged – that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can."
The comprehensive plan was carefully constructed with input from diplomats, military leaders, and others, Obama said, with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates behind him.
"As president, my greatest responsibility is to protect the American people. We are not in Afghanistan to control that country or to dictate its future. We are in Afghanistan to confront a common enemy that threatens the United States, our friends and allies, and the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan who have suffered the most at the hands of violent extremists," he said.
"So I want the American people to understand that we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future. That is the goal that must be achieved. That is a cause that could not be more just. And to the terrorists who oppose us, my message is the same: we will defeat you."
Obama's plan calls for as many as 4,000 more US troops who would train and advise the Afghan military, plus several hundred civilian advisers to build up the Afghan government and assist it in extending its authority. The reinforcements, he said, are needed to control the resurgent Taliban and to ensure that Al Qaeda does not have safe havens from which to plan and execute terrorist attacks.
The goal of the training is to build an Afghan army of 134,000 and a police force of 82,000 by 2011.
Obama also backed $1.5 billion a year in direct aid to Pakistan, and called for more action by Pakistan to root out terrorists. He also called for enhanced diplomacy and cooperation among Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the United States.
While not setting a timetable or exit strategy, the president said there will be clear benchmarks to measure progress, and a requirement that the Afghan government deal with corruption.
"Going forward, we will not blindly stay the course. Instead, we will set clear metrics to measure progress and hold ourselves accountable," he said. "We’ll consistently assess our efforts to train Afghan Security Forces, and our progress in combating insurgents. We will measure the growth of Afghanistan’s economy, and its illicit narcotics production. And we will review whether we are using the right tools and tactics to make progress towards accomplishing our goals."
Obama also asked for more help from NATO and the rest of the international community.
"None of the steps that I have outlined will be easy, and none should be taken by America alone. The world cannot afford the price that will come due if Afghanistan slides back into chaos or Al Qaeda operates unchecked," he said. "We have a shared responsibility to act – not because we seek to project power for its own sake, but because our own peace and security depends upon it. And what’s at stake now is not just our own security – it is the very idea that free nations can come together on behalf of our common security."
He announced the new gameplan before a very interested audience -- development officials, policymakers, and diplomats, along with civilian and military personnel who will be serving in Afghanistan and Pakistan in coming months, plus ambassadors and other representatives of countries in the region.
Combined with 17,000 additional combat troops Obama had previously announced he is sending, the total US military force in Afghanistan would grow to nearly 60,000.
That would be more than the as many as 50,000 US troops in the residual force that Obama plans to leave in Iraq after withdrawing most combat troops by the end of August 2010.
The changing balance of numbers reflects Obama's argument that the United States took its eye off the ball in Afghanistan while getting bogged down in Iraq, a war he opposed before it started in 2003.
Obama noted that "painfully" last year was the deadliest for US forces since the Afghanistan war began eight years ago, after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and has become more dangerous than Iraq.
Senator John F. Kerry, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, praised Obama's plan, which incorporates his bill for more humanitarian and other aid to Pakistan, conditioned on more cooperation from that country's government in fighting terrorists.
“President Obama’s new strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan is realistic and bold in a critical region where our policy needs rescuing,” Kerry said in a statement. “Many of us have long advocated more troops for training Afghan security forces and a clear mission for our forces that are risking their lives, and this new policy is a downpayment in that direction.
"I am particularly encouraged that the President has centered his Pakistan strategy around the legislation which Sen. Lugar and I will introduce in the coming days," Kerry added. "It will be the keystone of a new ‘smart power’ approach to this vital nation. On the non-military side, it will authorize a tripling of U.S. aid to $1.5 billion annually for five years including funds that will build schools, roads, and clinics. On the military side, it will institute strict new accountability for security aid that has for too long been a blank check. This combined strategy will enable the U.S. and Pakistan to work together to root out Al Qaeda, quell the threat of violent radicalism, and give us a shot at building a secure future for the entire region.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also backed Obama's plan.
"I support President Obama's comprehensive strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan," she said in a statement. "The President's plan is the result of a detailed study and is wisely centered on dismantling al Qaeda and denying safe havens in both Afghanistan and Pakistan to those who would attack the United States. This strategy recognizes a point that I have emphasized for years, and one that I shared with the President following my visit last month to Afghanistan, which is that we must have a regional approach to countering terrorism.
"By aiding Pakistan in their efforts to defeat terrorists, investing in and training Afghan Security Forces and their Army, creating conditions to marginalize insurgents and foster democracy, and cooperating with our allies to achieve these goals, we can strengthen our global counterterrorism efforts and prevent another catastrophic attack, such as the horrific one Osama bin Laden launched on September 11th. The President's strategic and comprehensive approach is the right plan to stabilize Afghanistan and to protect the American people."
Obama's full remarks are below:
Biden on mission in Latin America
On his second major foreign trip, Vice President Biden arrived today for a four-day tour of South and Central America to consult with Latin American leaders gathered in Chile and Costa Rica to discuss the upcoming Summit of the Americas.
The White House said that in Chile, Biden will attend the Progressive Governance conference, which will be attended by the presidents of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay, and the prime ministers of Spain, Norway and the United Kingdom.
The vice president will also meet separately with Uruguay’s President Tabare Vazquez; Argentina’s President Christina Fernandez de Kirchner; British Prime Minister Gordon Brown; and Chile’s President Michelle Bachelet. In Costa Rica, the Vice President will hold a bilateral meeting with President Oscar Arias. Afterwards, the Vice President will participate in a multilateral meeting with Central American leaders hosted by President Arias.
In advance of the trip, Biden penned an op-ed piece published today in 11 Latin American newspapers that focuses on the economic crisis and the need for global cooperation.
"The President and I understand that only by working together can our countries overcome the challenges we face," he wrote. "Today, we are more than just independent nations who happen to be on the same side of the globe. In today’s interconnected world, we are all neighbors who face many common concerns."
The full op-ed is below:
Obama appears on Spanish-language music shows
In his continuing media blitz, President Obama used a popular Spanish-language music awards show tonight to reach out to Hispanics.
"Buenas noches. I want to thank the millions of you who voted for tonight’s winners, and I also want to thank all of you who voted in that other election back in November – even if it wasn’t for me," he said in a pre-recorded message that aired during Univision’s live coverage of the “Premio Lo Nuestro” Latin music awards from Miami’s BankUnited Center.
"With the challenges we face right now, it is absolutely critical that you stay involved and make your voices heard. I want you to know that I will always be listening, and my Administration is working hard so that we can expand opportunity for all Americans and reach that better day," he continued. "Now I know you tuned in for 'Premio Lo Nuestro,' so let me get right to it. I don’t know who’ll get married tonight or who’ll get Video of the Year, but I know you’re in for some great performances that celebrate the rich diversity of Latin music, and that’s good news. So enjoy the show, y para los nominados que se preguntan si esta será su noche, les digo, ˇsi se puede!"
Translation: "And for all those nominees wondering if tonight is their night, let me just say, 'Yes you can!' "
Obama plans more Afghanistan reinforcements
By Farah Stockman and Bryan Bender, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- President Obama plans Friday to unveil his long-awaited new strategy for Afghanistan, calling for sending as many as 4,000 more troops to train and advise the Afghan military, along with hundreds more civilian advisers to help the Afghan government.
The reinforcements -- aimed at beating back a Taliban resurgence in the country and preventing Al Qaeda from reforming a launching pad for terrorist strikes -- come in addition to 17,000 combat troops Obama already announced that he would deploy this spring. They would bring the total number of US forces in the country to nearly 60,000; there are another 32,000 NATO troops.
Obama's decision to send additional US troops has drawn praise from many in Congress, who worried that the mission there suffered from neglect since 2003, as troops and resources flowed to Iraq, though some are wary of the build-up. Last year, with 155 US military deaths in Afghanistan, was the bloodiest for US forces since the war began in 2001.
Senator John F. Kerry, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, applauded the renewed focus on Afghanistan, but expressed concern today that the new strategy should set out limited, realistic goals, and not be an open-ended commitment for more troops and more money.
"I want to hear with clarity what... the mission is," Kerry said. "Because there just have to be some limits."
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters in Mexico today that Obama is proposing "an integrated military-civilian strategy," and that the effective use of "civilian trainers, aid workers, technical assistance" is critical to success. It was not clear how many civilian advisers Obama will propose.
Today, Obama's nominee for ambassador to Afghanistan -- Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, a Harvard-educated military official who has served two tours in Afghanistan -- appeared to set the stage for Obama's announcement, telling the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that additional US military trainers were badly needed to bolster the Afghan army.
He said the White House supported the Afghan government's goal to expand its army to 120,000 troops by next year. "This will be contingent on our ability to deliver a sufficient number of trainers," said Eikenberry, who said it has been evident since 2006 that "more energy was needed for the Afghan national army."
Eikenberry said the Obama administration is also trying to beef up coordination with neighboring Pakistan to reduce safe havens for the Taliban and Al Qaeda, who strike at Afghanistan across a lawless border. The State Department has already held a rare, trilateral meeting in Washington with top Pakistani and Afghan officials, and will hold another meeting in May aimed at intelligence cooperation, he said at his confirmation hearing.
Obama, who briefed congressional leaders in person and Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari by phone late today, was also expected to included increased humanitarian aid to Pakistan in his new strategy.
For more than a year, Kerry and Vice President Biden, the Foreign Relations Committee's former chairman, have sought to dramatically increase development aid to Pakistan, contingent on its government stepping up its fight against the militants.
Today, Kerry said he would reintroduce the measure in a bill that would triple humanitarian assistance to $1.5 billion a year -- a move that officials said the White House supports.
Sebelius hearing set
The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee announced this afternoon that it will hold the confirmation hearing on Tuesday for Kathleen Sebelius as secretary of health and human services.
Sebelius, the Democratic governor of Kansas, was President Obama's second pick for the post after tax troubles derailed former Senator Tom Daschle.
Obama also wanted Daschle to double as the health reform czar, but after his withdrawal separated the two jobs. Sebelius, however, will stay play a key role in the president's effort to pass a healthcare overhaul this year.
It's a town hall, virtually
President Obama is hosting an online town hall meeting this morning focusing on the economy, his latest bid to make the White House more accessible.
UPDATE: "I promised to open up the White House," and the virtual town hall is a key step, Obama said in opening the event, which is being streamed live online.
The things that Washington focuses on are often different than what real Americans care about, the president said before launching into his current stump speech on economic recovery.
The first question, selected from among the most asked, was about education.
Obama said the only reason he's in the White House is because of the education he received through sacrifices by his family and scholarships from generous schools.
"Too many of our children aren't getting that kind of education," he said.
While schools need more money, it's also time to lengthen school days and school years, to improve curricula and teacher training, and to expand proven reforms, he said.
Another question, submitted by video by a Georgia woman, was whether any of the jobs that have been outsourced in recent years will come back to America and be made available to the fast-growing ranks of the unemployed.
"Not all of these jobs are going to come back," Obama replied. "It's very hard to hang on to those jobs."
The solution, he said, is to move away from low-skill work that can be sent abroad. -- and toward high-skill jobs, particularly in clean energy, that could also revive the manufacturing sector and "put our economy on a more solid footing."
Asked why American can't have a European-style universal healthcare system, Obama said he wants affordable coverage for everyone, but a single-payer plan like those in Canada isn't the only path there.
The best approach, he said, is not to entirely scrap the US system that is based on most people getting their healthcare through their employers. "It works for a lot of people," he said.
Instead, the solution is to build on the current set-up, he said, and it's up to the legislators, insurers, advocacy groups, and others who were represented at last month's White House forum to devise the specific.
He declared again that now is the time for healthcare reform, and he wants to pass a plan this year.
The rising costs of care are a drag on the economy, on individual businesses and families, and governments at all levels, he said.
Healthcare is the real budget-buster, he said, not the additional spending that critics are carping about. "Better to pay now," he said.
Obama brought up a question himself, saying a popular choice was whether he believed that legalizing marijuana would boost the economy.
"I don't know what this says about the online audience," he joked. "The answer is no, I don't think that's a good strategy for growing the economy."
(Obama's full answers are below.)
The forum was interactive: The questions were categorized and searchable, and there was a way to rate others' questions.
As of 10 a.m. EST, about 92,600 people had submitted nearly 104,000 questions and cast 3.6 million "votes" on the queries. To take part, click here. (The voting ends at 9:30 a.m. EST)
Adding more detail about the event, the White House says that Obama will answer questions online and also reply to follow-up questions submitted in person from an audience of about 100 people in the East Room, including teachers, nurses, small business owners, and community leaders. Jared Bernstein, chief economist for Vice President Biden, is the moderator, reading some of the most popular questions from the website and cueing video questions.
Obama is the most web-savvy president ever. During his campaign, Obama used the Internet to connect with voters, mobilize supporters, and raise record-shattering sums.
Organizing for America, the post-election vehicle for his grassroots army, is urging supporters to take part. "Americans deserve to know what their government is doing to get our economy back on track," the group's director, Mitch Stewart, wrote in an email. "But it's up to you to participate and make this experiment a success."
FULL ENTRYThe secret to success
In preaching patience to American worried sick about the economic swoon, President Obama is trying to create his own scorecard for success in the economic recovery.
It's not the stock market's daily gyrations, or what the cable talking heads are saying, he told two sold-out Democratic Party fund-raisers Wednesday night.
"There will be days where we may be declared winners, and there will be days where the umpires say, oh, they lost that one. There will be days when the markets go up; there will be days when the markets go down," he said at the National Women in Arts Museum.
"But you and I, we measure our economic recovery in a different way. We're already starting to see signs of progress that we're making a difference in the lives of the American people."
In remarks he echoed at the second event at the Warner Theater, Obama declared that success should be measured by what happens in the lives of real Americans.
"We measure our recovery by how many Americans can bring home a paycheck that lets them make ends meet," he said. "That’s why the first part of our strategy was to pass a recovery plan to jumpstart job creation and put money in people’s pockets. And because we did, all across the country there are teachers that are still in the classroom, and police officers that are still on the beat, and construction crews that are breaking ground rebuilding America’s infrastructure for the future. Because of this plan, as early as next week, 95 percent of all Americans are going to receive a tax cut -- a tax cut that we promised during the campaign -- it's going to be in their paychecks.
"That's how we measure success," Obama added. "We measure our recovery by how many families own their own piece of the American Dream. That’s why the second step of our strategy was to launch a plan to stabilizing the housing market and help responsible homeowners stay in their homes. That's why the recovery plan included an $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers. Already, mortgage rates have fallen to near-historic lows, encouraging Americans to re-finance their mortgages, and we've begun to see signs of increased sales and stabilizing home prices for the very first time in a long time.
"We measure our recovery by how many small businesses can keep their doors open, and how many families can afford the promise of a college education. And that’s why the third step that we took was to restart the flow of credit to families and businesses by generating car loans and student loans and small business loans. It's a program that Secretary Geithner worked with the Federal Reserve to design and it has already generated more lending in the last week than we saw in the previous four months combined.
"And ultimately, we're going to measure our success based on whether we can create an economy that builds a lasting foundation for our shared economic growth so that we don't face another crisis like this 10 years from now, or 20 years from now."
Pro-Obama group launches ad
President Obama's grassroots group announced today it is launching its first TV ad, a call to backers to contact Congress in support of his budget.
"America is facing tough times," the announcer says. "Fortunately, President Obama has a plan to get our economy moving again, to cut the deficit in half, and create jobs by investing in healthcare, energy independence, and schools."
"Thousands are going door to door as part of Organizing for America -- gathering support for President Obama’s plan to invest in America’s future," the announcer continues, referring to last weekend's nationwide canvassing. "You can help too. Call Congress and tell them to support President Obama’s budget plan to get our economy moving again."
The ad by Organizing for America, now housed within the Democratic National Committee, is to air on national cable and local cable in Washington, D.C.
Mass. public health expert nominated for top post
By Stephen Smith, Globe Staff
President Obama this evening nominated Dr. Howard Koh, an associate dean at the Harvard School of Public Health and former Massachusetts public health commissioner, to a top health position in his administration.
If confirmed by the Senate as an assistant secretary of health, Koh would be responsible for establishing the nation's public health agenda.
He is the second member of his family to be nominated to a top Obama administration post this week: On Monday, his brother, Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh, was picked to be the State Department's legal adviser, a post that also requires Senate approval.
Howard Koh served as the public health commissioner in Massachusetts from 1997 to 2003, first being appointed by Governor William Weld and continuing in the office through the Paul Cellucci and Jane Swift administrations before resigning in the early days of the Mitt Romney administration.
As public health commissioner, Koh spread a gospel of prevention across the state that was both personal and passionate. He'd established his bona fides in the world of disease prevention as a young physician at the hospital that was the forerunner of Boston Medical Center. From that base, he helped direct the successful 1992 campaign to raise the state tobacco tax, with the money spent on launching Massachusetts' widely emulated tobacco control program.
In the waning days of his tenure as public health commissioner, swooning budget conditions forced Koh to largely dismantle the Tobacco Control Program.
After leaving the state post, Koh joined the Harvard School of Public Health as an associate dean, with his work focusing on cancer prevention, health disparities, tobacco control, and emergency preparations. He is one of the few doctors with certifications from four specialty boards of medicine: internal medicine, hematology, medical oncology, and dermatology.
Obama can draw viewers
He might not be getting all the love he wants on Capitol Hill or from the press corps, but President Obama is still getting boffo TV ratings.
Nielsen Media Research reported late today that Obama's prime-time news conference Tuesday night drew more than 40 million viewers, winning a combined household rating of 25.9 percent of all TVs in use. That was down, however, from the 49.5 million who saw his first prime-time press conference on Feb. 9, Nielsen said.
Last week, his appearance on the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno" helped the talk show score its highest rating since January 2005, when "Tonight" did a Johnny Carson tribute show.
And about 38 million watched his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention last August, the biggest-ever audience for a convention speech at the time, until Republican rival John McCain slightly outdrew him a week later.
EPA nominee pulls plug
Another one bites the dust.
In the latest nominee trouble for the Obama team, its pick for deputy administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency withdrew today.
Jon Cannon, a professor of environmental law at the University of Virginia, said he's dropping out because of scrutiny of America's Clean Water Foundation, where Cannon once served on the board of directors and where the EPA's inspector general said in 2007 that $25 million in federal grants were mismanaged, according to press reports.
“While my service on the board of that now-dissolved organization is not the subject of the scrutiny, I believe the energy and environmental challenges facing our nation are too great to delay confirmation for this position, and I do not wish to present any distraction to the agency,” Cannon said in a statement.
A Senate panel had been scheduled to consider his nomination Thursday as the EPA tries to fill out its leadership as it tackles issues such as global warming.
“The administration will move quickly to identify a new candidate who can help us carry out our mission to preserve environmental sustainability and create green jobs as we transition the nation to a clean energy economy,” EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said in a statement.
A question of failure
How do you separate policies from the person?
It's more than an academic riddle these days, as President Obama's Republican critics gingerly walk the tightrope of opposing his economic and other plans without being accused of being unpatriotic.
Conservative radio personality Rush Limbaugh started it even before Obama's inauguration in January by saying that he hoped Obama failed because he objected to many of his policies.
At a GOP fund-raiser Tuesday night while Obama was defending his proposals in a prime-time news conference, Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, poured some fuel on the rhetorical fire.
He described the premise of the question -- "Do you want the president to fail?" -- as the "latest gotcha game" that Democrats were using to bludgeon Republicans.
"Make no mistake: Anything other than an immediate and compliant, 'Why no sir, I don't want the president to fail,' is treated as some sort of act of treason, civil disobedience, or political obstructionism," said Jindal, a potential Republican presidential candidate in 2012. "This is political correctness run amok."
This morning on CNN, former Senator Fred Thompson, who ran for the GOP nomination last year, said that he agreed with Republicans hoping for an Obama flame-out.
"I want his policies that I believe take us in the wrong direction to fail," Thompson said. "If he takes us down the road of tripling our national debt in ten years and making us vulnerable to higher interest rates and higher inflation, and things of that nature, I want all those policies not to succeed."
UPDATE: Asked on MSNBC today whether he wants Obama to fail on his budget, Republican Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire replied, "Clearly, this budget needs to be rewritten and it needs to be redone, and we're willing to do it in a bipartisan way. We're willing to sit down on issues like entitlement reform and get something done that's going to be constructive."
But Gregg, once Obama's choice for commerce secretary, added, "I really don't want the president to fail. If the president fails, the country fails."
Obama honors medal recipients
President Obama made an unscheduled stop today at Arlington National Cemetery to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns in honor of National Medal of Honor day.
Now presiding over two wars, he was accompanied by some recipients of the nation's highest honor for valor, and later issued a statement:
"We are grateful to all those who wear the uniform of our Armed Forces and serve and sacrifice on behalf of our great nation. Members of our Armed Forces hold themselves to the highest standards and set an example of responsibility to one another and to the country that should inspire all Americans to serve a purpose greater than themselves. Today we pay our respect to those who distinguished themselves conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of life above and beyond the call of duty - the recipients of the Medal of Honor.
"Since it was first awarded during the Civil War to the current battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, Medal of Honor recipients have displayed tremendous courage, an unfailing determination to succeed, and a humbling willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice. It is telling that so many Medal of Honor recipients received the award posthumously. These soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsman embody the best of American values and ideals.
"Medal of Honor recipients are the foremost example of greatness in service and sacrifice. Their bravery and humble strength continues to reassure our nation of the strength of its character and ideals even in these difficult times. We owe these heroes a debt of gratitude that our nation can never fully repay. So, it is on this day that we salute that fact and celebrate their lives and heroic actions that have placed them amongst the 'bravest of the brave.' We must never forget their sacrifice and will always keep the Fallen and their families in our thoughts and prayers."
Afghanistan ambassador hearing set
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee announced this afternoon that it will hold the confirmation hearing Thursday for President Obama's pick to be ambassador to Afghanistan.
If confirmed, Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry would play a key role in carrying through on the new path forward that Obama is expected to outline this week, which includes 17,000 more US troops but also more regional diplomacy.
“At this crucial moment, after too many years of policy drift, we simply must get our Afghanistan strategy right. With the Taliban resurgent and U.S. troops increasingly at risk, we cannot afford a continuation of the status quo,” the panel's chairman, Senator John F. Kerry, said in a statement. “At such a time, Karl Eikenberry brings exceptionally valuable skills to the table. After two much-lauded tours of duty there, he knows the military side of the equation as well as anyone can. In his new civilian capacity, he is uniquely placed to get the civil-military balance right. I’m looking forward to hearing his testimony.”
The committee also announced that new Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire will preside Thursday for the confirmation hearings for Rose Gottemoeller as Assistant Secretary of State for Verification and Compliance and Philip Gordon as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs.
Shaheen is chairwoman of the subcommittee on European Affairs, which has jurisdiction over NATO, the European Union, Russia, Turkey, Kosovo, NATO efforts in Afghanistan, and energy security issues.
Obama's grassroots backers on the stump
President Obama's grassroots army that he built during his historic campaign continues to pay dividends.
Now in the form of Organizing for America and housed within the Democratic National Committee, it announced today that Saturday's door-to-door effort trying to build support for Obama's budget collected more than 100,000 pledges.
More than 10,000 volunteers participated in about 1,200 events in all 50 states, said the group, which is based on 14 million e-mail addresses compiled during the campaign.
"We're very encouraged by the strong showing we saw from canvassers and volunteers in neighborhoods across the country on Saturday," Mitch Stewart, the group's director, said in a statement. "The message they delivered came through loud and clear - Americans are just as committed to helping enact the change President Obama campaigned for as they were to sending him to the White House. They understand that to get our economy moving again, make healthcare more affordable, reduce our dependence on foreign oil and improve education, the President needs our help - and with 100,000 pledges and counting, Americans are doing just that."
UPDATE: Today, Organizing for America sent supporters an email with phone numbers of their members of Congress, urging them to call with their backing for the budget. It also asks supporters to log online what kind of response they received -- another way for the White House to count potential votes.
"Last week, thousands canvassed their communities to talk with neighbors about the need for a new direction. Now, it's time to take that message to Washington," Stewart wrote in the email. "We can't afford to ignore the long-term threats to our prosperity. Now is the time to build the foundation for a recovery that lasts."
Obama, NATO chief talk Afghanistan, Russia
Huddling ahead of the NATO summit next month, President Obama and NATO's secretary general today discussed how to step up the battle against Islamic militants in Afghanistan.
Obama, who is sending 17,000 more US troops to Afghanistan, is expected to detail a new strategy for the war as early as this week.
"We have been in close consultation with them, and we believe that we are going to be able to ensure that the NATO members who make so many sacrifices and have been working so hard already are reinvigorated, and the coordination that's going to be taking place will make it even more effective for us as we complete a successful NATO mission," Obama told reporters.
NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said that "in Afghanistan there are still major challenges. Many things are going right, but many things are not going right. We are, of course, waiting the results of the review going on in the United States of America, very relevant for the other allies, very relevant for NATO."
The president and Scheffer also spoke about improving US-Russian relations.
"My administration is seeking a reset of the relationship with Russia," Obama said, "but in a way that's consistent with NATO membership, and consistent with the need to send a clear signal throughout Europe that we are going to be abide by the central belief that countries who seek and aspire to join NATO are able to join NATO."
The transcript of their post-meeting press availability is below:
FULL ENTRYMajor ad push behind Obama's budget
A major liberal-labor advocacy group announced today it is launching its biggest TV ad blitz yet, trying to shore up support for President Obama's budget as it comes under assault from members of both parties.
While Obama gave a steadfast defense last night in his press conference, arguing his $3.6 trillion plan is the best prescription to real prosperity, congressional budget writers are busily paring it back, largely to cut projected deficits.
Obama, himself, is going to meet this afternoon with Senate Democrats on Capitol Hill to build support for the budget. In advance, the president also is having his budget director, Peter Orszag, to hold a conference call with reporters to talk about the congressional proposals.
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, a fellow Democrat, wants to let Obama's core tax credit of $400 for most workers and $800 for couples expire at the end of next year. Those tax breaks, part of the $787 billion stimulus package, are to show up in paychecks the week of April 1.
UPDATE: Despite the changes, Orszag told reporters that the working versions of the budgets mirror the president's priorities.
"We are very pleased that the House and Senate budget committees are taking up resolutions that are fully in line with the president's key priorities for the budget,'' he said.
"They are 98 percent the same as the budget proposal the president sent up in February. The resolutions may not be identical twins to what the president submitted, but they are certainly brothers that look alike."
(Orszag's full remarks are below.)
The ad by Americans United for Change puts the blame on former President Bush, and promotes Obama's blueprint to fix the economy.
"For eight years, the Bush Administration turned our economy into a house of cards," the announcer says. "Last fall that house came tumbling down.
"Now President Obama has drawn up a budget blue print that will rebuild our economy on a solid foundation. Jobs, health care, education, clean energy – reform. On this foundation we can build real, long term economic prosperity – for all Americans," the announcer continues. "Call Congress. Tell them you support President Obama’s budget. Let’s all get to work rebuilding America."
The group says it will spend more than $700,000 starting today to air the spot on national cable, in Washington, and in markets home to key members of Congress, including Maine and Manchester, N.H.
“The work that begins this week on President Obama’s budget is by far the most significant in shaping the President’s transformational commitments to healthcare reform, education and clean energy – investments that will rebuild and renew America’s economy and lay a solid foundation for long-term prosperity," Tom McMahon, the group's acting executive director, said in a statement. "This ad is designed to engage the American people in the process of bringing about the transformational change they voted for in November by contacting their elected representatives and asking for their help in putting our country on the road to prosperity. It is our hope that Congress gets the boost it needs to stand up to the special interests that will do anything to maintain the failed policies of the last eight years that were entirely stacked in their favor and that turned our economy into a house of cards.”
Clinton has robust approval rating
Hillary Rodham Clinton, like her boss, is in something of a honeymoon period as well.
Today, the secretary of state is in Mexico to sell the Obama administration's revamped plan to deal with Mexican drug cartels. She made her first big foreign trip to Asia, where she won generally high marks, though she dismayed human rights advocates when she seemed to soft-pedal the issue in China.
And she's riding high in the polls.
According to the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll, 71 percent of Americans approve of her job performance and 23 percent disapprove.
Her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, had lower approval ratings in similar polls, weighed down by the unpopular war in Iraq. In December 2006, her rating was 57 percent, and in March 2005 it was 61 percent.
The new survey, conducted March 12-15, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Kerry touts Obama's nominee for Iraq envoy
Senator John F. Kerry is giving a full-throated defense of Christopher Hill's credentials as the Foreign Relations Committee opens a hearing this morning on Hill's controversial nomination as ambassador to Iraq.
While some Republicans have questioned Hill's lack of experience in the region, Kerry, the panel's chairman, highlighted Hill's resume of tackling tough problems.
"Often, the reward for diplomats who succeed in difficult postings with long odds is tougher assignments with longer odds. Ambassador Hill has made a career, now entering its fourth decade, of tackling seemingly intractable diplomatic challenges," Kerry said in his opening statement, according to prepared remarks released by the committee. "And make no mistake: Iraq today still presents extraordinary challenges."
Kerry also implored his Republican colleagues not to delay a vote on the nomination. "Of course, senators have every right to vote against Ambassador Hill. But I believe that using Senate procedures to delay his arrival to Baghdad at a critical time in this war would do a serious disservice to our efforts there," he said.
Kerry's full opening statement is below:
FULL ENTRYObama seeks time on economy, support for budget
In his opening statement before his second prime-time news conference, President Obama sought tonight to reassure Americans that he's taking aggressive action on the recession, while still asking for patience.
"There are no quick fixes," Obama said. "We’ve put in place a comprehensive strategy designed to attack this crisis on all fronts. It’s a strategy to create jobs, to help responsible homeowners, to re-start lending, and to grow our economy over the long-term. And we are beginning to see signs of progress."
He highlighted the $787 billion economic stimulus plan he championed, steps to shore up housing, and moves to unfreeze the credit markets.
The president added, "We will recover from this recession. But it will take time, it will take patience, and it will take an understanding that when we all work together; when each of us looks beyond our own short-term interests to the wider set of obligations we have towards each other – that’s when we succeed. That’s when we prosper. And that’s what is needed right now. So let us look toward the future with a renewed sense of common purpose, a renewed determination, and most importantly, a renewed confidence that a better day will come."
Obama also pitched his ambitious $3.6 trillion budget, which is facing skepticism from both Democrats and Republicans who say it means too much red ink and tries to do too much.
But Obama said it's the best approach to avoid another recession.
"The budget I submitted to Congress will build our economic recovery on a stronger foundation, so that we do not face another crisis like this ten or twenty years from now," he said. "We invest in the renewable sources of energy that will lead to new jobs, new businesses, and less dependence on foreign oil. We invest in our schools and our teachers so that our children have the skills they need to compete with any workers in the world. We invest in reform that will bring down the cost of healthcare for families, businesses, and our government. And in this budget, we have to make the tough choices necessary to cut our deficit in half by the end of my first term – even under the most pessimistic estimates.
"At the end of the day, the best way to bring our deficit down in the long run is not with a budget that continues the very same policies that have led us to a narrow prosperity and massive debt. It’s with a budget that leads to broad economic growth by moving from an era of borrow and spend to one where we save and invest."
That includes clean energy jobs, an efficient healthcare system, and controlling entitlements like Medicare and Medicaid.
"That’s why this budget is inseparable from this recovery – because it is what lays the foundation for a secure and lasting prosperity."
Obama's full opening statement is below:
Locke in at Commerce
The third time was the charm for President Obama and his choice for commerce secretary.
The Senate today confirmed former Washington state Governor Gary Locke for the post after Obama's first two selections withdrew before they even came up for a vote -- Democratic New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson because of a state investigation and Republican New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg because of policy differences.
Locke, who was approved by voice vote, "will ensure American workers can prosper, our businesses can thrive and the economy can grow," said Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, the Associated Press reports.
Obama says global cooperation needed on economy
President Obama will address an international audience today just after 8 p.m. EDT in his second prime-time press conference of his young administration.
In advance of that, and of the G-20 economic summit next month in London, he called for global cooperation to stem the recession in an op-ed piece that ran today in 31 newspapers around the world, including the Baltimore Sun, Chicago Tribune, and Los Angeles Times.
"We are living through a time of global economic challenges that cannot be met by half measures or the isolated efforts of any nation. Now, the leaders of the Group of 20 have a responsibility to take bold, comprehensive and coordinated action that not only jump-starts recovery, but also launches a new era of economic engagement to prevent a crisis like this from ever happening again," Obama wrote.
"My message is clear: The United States is ready to lead, and we call upon our partners to join us with a sense of urgency and common purpose. Much good work has been done, but much more remains," he added. "Our leadership is grounded in a simple premise: We will act boldly to lift the American economy out of crisis and reform our regulatory structure, and these actions will be strengthened by complementary action abroad."
Obama also acknowledges the central role of the financial crisis in the United States in causing the cascading economic crisis around the world.
"I know that America bears our share of responsibility for the mess that we all face. But I also know that we need not choose between a chaotic and unforgiving capitalism and an oppressive government-run economy. That is a false choice that will not serve our people or any people," he wrote. "This G-20 meeting provides a forum for a new kind of global economic cooperation. Now is the time to work together to restore the sustained growth that can only come from open and stable markets that harness innovation, support entrepreneurship and advance opportunity."
The full list of newspapers and the full op-ed, both provided by the White House, are below.
UPDATE: The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, meanwhile, announced this afternoon that it will hold a hearing Wednesday afternoon to focus on the economic impact of the financial crisis and its political and national security implications, also leading up to the G-20 meeting in London on April 2.
The scheduled witnesses are Lawrence Lindsey, president and CEO of the Lindsey Group; George Soros, chairman of Soros Fund Management and Open Society; and Martin Wolf, associate editor and chief economics commentator at Financial Times.
“The economic crisis we’re experiencing in the United States is being felt around the world,” Senator John F. Kerry, the panel's chairman, said in a statement. “The national security and geopolitical issues emanating from a crisis of this magnitude are of concern to this committee. We look forward to exploring not only the problems but perhaps some of the solutions on the table to prevent bigger security threats from emerging out of this crisis down the road.”
Money for vets on the way
Senators Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry announced this afternoon that federal economic stimulus money will provide nearly $25 million for veterans facilities in Massachusetts, along with a $250 one-time payment to qualifying vets.
The tax-free grant will go to residents of the United States and its territories who received veterans payments at any time between November and January. The money is part of $1.4 billion that the Veterans Administration is receiving from the stimulus package to assist veterans, hospitals, and care centers nationwide.
"We owe an enormous debt to the courageous men and women who have sacrificed so much to keep our nation free and strong, and we must care for their needs when they come home from war. Now more than ever, veterans and the facilities that serve them, urgently need this support, and I commend President Obama for making it a priority to help those who have served America so well,” Kennedy said in a statement.
“This investment creates jobs and helps keep faith with our veterans at the same time,” added Kerry. “The renovation and remodeling of these veterans centers and medical facilities will help thousands of veterans, including many just returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Honoring our veterans and putting people back is a win-win proposition every American should celebrate.”
Hill confirmation hearing set
Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John F. Kerry announced this afternoon that the panel's hearing on the contentious nomination of Christopher Hill as ambassador to Iraq will be Wednesday morning.
“I have every confidence that Ambassador Hill is the right person to represent the United States in Baghdad,” Kerry said in a statement. By nominating Ambassador Hill to serve in Baghdad, President Obama has chosen one of our very best to help bring lasting peace to Iraq. I look forward to his nomination hearing, and am confident that those of my colleagues who may not yet be familiar with his service to the nation will be as impressed by his skill and dedication as I have been.”
But Republicans, notably GOP presidential nominee John McCain, have blasted the nomination, saying that Hill is not qualified because he lacks experience in the Middle East. Some also criticize Hill's role in negotiating with North Korea on its nuclear program.
"The next ambassador should have experience in the Middle East and in working closely with the U.S. military in counterinsurgency or counterterrorism operations. Mr. Hill has neither,” McCain said in a statement after President Obama announced his selection of Hill.
An other-worldly conversation
President Obama managed to take his pitch for green energy to space today, talking to orbiting astronauts about solar panels.
"We're investing back here on the ground a whole array of solar and other renewable energy projects and so to find out that you're doing this up at the space station is particularly exciting," Obama said during a half-hour call with the space shuttle Discovery as it was linked with the international space station.
The president invited middle school students to take part, and when one asked the astronauts what they ate, managed to sneak in a cultural reference to an orange-flavored drink they almost certainly had never heard of or tasted.
"You guys still drink Tang up there?" Obama asked with a laugh. "By the way, before the time of you young people, we used to drink Tang."
The full transcript of the conversation, provided by the White House, is below:
Obama meets political soulmate
In the strange way that politics sometimes echoes around the globe, President Obama welcomes to the White House today a comrade in arms: Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
Like Obama, Rudd replaced an older, more conservative leader. And like Obama, Rudd's opposition to the Iraq war helped define him. Rudd, however, doesn't quite have the personal charisma that serves Obama so well.
Still, in November 2007, Rudd defeated John Howard, a leading member of the allied coalition in Iraq, in a landslide.
Among foreign leaders, Howard was one of the closest friends and allies of Bush. And it turned out that Howard was the last official guest of the former president, staying at the Blair House in January and forcing the Obamas to stay at a hotel for several days before the inauguration.
UPDATE: After their Oval Office meeting, Rudd and Obama told reporters that the US-Australia alliance remains strong.
"Obviously, there are very few countries that are closer than the US and Australia," Obama said.
"It's a first-class alliance and a first-class partnership," Rudd chimed in.
Obama also said that his administration is "very confident" that the United States will work together with other nations to stabilize global financial system.
He also pledged closer cooperation with coalition forces in Afghanistan, saying that the United States will stay "on the offensive" to ensure that "vicious killers" will not have a safe haven from which to plan terrorist strikes.
Obama, who is sending 17,000 more US troops to Afghanistan this spring, is expected to unveil a new strategic plan for the war as early as this week.
The transcript of their joint press availability is below:
FULL ENTRYObama lays out US-Mexico border strategy
The Obama administration today is laying out a sweeping plan to deal with the deteriorating security at the border with Mexico, which is being breached by drug cartel gangs bringing horrific violence to the United States.
Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano, her deputy Jim Steinberg, and Deputy Attorney General David Ogden are briefing reporters this morning on what the White House calls a "comprehensive response to the situation along the border with Mexico."
"President Obama and his administration are focused on all aspects of the US relationship with Mexico because it is vital to core US national interests," the White House says in a summary of the plan. "The president is concerned by the increased level of violence, particularly in Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana, and the impact that it is having on the communities on both sides of the border. He believes that the United States must continue to monitor the situation and guard against spillover into the United States. And the president is firmly committed to ensuring our borders are secure and we are doing all we can to reduce illegal flows in both direction across the border."
The White House also says that Obama "admires President Calderon’s courage and determination to confront and dismantle the drug cartels and we stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him in that fight. Mexico undoubtedly faces serious challenges, but it is vigorously confronting them. Mexico's drug-related violence is carried out among the warring cartels and against government forces. To the extent we have seen related violence in the United States it has been cartel-on-cartel."
Among the highlights of the plan, the administration says it will spend $700 million this year to work in collaboration with Mexico on law enforcement and courts. Also the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Treasury are increasing personnel and efforts directed at the Southwest border. And the White House it is renewing the commitment to reduce the demand for illegal drugs in the United States.
More detail on the proposals is below:
Obama's aunt back in Boston for deportation hearing
By Maria Sacchetti, Globe Staff
President Obama's aunt, a Kenyan immigrant who ignited controversy last year for living in the United States illegally, has returned to her quiet apartment in a Boston public housing complex to prepare for an April 1 deportation hearing.
When her case emerged in the waning days of the presidential race last year, Zeituni Onyango, a tall, frail-looking woman in her late 50s who walks with a cane, fled the media attention to stay with relatives in Cleveland.
She attended Obama's inauguration in January and, according to neighbors, returned to Boston a few weeks ago for her third attempt to fight removal from the United States. She had been living in the country illegally since she was ordered deported in 2004.
Onyango is a half-sister of the president's late father, Barack Obama Sr., who was absent most of Obama's life and who died in a car accident in 1982. The president met his aunt during a trip to Kenya and included her in his 1995 memoir, "Dreams from My Father," but has said he was unaware of her immigration issues.
Now the woman Obama called "Auntie Zeituni" is in a national spotlight, where she is being seen as a test for the president's commitment to enforcing immigration laws.
Obama has not had any involvement in the case, and believes that the case should run its ordinary course, White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said today.
Critics, outraged that she is living in taxpayer funded public housing while thousands of citizens and legal immigrants are on waiting lists, are scrutinizing the case for political favoritism. Others caution that she may have legitimate grounds to stay in the United States.
"The case is unusual in American history because it’s a relative of the president involved in immigration matters," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies. "It really does present the White House with an opportunity or a minefield. If they follow through on a decision that she should go home, that would actually raise the president’s credibility enormously on immigration enforcement."
Onyango's fate will play out behind closed doors before veteran immigration Judge Leonard Shapiro in Boston. Onyango's lawyer Margaret Wong of Ohio successfully argued to reopen her case in December and have the proceedings closed to the public, according to the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees immigration courts.
Onyango declined two requests for interviews in recent days.
Wong has not responded to repeated requests for comment. But her spokesman told the Cleveland Plain Dealer in January that Onyango would present new evidence to back an asylum claim.
Obama nominates Bush critic at State
In one of his first major actions in office, President Obama declared that the United States would no longer torture terrorism suspects and would close the Guantanamo Bay detention center.
In a "60 Minutes" interview on Sunday, he hit back at former Vice President Cheney's assertions that his moves were making the country less safe.
And today, Obama announced he will nominate one of the most forceful legal critics of the Bush administration's legal rationale for its anti-terror policies as legal adviser to the State Department: Harold Hongju Koh, dean of Yale Law School and a Harvard Law grad.
Obama also announced he will nominate David H. Stevens as assistant housing secretary and federal housing commissioner, and Dr. Yvette Roubideaux as director of the Indian Health Service.
Their mini-biographies, provided by the White House, are below:
Geithner getting reinforcements at Treasury
Timothy Geithner might finally get some help.
Political pundits have been joking that the embattled treasury secretary has been "home alone" while dealing with the financial crisis because several people in the mix for key posts in the department dropped out during the vetting process.
This evening, President Obama announced his picks for three of the four most senior jobs: Neal S. Wolin, nominated to be deputy secretary, Lael Brainard, nominated to be undersecretary for international affairs, and Stuart A. Levey, the current Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, tapped to stay in that position.
"I am grateful for the service of these dedicated and talented individuals and have the highest confidence that, under the leadership of Secretary Geithner, they will serve the American people well as we tackle the challenges ahead of us,” Obama said in a statement.
Their mini-biographies, provided by the White House, are below:
FULL ENTRYN.E. members of Congress try to protect destroyer
New England members of Congress are banding together to protect a new Navy destroyer program that promises jobs in the region, but could be on the chopping block.
Senators Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, and Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, and Congresswoman Niki Tsongas of Massachusetts, along with some House colleagues, sent a letter to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates urging him to support the DDG-1000 destroyer in the president’s budget.
Gates is expected to soon propose a series of major cuts so the money can be spent instead to fight terrorists and insurgents. The new destroyer would be built at the Bath Iron Works in Maine and a second shipyard in Mississippi, while contractors in Rhode Island and elsewhere would supply components.
“I urge President Obama to include full funding for DDG-1000 destroyers in his budget in the coming fiscal year. Over the past years, $11 billion has already been invested in the program," Kennedy said in a statement today. "If the Navy wants to start building a different type of destroyer, it needs to make a persuasive case to Congress that such a major shift makes sense. The Navy, so far, has failed to provide that information.”
“Support for this request is critical to the timely delivery of needed capabilities to our Navy through the DDG-1000 and future generation surface combatants. This plan leverages the technologies developed on DDG-1000 to efficiently and effectively provide technologies to the next generation of ships,” Reed added.
Their letter is below:
Et tu, Judd?
When Senator Judd Gregg stunningly withdrew as President Obama's choice for commerce secretary, the New Hampshire Republican blamed "irresolvable conflicts" on policy.
He wasn't kidding.
Since giving Obama the heave-ho last month, Gregg has been one of the Democratic president's harshest critics. In recent days, he has been blasting Obama's proposed $3.6 trillion budget, saying it would bankrupt the country. Gregg, the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, got some more ammunition on Friday, when the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected that Obama's game plan would generate unsustainable deficits averaging almost $1 trillion a year for the next decade.
In an interview on MSNBC this afternoon, Gregg said if he were in charge, he would excise from Obama's budget the healthcare expansion ($634 billion over 10 years) and the government takeover of student loans, would freeze discretionary domestic spending, and would tackle entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security.
He also stood by his eye-opening remarks about the moves by some Democrats to limit debate -- and require only a bare majority for passage -- on major tax proposals in Obama's budget plan, including carbon and healthcare taxes.
While Democrats say that Republicans did the same when they were in control, Gregg and other Republicans say that puts a lie to Obama's pledge of bipartisanship and changing how Washington does business.
"That would be the Chicago approach to governing: Strong-arm it through," Gregg said last week. "You're talking about the exact opposite of bipartisan. You're talking about running over the minority, putting them in cement, and throwing them in the Chicago River."
Easter egg roll tickets online this year
President Obama is taking his pledge to make the White House more accessible to the public all the way to the annual Easter egg roll.
The White House announced today that for the first time, tickets to the event will be distributed online "so that more children and families from across the United States have the opportunity to experience this event."
The prized tickets and more information about the ticketing process will be available through www.whitehouse.gov/eastereggroll beginning Thursday. This year, the Easter egg roll will be 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on April 13 on the South Lawn of the White House.
Tickets for the annual ritual had been handed out on the Ellipse in Washington the weekend before the event, forcing families to make two trips or spend more time in the nation's capital.
"This year’s theme, ‘Let’s go play’, encourages America’s youth to lead healthy and active lives," the announcement said. "The White House will open the South Lawn to children age ten and under, along with their families, to enjoy sports, cooking classes, live musical performances, storytelling and the traditional Easter egg roll."
Obama highlights clean energy
In a weeklong blitz for his ambitious, but somewhat beleaguered budget, President Obama today is highlighting "clean energy" proposals.
In an economic crisis that has cost 4.4 million jobs already, "green" energy holds great promise for boosting the recovery, Obama told entrepreneurs and research leaders in Washington this afternoon.
"It's said that necessity is the mother of invention," he said. "At this moment of necessity, we need you."
The president pointed out specific businesses that are creating energy jobs, and praised his new science adviser, John Holdren, who came from Harvard, and MIT's president, Susan Hockfield, for work being done there.
It's a choice, he said, between remaining the world's largest importer of foreign oil -- and becoming the world's biggest exporter of alternative energy technology.
"We know the right choice," he said. "We have known the right choice for a generation. It is time to make that choice."
In advance of the meeting, the White House released a "fact sheet" saying that the $787 billion stimulus bill includes $39 billion in energy investments at the Department of Energy and $20 billion in tax incentives for clean energy.
Obama's $3.6 trillion spending blueprint, which is under criticism from both Republicans and some Democrats because of new, higher deficit projections, includes almost $75 billion over 10 years to make the research and experimentation tax credit permanent.
The president argues that alternative energy will create jobs, wean the country from foreign oil, and help make progress on global warming.
Obama also promoted his budget in his weekly Internet and radio address on Saturday and in an interview on "60 Minutes" on Sunday, and plans to do so again in a primetime news conference on Tuesday.
He also had his grassroots army knock on doors over the weekend to build support for his budget.
"It’s an economic blueprint for our future – a vision of America where growth is not based on real estate bubbles or overleveraged banks, but on a firm foundation of investments in energy, education, and healthcare that will lead to a real and lasting prosperity," he said in his weekly address. "These investments are not a wish list of priorities that I picked out of thin air – they are a central part of a comprehensive strategy to grow this economy by attacking the very problems that have dragged it down for too long: the high cost of health care and our dependence on foreign oil; our education deficit and our fiscal deficit."
He said renewable energy is one of four core principles he will insist on as Congress debates and rewrites his proposal.
"First, it must reduce our dependence on dangerous foreign oil and finally put this nation on a path to a clean, renewable energy future. There is no longer a doubt that the jobs and industries of tomorrow will involve harnessing renewable sources of energy. The only question is whether America will lead that future."
The fact sheet is below:
FULL ENTRYObama confident in latest bank bailout
President Obama said today that he is "very confident" that the latest plan to take toxic assets off the backs of banks and other financial institutions will work and ease the credit crunch.
He told reporters that the plan detailed this morning by his embattled treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, will build on the progress already made with the $787 billion economic stimulus package and with his proposals to stem home foreclosures.
The plan Geithner outlined relies on public-private partnerships -- with the private firms lured by federal largess -- to buy up the bad assets.
"We believe that this is one more element that is going to be absolutely critical in getting credit flowing again. It's not going to happen overnight. There's still great fragility in the financial systems, but we think that we are moving in the right direction," Obama said after his daily economic briefing.
"And we are very confident that, in coordination with the Federal Reserve and the FDIC, other relevant institutions, that we are going to be able to not only start unlocking these credit markets, but we're also going to be in position to design the regulatory authorities that are necessary to prevent this kind of systemic crisis from happening again."
His full remarks are below, as is the transcript of Geithner's press briefing on the plan:
Obama rolls a gutter ball
Going on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" was always a risk for President Obama, whose calm, but usually serious demeanor is one of his biggest assets as he tries to steer the country through the economic crisis.
And then one of his attempts at humor Thursday night ended up causing offense -- and necessitating an immediate apology.
Leno asked whether the White House bowling alley had been closed down to be replaced by a basketball court.
"No, no. I have been practicing," Obama replied as the audience laughed. "I bowled a 129."
"That's very good, Mr. President," Leno said.
Obama joked, "It was like Special Olympics, or something."
On his way back to Washington on Air Force One, Obama called the chairman of the Special Olympics, Tim Shriver, to say he was sorry.
"He expressed his disappointment and he apologized in a way that was very moving. He expressed that he did not intend to humiliate this population," Shriver said today on ABC's "Good Morning America."
"I think it's important to see that words hurt and words do matter. And these words that in some respect can be seem as humiliating or a put down to people with special needs do cause pain and they do result in stereotypes."
The president invited some Special Olympic athletes to visit the White House to bowl or play basketball, said Shriver, the son of Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver and nephew of Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts.
In a statement today, Shriver also urged Obama to consider hiring a Special Olympics athlete to work in the White House. "In so doing, he could help end misperceptions about the talents and abilities of people with intellectual disabilities, and demonstrate their dignity and value to the world," Shriver said.
Shriver said on MSNBC this afternoon that in the phone call, Obama said he had "a poor choice of words" while trying to make fun of himself.
But the president's remarks have caused "enormous pain" among families who take part in Special Olympics, Shriver said.
"Many people are just heartbroken," Shriver said.
He said the comment shows that much more education needs to be done, noting that Leno and the studio audience laughed, and said he hopes it will be a "teachable moment."
"Everybody understands what it feels like to be made fun of," Shriver said, and for special needs children and adults, it's a "regular occurrence."
The Arc of Massachusetts, the state's largest advocacy group for people with developmental disabilities, also expressed its disappointment for what it called Obama's "unfortunate and insensitive comments."
"The president himself has stressed the importance of words. In fact, here in Massachusetts, we are celebrating the long overdue name change of the Department of Mental Retardation to the Department of Developmental Services, a change that will take place officially July 1," the group said in a statement this afternoon.
"This is proof, as President Obama has said himself, that words do matter. Our elected officials also need to understand that with the current economic climate, people with disabilities and their advocates are especially desperate for our lawmakers to “get it.” In Massachusetts, the governor’s proposed budget this year includes $78 million in cuts to essential services to people with disabilities. If those cuts stand, they will affect tens of thousands of individuals, who will no longer get critical and cost-saving services like family supports, day and employment programs . While President Obama can’t take his comments back, what he can do is help ensure that people with disabilities get the assistance they need. He should make clear that the federal Medicaid portion of the stimulus package is used for the purpose it was intended, restoring the proposed cuts and preserving the safety for people with disabilities."
UPDATE: Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, whose son Trig was born with Down syndrome last year, blasted Obama today for his failed humor.
"I was shocked to learn of the comment made by President Obama about Special Olympics,” Palin said in a statement posted on her gubernatorial website. "This was a degrading remark about our world’s most precious and unique people, coming from the most powerful position in the world."
Palin, who was on the Republican ticket last fall opposing Obama, added, "These athletes overcome more challenges, discrimination and adversity than most of us ever will. By the way, these athletes can outperform many of us and we should be proud of them. I hope President Obama’s comments do not reflect how he truly feels about the special needs community.”
The gaffe was another sign that basketball, not bowling, is Obama's sport. During the run-up to the Pennsylvania primary last April, he tried to show his blue-collar bona fides by going to a bowling alley in Altoona.
But he rolled only an embarrassing 37 in seven frames and looked rather out of place doing it in his business attire.
The full transcript of Obama's Leno appearance is below:
An alternative view to budget deficit
Republicans and some Democrats are saying that scary new deficit figures today argue for dialing back President Obama's ambitious budget plans for healthcare, alternative energy, and education and more.
But his most liberal allies are asserting the opposite, saying they show the need for the sweeping change that Obama's $3.6 trillion blueprint represents.
"The best way to reduce the deficit is to grow our economy; the best way to grow our economy is to act on the priorities in the president's budget," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement. "President Obama's budget will transform our economy and create jobs by cutting taxes for 95 percent of Americans, making healthcare more affordable and accessible, creating a new, clean energy economy, and modernizing our schools to prepare our workforce for global competition.
"Over the next two weeks, I expect the House Budget Committee to produce, and the entire House will approve, a budget resolution that reflects the President's priorities and will help usher in a new era of job creation and lasting prosperity for the American people."
The Congressional Budget Office projected today that Obama's budget would produce federal deficits totaling $9.3 trillion between 2010 and 2019, $2.3 trillion more than the administration predicted last month. The CBO says the deficit under Obama's policies would never go below 4 percent of the size of the economy, a level that most economists say is dangerously high.
But USAAction, an advocacy group pushing Obama's budget, said the way to dig out from all the red ink is to make the costly investments.
“This revised report delivers a stark message that the economy is in even worse shape than previously thought," Program Director Alan Charney said in a statement. "It reinforces why it's even more critical to pass the initiatives on healthcare, education and the economy laid out the President's budget. The solutions must be adequate to match the depth of the problems. If we don't deal with the major underlying problems with the economy and make it possible for job creation, our deficits will continue to skyrocket."
"We cannot achieve sustainable economic growth without fixing our broken healthcare system, reducing our dependence on foreign oil, and investing in an educated workforce for tomorrow," he added. "The President's budget accomplishes these objectives and we cannot let the naysayers keep sending this country down the wrong direction.”
Tom McMahon, acting executive director of Americans United for Change, which is advocating Obama's budget with nearly 100 labor, environmental, and progressive organizations, agreed:
“The sobering new deficit projections deliver a stark message that the economy is in even worse shape than was previously thought,. It also underscores the urgent need to pass the bold initiatives on healthcare, education, energy and the economy laid out the President’s budget. If we don’t deal with the major underlying problems with the economy and make it possible for business to create jobs, our deficits will only continue to explode. We simply cannot achieve sustainable economic growth without fixing our broken health care system, reducing our dependence on foreign oil, and investing in tomorrow’s educated workforce. Bottom line: the most effective way for Congress to begin to regain control of the federal deficit is to support the President's budget plan that is blueprint for rebuilding and renewing America.”
Obama's college tour
The White House announced today which college graduates President Obama will try to inspire at their commencements.
Obama plans to speak at Arizona State University on May 13, the University of Notre Dame on May 17, and the United States Naval Academy on May 22.
Last May at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, Obama urged students to consider public service, recalling his own decision to work for a small group of churches as a neighborhood organizer in Chicago for "$12,000 a year plus $2,000 for an old, beat-up car," and how the experience gave him purpose and direction.
He stepped in for an ailing Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who was the scheduled speaker, and paid tribute to the man he called "one of my personal heroes and a hero to his country."
It's a guy thing
President Obama really likes to call everyone "guys" -- his all-purpose, casual term for anyone he's speaking to or about.
He wraps up nearly every press conference on that note, even though many reporters aren't guys, but women.
He refers to prominent economists that way: "He's one of the best big picture guys in the business," Obama said in introducing Mark Zandi of Moody's at a fiscal responsibility summit last month.
He feels fine calling the CEOs of the nation's biggest companies guys (they were mostly male). "I want you guys to do your thing," he told the Business Roundtable earlier this month, rebutting suggestions that he wanted to "get government in everybody’s business."
He doesn't mind calling members of Congress "guys," as he did at a healthcare summit this month, though they hold the fate of his ambitious proposals in their hands.
He certainly has no compunction using the term for the AIG executives who took those bonuses, saying Wednesday that "these guys are looking for bonuses, having run down AIG."
On the "Tonight Show" Thursday night, he was discussing his love for basketball and pickup games, and said, "I don’t see why they would throw the game -- except for all those Secret Service guys with guns around."
And just this afternoon, he sprinkled his remarks to state legislators calling them "guys." "It's helpful for me also to talk to you because you guys see things from outside of Washington," he said. "And the more I can break out of the bubble, the better off I am."
Such informality might not fly, though, when he attends the G-20 economic summit April 2 in London with European leaders and others. That setting calls for more diplomatic protocol, and Obama has avoided his verbal talisman in more formal settings.
Obama nixes own stimulus project
Seeking to build support for his economic plans, President Obama this afternoon also accented the need to spend recovery money wisely.
He announced he is issuing a directive on using the $787 billion stimulus package to "provide guidelines to federal agencies for what does and what does not constitute an acceptable use of taxpayer money, guidelines that will help ensure that we are proving ourselves worthy of the great trust the American people have placed in us."
(Read the directive here.)
To set an example, Obama announced that under the guidelines, he has already nixed a project close to home -- modernizing the electrical and heating systems in the White House's East Wing, where the first family lives.
"This is a much-needed project, it's long overdue, and I hope Congress funds it in the future. But because this request does not meet the high standards I have set -- because it will not create many jobs or advance our recovery -- it will not be funded under the Recovery Act," he told leaders and members of the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Another highlight of the new rules is far more transparency on the activities of lobbyists and a presidential pledge that projects will not be funded "as a way of doing favors for lobbyists."
"Any lobbyist who wants to talk with a member of my administration about a particular Recovery Act project will have to submit their thoughts in writing, and we will post it on the Internet for all to see," Obama said to applause. "If any member of my administration does meet with a lobbyist about a Recovery Act project, every American will be able to go online and see what the meeting was about. These are unprecedented restrictions that will help ensure that lobbyists don't stand in the way of our recovery."
Obama's full remarks, along with those of Vice President Biden, are below:
Romney says he wants Obama's liberal policies to fail
Mitt Romney channeled Rush Limbaugh, a little, on his appearance Thursday night on CNN's "Larry King Live."
The former Massachusetts governor and Republican presidential candidate was asked whether he wants President Obama to fail. Limbaugh, the conservative radio talk show host, got quite a bit of attention for saying he wanted Obama to fail because he opposed his policies.
Romney said, "I want liberal policies to fail. I want him to fail in trying to put in place a health care plan that takes away the private sector from health care. I want him to fail in this cap and trade program as long as China and Brazil and Indonesia are not going to play in it. But I want him to succeed as a president, meaning, I want him to succeed in strengthening our economy, keeping us free, bringing our troops home in success from Iraq and Afghanistan. But I don't want his liberal policies to succeed.
Romney also gave Obama a back-handed compliment when asked about the president's high approval ratings.
"I know that people recognize that this is a man who is a decent fellow," Romney said. "He's intelligent. He's well intentioned. He's just not experienced in the matters that we're dealing with right now. And, you know, I hope he's able to get this economy turned around."
While some Republicans are looking at Romney's business acumen and talking him up as a possible presidential contender in 2012, he continued dampening the speculation.
"I can't imagine making that decision at this point," he said.
"You're going to run again?" King asked.
"No, I don't think," Romney replied.
"Why wouldn't you?" King pressed.
"There are a lot of good reasons not to," Romney answered. "First of all, I hope that Barack Obama is so successful that -- and he adjusts his policies such that he moves to the center, he aligns with Republicans and Democrats, and does what we thought he was going to do when he was campaigning.
"I don't look at political office as something that you want to do because it will be fun or a campaign as a thrill. You get involved in public service because you think you can make a difference, and the skills and experience you've had would make the country stronger. That's something you measure down the road based upon who else is there and what the challenges are. I'd have to weigh that at the time that a race was shaping up."
And if Obama had any thought of asking for Romney to join his team, he needn't bother.
"I don't imagine my name, however, is mentioned in the White House, other than as a butt of jokes or other attacks," Romney said. "But again, I'm not -- I don't have any interest in participating in the administration. I feel like Judd Gregg did, which is President Obama, during the campaign moved, you know, very strongly to the center of the political spectrum. But as a president, with everything from card check now, cap and trade programs and his health care plan and his mortgage bailout plan and AIG, all of these things combined, he is far away from where I stand. And I, therefore, would not be part of that administration."
The full transcript from CNN is below:
FULL ENTRYPresident reaches out to Iran
President Obama chose the first day of spring, a major holiday in Iran, to directly address the people of the country that poses one of the biggest foreign policy challenges to his administration.
The video released today was timed to the festival of Nowruz, which means "new day" and marks the arrival of spring. .
"I would like to speak directly to the people and leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran," Obama says in the video, which will be released in the Persian Gulf region with Farsi subtitles. "Nowruz is just one part of your great and celebrated culture. Over many centuries your art, your music, literature and innovation have made the world a better and more beautiful place.
"Here in the United States our own communities have been enhanced by the contributions of Iranian Americans," Obama continued. "We know that you are a great civilization, and your accomplishments have earned the respect of the United States and the world.
"For nearly three decades relations between our nations have been strained. But at this holiday we are reminded of the common humanity that binds us together. Indeed, you will be celebrating your New Year in much the same way that we Americans mark our holidays -- by gathering with friends and family, exchanging gifts and stories, and looking to the future with a renewed sense of hope.
"Within these celebrations lies the promise of a new day, the promise of opportunity for our children, security for our families, progress for our communities, and peace between nations. Those are shared hopes, those are common dreams."
Obama has pledged to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, but has also offered to increase diplomatic efforts.
"So in this season of new beginnings I would like to speak clearly to Iran's leaders," Obama also says in the video. "We have serious differences that have grown over time. My administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us, and to pursuing constructive ties among the United States, Iran and the international community."
According to the Associated Press, the Iranian government played down the significance of Obama's video.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's press adviser said that "minor changes will not end the differences" and that Iran will never forget US meddling in Tehran's affairs. The two countries broke off relations after the 1979 Islamic revolution.
The full transcript of the video is below:
FULL ENTRYMore pressure on Geithner
The drumbeat for Timothy Geithner's head -- or maybe it's more like a drip-drip -- is slowly building.
Representative Connie Mack, a Florida Republican, yesterday became the first to publicly call for the treasury secretary to resign in the wake of the AIG bonus fiasco.
Today, Senator Jim Bunning, a Kentucky Republican, said Geithner should resign or be dismissed, saying the former New York Fed chief has "an incestuous relationship with Wall Street.”
“Either one – either way," Bunning said on Fox Business Network. "First of all, I didn’t think he was qualified for the job because of his involvement in TARP and a seat at the table. And then of course, he hasn’t done anything to ease the burden. Where’s the plan? You know, he was going to bring the plan to the banking committee. We still haven’t seen the plan and he’s been in office for six to eight weeks.”
Geithner's boss, President Obama, has stood steadfastly behind him so far, saying Wednesday that he has "complete confidence" in Geithner, who the president said is the hardest working man in Washington.
"I know Washington is all in a tizzy and everybody is pointing fingers at each other and saying it's their fault, the Democrats' fault, the Republicans' fault," Obama said at a town hall meeting in southern California on Wednesday night. "Listen, I'll take responsibility; I'm the president. We didn't grant these contracts, and we've got a lot on our plate, but it is appropriate, when you're in charge, to make sure that stuff doesn't happen like this....So for everybody in Washington who's busy scrambling, trying to figure out how to blame somebody else, just go ahead and talk to me, because it's my job to make sure that we fix these messes, even if I don't make them."
UPDATE: In an interview airing today on CNN, Geithner defended himself, even as he accepted responsibility.
He said that he did not know about the "full scale" of the bonuses until March 10, two days before he informed the White House, "but, you know, it's my responsibility, I was in a position where I didn't know about those sooner, I take full responsibility for that."
"We moved very actively to explore every possible avenue -- legal avenue to address this problem, to make sure that, again, the assistance we were providing was not going to unduly benefit these people," he said.
"And, you know, we moved very quickly. We've made it clear that the payments going forward had to be renegotiated and we're going to make sure that the taxpayer is compensated for any payments we can't recoup. And we're exploring all legal means to recoup those payments."
Geithner also acknowledged that his staff had talked to Senator Chris Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, about an executive pay provision in the economic stimulus bill that was changed so that it ended up not blocking the AIG bonuses.
"We expressed concern about this specific version," he told CNN. "We wanted to make sure it was strong enough to survive legal challenge. But we also worked with him to strengthen the overall framework and his bill has this very important provision we’re relying on now to go back and see if we can recoup payments that were made that
there was no legal ability to block."
Geithner said that he, himself, did not speak to Dodd directly about the provision, "but I’m not sure that’s relevant because Treasury staff did express concern about whether this provision was vulnerable to legal challenge."
Geithner brushed off the calls to resign, saying, "I think this just comes with the job.
"If this was not challenging, it wouldn't be consequential. And I feel this deep sense of personal responsibility and obligation and really opportunity to work with this president, this Congress, to try to make this economy stronger, to make sure our financial system never goes through this again," he said.
"People are going to disagree with some of the choices we make, but we have to act. We have no choice but to move."
Barack and Arnold, together again
Yes, he's a Republican whose appearance in the final week of the presidential campaign was arguably the high point for GOP nominee John McCain.
But these days, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is one of President Obama's best allies, more so than some of his fellow Democrats who are carping about his administration's handling of the economic crisis and blaming it for the AIG bonus fiasco.
The president and governor appear to see eye to eye on some of the biggest issues on the White House agenda.
Obama ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to let Schwarzenegger's state impose stricter emissions rules on automakers, the first step in putting the country on a different path on global warming. The governor is hosting one of the regional healthcare forums as the White House pushes an overhaul.
And today, Schwarzenegger joined Obama for a town hall meeting at the Miguel Contreras Learning Center in Los Angeles. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a Democrat, and Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, a former California Democratic congresswoman, also attended.
At the town hall, Schwarzenegger said he is working closely with Obama to get the economic recovery going, listing all the money that California is getting from what he called the "greatest package."
"California has a tremendous partner in Barack Obama," the governor said.
Obama, in turn, called Schwarzenegger one of the great innovators as governor.
His second town hall meeting, like the first, resembled one of his campaign rallies: cheering crowds, effusive thanks for his introducers, little asides about catching some rays, and some slaps at Washington.
"The climate's nicer, and so is the conversation sometimes," he said.
He reprised his stump speech about the challenging economic times, but the better days ahead, thanks to the $787 billion stimulus package he championed, and other ambitious proposals on the way on housing, energy, healthcare, and education.
(His full prepared remarks are below.)
At the first town hall on his California swing, the president ventured Wednesday night to the heart of Reagan country, Costa Mesa in Orange County, where he gave the hard sell for his ambitious economic proposals.
The transcript of that event is also below:
Obama promotes hybrid vehicles
On day two of his California trip, President Obama highlighted alternative energy this afternoon as one of the most promising avenues to economic recovery.
"The nation that leads on energy will lead the world in the 21st century," he said after touring Southern California Edison's electric vehicle technical center in Pomona, which bills itself as unique for an utility and says it is one of only two facilities approved by the US Energy Department to test electric vehicles.
Obama announced that $2.4 billion will be available to produce next generation plug-in hybrid vehicles and the advanced battery components they need. Consumers who buy plug-in hybrids can claim a tax credit of up to $7,500.
The funding includes, according to the White House:
-- Up to $1.5 billion in grants to US-based manufacturers to produce these highly efficient batteries and their components.
-- Up to $500 million in grants to US-based manufacturers to produce other components needed for electric vehicles, such as electric motors and other components.
-- Up to $400 million to demonstrate and evaluate plug-in hybrids and other electric infrastructure concepts -- like truck stop charging station, electric rail, and training for technicians to build and repair electric vehicles.
"It's always nice to get out of Washington a little bit -- recharge your batteries," Obama joked.
Obama said that California, while bearing the brunt of the recession, is also pointing the way forward with ingenuity and technology. But the United States is in danger of falling behind other countries on solar power, wind energy, and other renewable energy.
Investments in alternative energy will create jobs, wean the country off foreign oil, and help on global warming, the president said.
(His full remarks are below.)
As part of selling the stimulus package, the White House released a list of the money that California has received. It is also below:
Kerry holds hearing on resetting Russia relationship
Senator John F. Kerry convened a hearing today on US-Russia relations, saying that he "wholeheartedly" agrees with President Obama that it's time to "reset" the relationship.
"In recent years, America’s relationship with Russia has reached arguably its lowest and least productive phase in two decades," the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said, according to prepared remarks released by his office. " While it is not yet clear what this new chapter in our relations can bring, it is clear that our common interests demand that we try to work together more constructively.
"Our differences are real, but so too is our potential to cooperate and even lead together on global challenges," Kerry added. "From Iran’s nuclear program to human rights in Burma to our presence in Afghanistan, there is scarcely an issue of global importance which would not benefit from greater cooperation with Russia. Our challenge will be to ensure that, to the extent possible, we enlist Russia to act not just as a great power but also as a global partner."
In recent months, Russian and US leaders have sparred over the Russian incursion into Georgia last August, a proposed US anti-missile system in Poland, and other issues.
Witnesses scheduled to testify at the hearing include Andrew Kuchins, director and senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies; Ariel Cohen, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation; and Stephen Sestanovich, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Kerry's full prepared remarks are below:
Obama pitches economic plans
Addressing public outrage over the AIG bonuses, President Obama told a town hall meeting in Costa Mesa, Calif., this evening he is "absolutely committed" to getting the tools to prevent another AIG from happening again.
He quickly broadened his pitch to his economic plans that he said he will "reward hard work" and "not high-flying financial schemes" and will produce true prosperity and not wealth based on speculation.
"I don't need to tell you these are challenging times, you're living it every day," he said.
"We are not only going to get through this crisis. We are going to come out the other side a stronger and more prosperous nation," he vowed.
But, he said, he doesn't know how long it will take to reach the brighter days.
His full prepared remarks are below:
Service bill passes Senate panel, full House
The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee today approved a public service bill with bipartisan backing from panel chairmen Edward M. Kennedy and Orrin Hatch.
The legislation, supported by President Obama with his call for more volunteerism, is designed to expand service opportunities, providing $5 billion over five years with the goal of funding 250,000 volunteers in areas including energy conservation, healthcare, and education.
“This legislation represents the best of America’s ideals – offering a helping hand to our neighbors and to our country. Today’s action brings us closer to our goal of giving Americans of all ages greater opportunities to serve their communities and their nation. I commend Senator Mikulski, Senator Hatch and Senator Enzi for their effective bipartisan leadership in moving this important measure forward,” Kennedy said in a statement.
“Volunteer service is the lifeblood of our nation. It brings out the best in our people and strengthens our communities. That is why the Serve America Act is so important. This historic legislation will inspire civic-minded Americans across the nation to raise the bar of service and meet every challenge,” Hatch added.
UPDATE: This afternoon, the House passed similar legislation on a 321-105 vote and sent it to the Senate. The House version would cost $6 billion over five years, with the goal of increasing service programs by 175,000 people.
Obama praised the bill's passage, saying it would "usher in a new era of service in this new century."
"This legislation will help create new opportunities for millions of Americans to serve their communities and help us meet our most pressing challenges, from rebuilding our schools to providing opportunity for those in need, from helping America’s veterans to helping get us on the path to energy independence," he said in a statement. "At this moment of economic crisis, when so many people are in need of help and so much needs to be done, this could not be more urgent.
"We know that government alone is not the answer to the challenges we face," the president added. "It will take all of us taking our share of responsibility. And while government can provide the opportunities to give back to our communities, as I hope it will through this legislation, it is up to each and every citizen to seize those opportunities. It is up to every one of us to do his or her small part to make the world a better place."
Obama schedules prime-time news conference
Under increasing criticism for his economic proposals and his approval rating dropping, President Obama will hold his second prime-time news conference on Tuesday.
The White House announced that Obama will appear at 8 p.m. and it will be nationally televised from the White House.
Obama held his first prime-time press conference on Feb. 9 to build support for the $787 billion economic stimulus package that eventually passed Congress.
Gates says 'stop loss' will end
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced today that the Army will basically end by March 2011 the controversial "stop loss" practice that prevents soldiers from leaving after their service obligation is up.
Gates also said soldiers whose service is extended under the policy will get extra pay. About 13,000 soldiers are serving in the Army under the stop-loss policy, nearly double the number of two years ago.
Critics call the practice, needed to keep the ranks filled in the all-volunteer force while fighting two wars, a backdoor draft.
Senator John F. Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, campaigned against "stop loss" in his 2004 presidential run and applauded Gates's decision.
"The stop-loss policy has amounted to a backdoor draft during years of an overstretched, overextended military,” Kerry said in a statement. “I applaud the President and Secretary Gates for ending a practice that has for too long abused the trust and tested the strength of our incredible military families.”
Obama appoints Sudan envoy
President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton named Major General J. Scott Gration as the special envoy for Sudan, and rededicated himself to end what the United States has declared a genocide in Darfur.
"General Gration’s personal and professional background, and his service to the country as both a military leader and a humanitarian, give him the insights and experience necessary for this assignment," Obama said in a statement, calling his appointment "a strong signal of my Administration’s commitment to support the people of Sudan while seeking a lasting settlement to the violence that has claimed so many innocent lives."
"Sudan is a priority for this Administration, particularly at a time when it cries out for peace and for justice. The worsening humanitarian crisis there makes our task all the more urgent," Obama added.
"I have made clear my intention to work with the international community to end the suffering. That means supporting the full, unobstructed deployment of the joint African Union/United Nations peacekeeping force and the negotiation of a political solution that will give the people of Darfur a meaningful voice in the decisions that affect their future. The Government of Sudan’s disastrous decision to expel humanitarian relief organizations leaves a void that will be filled by deprivation and despair and they will be held accountable for the lives lost.
"As we work to bring peace to Darfur, we will continue to work with both parties to Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement to ensure its full and complete implementation. All parties must see this through if Sudan and the surrounding region are to enjoy lasting stability.
The Save Darfur Coalition applauded the appointment.
"His experience, gravitas and close relationship with President Obama will contribute greatly to his effectiveness. Equally important, he must have the mandate and authority to drive U.S. policy on Sudan," coalition president Jerry Fowler said in a statement.
Obama's tourney picks
The biggest hoops fan in the White House perhaps ever, President Obama couldn't help himself.
He took time out from trying to rescue the economy, quell the outrage over the AIG bonuses, and prosecute two wars to fill out his NCAA tournament bracket, just like anyone slaving away in a cubicle.
His handwritten predictions are posted on the White House website -- complete with cross-outs. Obama plays it rather safe, picking three of the four No. 1 seeds to make it to the Final Four in Detroit (No. 2 Memphis in the West is the exception).
In the final, he has UNC and Louisville. He seems to have initially picked Louisville to win it all, but changed to UNC, whose team he played with during the campaign.
Obama talks immigration
On his very full plate, it was one issue that President Obama had yet to take on. Until today, that is, when he discussed immigration with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
Obama supported comprehensive reform, including a possible path to citizenship for law-abiding people who entered the country illegally, along the lines of the bill that stalled in Congress in 2007. But it was not a priority issue during the campaign.
According to the White House account of the one-hour closed session, it was "a robust and strategic meeting" where Obama announced he will go to Mexico next month to meet President Calderon.
"The President discussed how the administration will work with the CHC to address immigration concerns in both the short and long term," the White House said.
With Calderon, he plans "to discuss the deep and comprehensive US-Mexico relationship, including how the United States and Mexico can work together to support Mexico’s fight against drug-related violence and work toward effective, comprehensive immigration reform. Since their meeting in January, the President has repeatedly praised President Calderon for his extraordinary work to solve these challenges, which are important to communities and families on both sides of the border."
UPDATE: "We came to the president today as allies and supporters, and in return he showed us that he remains committed to immigration reform that stabilizes our economy, secures our borders, and keeps our families together," said Representative Luis V. Gutierrez of Illinois, chairman of the Hispanic caucus's immigration task force.
"The president showed the CHC that, although it is very early in his administration, he understands that for the immigrant community it’s the 11th hour, and there is no time to waste," Gutierrez said in a statement. The Latino community supported President Obama overwhelmingly in the election, and they remain energized not only by his victory but also by his message of support for comprehensive immigration reform. I believe that a plan is forthcoming, and that we will see real change this year."
The head of the National Council of La Raza said she is optimistic that immigration reform will be addressed this year.
“The leadership on immigration reform from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus should be applauded, and we appreciate the President’s continued commitment to this issue,” council president and CEO Janet Murguía said in a statement. “We are dedicated to working with the administration and leaders in the House and Senate from both sides of the aisle to make the President’s campaign promise of immigration reform a reality this year.”
“The Latino community has high expectations for our leaders on this issue. It is critical to resolve the most important civil rights issueof our time,” Murguía added. “While we agree that our priority should be fixing the nation’s economy, we also believe that we can initiate an immigration reform that will help us achieve long-term economic growth.”
According to an immigrant advocacy group in Massachusetts, Obama is to lay out his proposal in May.
"We are pleased that the President met with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus to reiterate his commitment to immigration reform and that he will be laying out his plan for such reform in early May," Eva A. Millona, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, said in a statement. "Creating a just and humane immigration system in this country is long overdue. For too long, families have been torn apart, workers have been forced to live in the shadows and the country has been suffering because of our broken system.
"We need a comprehensive approach that gives the hard working men and women already here an earned path to citizenship, keeps families together and provides legal avenues for future workers to seek out opportunities here and join our struggle to strengthen our economy. Especially in this time of economic crisis, we need to work together to push for immigration reform. Legalization would bring more workers into the tax system and increase tax revenue. It would enable these workers to receive the protections all workers deserve, and give immigrants the opportunity to contribute more freely to our economy through purchasing power. A workable immigration reform would contribute significantly to the long-term economic growth and stability of our country."
Meals money for elders on the way
Vice President Biden announced today that states will receive $100 million in stimulus money to feed low-income older Americans.
The funding is expected to provide nearly 14 million meals nationwide, the White House said.
“Across the country, older Americans depend on senior centers and home delivery programs for regular, healthy meals. Today, more senior citizens are in need, but the programs they depend on are on the brink of reducing their services or closing down,” Biden said in a statement. “The Recovery Act will help ensure older Americans are not forced to choose between paying bills and buying food.”
The stimulus package provides $65 million for meals at senior centers and other community sites, $32 million for home delivered meals, and $3 million for Native American nutrition programs. The funding was initially authored and championed by Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, the White House said.
UPDATE: The offices of Kennedy and Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts said that the Bay State will get $2.1 million, $1.4 million for nutrition programs at senior centers, and $700,000 for home-delivered nutrition programs such as “Meals on Wheels."
“One of the true measures of any society is how it cares for its elderly,” Kennedy said in a statement. “These federal funds come at a critical time for seniors in our Commonwealth. Communities and aging services across the state are facing a surge in the need for these services because of the economic crisis. It’s essential to give our seniors the care they need and deserve, and this support will be a lifeline.”
Kerry added, “We know that when the economy’s hurting, seniors living on fixed incomes take a wallop. This is an investment in the quality of life and health of thousands of grandmothers and grandfathers across Massachusetts. It’s more than a hot, nutritious meal, for many it’s a lifeline to the outside world. Senator Kennedy and I will keep fighting for Massachusetts seniors so no one goes hungry and we keep faith with the generation that built our country.”
Connecticut will get more than $1.1 million, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, while Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont will get $485,000 each.
Obama calls for stricter regulation of firms like AIG
President Obama said this afternoon that while the AIG bonuses have been consuming attention and "rightfully so," he wants to fast-track legislation to create a body -- similar to the FDIC for banks -- that would regulate financial firms like AIG so taxpayers won't be left "holding the bag" if the companies go under.
He said he has spoken to Representative Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, and met with economic team about the need for stricter regulation.
In the impromptu news conference, Obama said again that the bonuses were "outrageous." "They represent what all of us consider an inappropriate use of taxpayer funds," he said on the South Lawn of the White House before leaving for California.
But he said that just as outrageous is the culture of "excess greed, excess compensation, excess risk-taking" that led to the bonuses and the meltdown that is forcing the federal government to "clean up AIG's mess."
"As we work toward getting ourselves out of the recession, I hope that Wall Street and the marketplace doesn't think that we can return to business as usual," he said.
Obama also personally gave a vote of confidence to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who is under fire for not doing more to blocking the bonuses. Geithner, the president said, is facing the biggest workload in the job since Alexander Hamilton and is "making all the right moves in playing a bad hand."
Asked whether Geithner told the White House about the bonuses in time, Obama replied, "The buck stops with me."
Obama's full remarks are below:
Obama seeks grassroots help on budget
As President Obama heads back out on the road to sell his economic plans, he tells his grassroots army that his election wasn't change but only the chance to make change.
In a video released today, he urges them to canvass their neighborhoods this weekend to build support for his $3.6 trillion budget that he says will "lay a foundation for lasting growth and prosperity" by investing in healthcare, education, and renewable energy.
"Passing this budget won't be easy....I'm asking you to head outside this Saturday to knock on some doors, talk to some neighbors, and let them know how important this budget is to our future," he says.
Obama, who plans a town hall meeting later today in Costa Mesa, Calif., also implores his backers to write letters and make phone calls to make their views known. His ambitious spending blueprint has run into skepticism in Congress from both sides of the aisle.
The video was sent in an email by David Plouffe, Obama's former campaign manager who now oversees Organizing for America, the keeper of a nearly 14 million-name e-mail list of supporters that is working out of the Democratic National Committee.
"The budget President Obama has proposed isn't the same old document Washington has come to expect year after year," Plouffe writes in the e-mail. "Right now, we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to finally confront the systemic problems that have held America back for far too long in energy, health care, and education. But it's up to you to get involved and make it happen."
While Obama has repeatedly defended his ambitious agenda against those who argue he should focus on the economy, a majority of Americans in a newly released poll say he is taking on too much.
According to the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey, 55 percent said the president has tried to handle more issues than he should, while 43 percent says he has not.
On the other hand, the poll found that 58 percent say Obama's proposals are "about right," while 36 percent say they are "too liberal."
His approval rating in foreign affairs -- 66 percent -- is higher than for his handling of the economy -- 59 percent.
Veterans groups angry at Obama
President Obama has pledged to improve services for the active duty military and veterans alike, and made sure to pay a visit Monday to the Department of Veterans Affairs on the 20th anniversary of it becoming a Cabinet-level agency.
But he angered veterans groups by telling them in a separate White House meeting Monday that he's standing by a plan to have the VA seek reimbursements from veterans' private insurance for treating service-related injuries and disabilities to generate more than $540 million a year for the agency.
The administration says that the private insurers are getting a free ride, but vets groups say the change could tap out private insurance benefits that vets' families also need.
"It became apparent during our discussion today that the President intends to move forward with this unreasonable plan," Commander David K. Rehbein of the American Legion said in a statement after the White House meeting.
"This reimbursement plan would be inconsistent with the mandate '... to care for him who shall have borne the battle...' given that the United States government sent members of the armed forces into harm's way, and not private insurance companies," Rehbein continued. "I say again that The American Legion does not and will not support any plan that seeks to bill a veteran for treatment of a service connected disability at the very agency that was created to treat the unique need of America's veterans!"
In his proposed budget, Obama has called for adding $25 billion to the VA budget over five years to help expand healthcare to serve an additional 500,000 veterans by 2013 and fund a new GI bill.
The Vietnam Veterans of America praised Obama's budget, but also blasted the insurance proposal.
"VVA joins fellow veterans' service organizations in condemning the proposal advanced by the Office of Management and Budget to raise revenue by charging a veteran's private health insurer for services provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs for service-connected health conditions," the group's national president, John Rowan, said in statement.
"However, as far as veterans are concerned, this is the best budget submitted by a President in the 30-year history of VVA."
Grassley: Suicide call was 'rhetoric'
In all the outrage over the bonuses paid to the American International Group executives who almost buried the company, the usually mild-mannered Senator Chuck Grassley went the furthest.
In a radio interview Monday, the Iowa Republican called on AIG executives to follow the Japanese approach toward accepting responsibility for the near collapse of the insurance giant, which has already cost taxpayers more than $170 billion in federal aid.
"I would suggest the first thing that would make me feel a little bit better toward them if they'd follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say, 'I'm sorry,' and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide," Grassley said.
Today, Grassley is the one apologizing, sort of.
Asked about the suicide remark on MSNBC, he suggested that it was more of a rhetorical flourish. "You ought to be able to tell rhetoric when you hear it," he said.
Grassley said the point he was making is that he wants the AIG executives to show remorse and contrition for nearly bankrupting their company -- not to accept bonuses.
"I think taxpayers are entitled to that," he said.
Meanwhile, Senator Harry Reid, the top Democrat in the Senate, said today that he will pursue legislation to force the executives to pay back at least some of the $165 million in bonuses.
Congressional Democrats are crafting bills to tax up to 100 percent of bonuses awarded by companies rescued by taxpayer money.
Senator Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, criticized Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner for not blocking the bonuses, saying that Geithner either knew or should have known about the payments bonuses.
"I don't know if he should resign over this," Shelby said, according to the Associated Press. "He works for the president of the United States. But I can tell you, this is just another example of where he seems to be out of the loop.
President Obama joined the outrage on Monday, ordering Geithner to pursue every legal avenue to block the payments. The administration is talking about using a pending $30 billion federal loan to recoup or block the bonuses.
Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican, said today that top White House officials knew about the bonuses ahead of time.
"So they were aware they were going to be paid and it wasn’t until they were paid and the press got wind of it, and obviously made a weekend of it, that they suddenly were outraged,” he said on Fox Business Network.
UPDATE: New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo said today that AIG paid retention bonuses last week of $1 million or more to 73 employees, including 11 who no longer work for the company. The biggest bonus was more than $6.4 million, and the top seven received more than $4 million each.
Contracts written last March guaranteed employees 100 percent of their 2007 bonus amounts for 2008, "despite obvious signs that 2008 performance would be disastrous in comparison to the year before," Cuomo said in a letter today to Representative Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the House Committee on Financial Services, the Associated Press reports.
Cuomo asked the panel to take up the issue at a hearing scheduled for Wednesday, when AIG's CEO, Edward Liddy, is scheduled to testify.
"AIG also claims that retention of individuals at Financial Products was vital to unwinding the subsidiary's business," Cuomo wrote. But AIG has been unwilling to provide their names, despite a subpoena, making it impossible to see if that's true, Cuomo said.
The AP says that Cuomo asserted that despite their contracts, Financial Products employees agreed to take 2009 salaries of $1 in exchange for receiving their retention bonus packages. He said the fact AIG could negotiate the terms of the payments "flies in the face of AIG's assertion" that it had no choice but to make the contractual bonus payments.
Obama plays up his Irish roots
President Obama learned during the long campaign that he had some Irish roots, leading some to call him Barack O'Bama.
Today, he joked that it would have boosted his early political career if he had known earlier.
"As has been mentioned, it was brought to my attention last year that my great-great-great grandfather on my mother's side hailed from a small village in County Offaly," Obama said at today's St. Patrick's Day luncheon hosted by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
"Now, when I was a relatively unknown candidate for office, I didn't know about this part of heritage, which would have been very helpful in Chicago," he continue. "So I thought I was bluffing when I put the apostrophe after the O. I tried to explain that 'Barack' was an ancient Celtic name."
Addressing the visiting Irish prime minister Brian Cowen, the president said, "Taoiseach, I hope our efforts today put me on the path of earning that apostrophe."
Obama also took time to note an absence at the annual lunch: Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, who is battling brain cancer:
"This St. Patrick's Day seems different than most because there's one person missing...one person who has touched all of us fortunate enough to walk these halls with his mentorship and his friendship; the hardest-working Irish American we know; friend to all, father to some: Teddy Kennedy. He sends his best."
Obama nominates Dan Rooney as Irish ambassador
On St. Patrick's Day, President Obama announced that he is nominating Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney to be the US ambassador to Ireland.
“I am honored and grateful that such a dedicated and accomplished individual has agreed to serve as the representative of the United States to the Irish people. Dan Rooney is an unwavering supporter of Irish peace, culture, and education, and I have every confidence that he and Secretary Clinton will ensure America’s continued close and unique partnership with Ireland in the years ahead,” Obama said in a statement.
Rooney, a Republican, also provided a key endorsement to Obama during the Democratic primaries before the Pennsylvania contest in April. (His mini-biography, provided by the White House, is below.)
Obama formally announced Rooney's nomination at the Shamrock Ceremony in the Roosevelt Room of the White House with Irish Taoiseach Brian Cowen, one of a series of St. Patrick's Day observances on the president's schedule.
The president called Rooney "a great friend" on a personal friend, and a great friend to Ireland.
Obama noted that it emerged during the campaign that his great-great-great-grandfather on his mother's side came to America from the same county as Cowen.
"We are still speculating whether we are related," Obama joked.
Cowen said Obama's story of hope captivated people across Ireland and Europe, who now offer their steadfast support.
(Their full remarks are below.)
Obama also plans to meet with Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson and Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness.
In the afternoon, Obama will speak at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s St. Patrick’s Day lunch, then this evening will deliver remarks at St. Patrick’s Day receptions held in the East Room and the State Dining Room.
The Associated Press also reports that the water in the fountains on the north and south lawns of the White House has been dyed green to mark the national holiday of Ireland. First Lady Michelle Obama brought the idea from Chicago, where the city marks the holiday by dyeing the river green.
President picks moderate as first judicial nominee
Announcing his first federal appeals court pick, President Obama today reached for a moderate who already has the bipartisan support of both of his home state's senators.
If confirmed, federal Chief District Judge David Hamilton of Indiana will get a seat on the US 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago.
Hamilton, a former counsel to then-Governor Evan Bayh, has served for 14 years as a federal judge in Indiana and has been chief judge for the southern district in January 2008.
“Judge Hamilton has a long and impressive record of service and a history of handing down fair and judicious decisions. He will be a thoughtful and distinguished addition to the 7th circuit and I am extremely pleased to put him forward to serve the people of Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin,” Obama said in a statement.
Senator Dick Lugar, an Indiana Republican, said in a statement from the White House, “I enthusiastically support the Senate confirmation of David Hamilton for U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Hamilton has served the Southern District of Indiana with distinction as U.S. District Court Judge.”
Bayh, now a Democratic Senator from Indiana, said in a statement, "I was proud to work side by side with Senator Lugar to recommend Judge Hamilton for this lifetime appointment.
“President Obama is right that Democrats and Republicans can work together to put highly qualified jurists on the federal bench. Judge Hamilton is an exceptional jurist who has demonstrated the highest ethical standards and a firm commitment to applying our country's laws fairly.”
Obama defends his budget
Facing discomfort and some dissension in his own ranks, President Obama huddled this morning with top Democratic budget writers about his sweeping $3.6 trillion spending plan.
In extraordinary times, his budget is the "economic blueprint for our future," Obama said after meeting at the White House with Senator Kent Conrad, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, and Representative John Spratt, chairman of the House Budget Committee.
While some Republicans have been accusing Obama of using the economic crisis to lay out a budget that moves the country toward socialism, some Democrats are also fretting about some major components of Obama's plan. Among them: carbon emissions limits that would lead to higher energy bills, and restrictions on how much in charitable donations that higher-income taxpayers could deduct.
Republicans noted that Conrad, himself, said last week that he worried that the budget would mean more red ink.
"When I look at this budget, I see the debt doubling again," Conrad said during a hearing. "And that gives me great concern... I believe that buildup of debt fundamentally threatens the economic security of this country. I believe it in my bones."
The president, however, focused on his pledge to cut the federal deficit -- projected to hit well more than $1 trillion this fiscal year -- in half by the end of his term. Because of the deficit he said he inherited and the cost of the financial rescue, he said his spending plan does not try to solve every problem or address every issue.
But, he said, he will not cut back spending that will lead to real prosperity.
To those who say the budget is too ambitious, "I say the challenges we face are too big to ignore," Obama said.
Obama also said he welcomes good ideas from both Democrats and Republicans, but lashed out at Republicans who are opposing his budget without proposing alternatives.
"Just saying no," the president said, is the right advice to give to teenagers about using drugs -- not a credible approach to the budget debate.
Findings released today from a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll suggest that Americans back the general drift of Obama's economic plans, but not all the specifics.
According to the survey, 65 percent support Obama's "overall economic plan," but support for the $787 billion economic stimulus package he championed has dropped from 60 percent last month to 54 percent now. Only 32 percent back a second stimulus bill, a possibility that some administration supporters have floated.
Also, support for helping homeowners facing foreclosure -- which Obama has proposed doing -- has fallen from 63 percent last month to 56 percent. Only 18 percent back the middle path that the White House has taken on beleaguered banks -- giving them billions to shore them up -- while 39 percent say the government should take them over temporarily and 41 percent say they should be allowed to go out of business.
His full remarks, provided by the White House, are below:
White House hits back at Cheney
The White House today resorted to a sarcastic slap to brush off former Vice President Dick Cheney's criticism of the president.
Cheney said Sunday on CNN that Obama's national security decisions are threatening the nation's safety and that the new president is using the economic crisis to expand government's role in healthcare, energy, education, and other areas.
"Well, I guess Rush Limbaugh was busy, so they trotted out the next most popular member of the Republican cabal," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs quipped at his daily briefing.
Gibbs said his sarcasm shouldn't obscure the serious policy differences between Obama and the Bush-Cheney administration and the changes Obama is trying to make.
"I would say that the President has made quite clear that keeping the American people safe and secure is the most serious job that he has each and every day," Gibbs added. "I think not taking economic advice from Dick Cheney would be maybe the best possible outcome of yesterday's interview."
Obama seeks to reassure Main Street
President Obama, whose administration has been under fire for doing more for Wall Street than Main Street, plans today to announce more help for small businesses.
Joined by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Obama will outline a package that includes lower fees for small-business lending and more guarantees for some Small Business Administration loans. It is the latest step by the White House to unfreeze credit so that businesses will expand and either add jobs, or at least not cut them.
Obama and Geithner are also announcing that the Treasury Department will begin directly buying as much as $15 billion in securities backed by SBA loans "to get the credit market moving again, and it will stand ready to purchase new securities to ensure that community banks and credit unions feel confident in extending new loans to local businesses," the White House announced.
"The Obama Administration firmly believes that economic recovery will be driven in large part by America’s small businesses, which have generated about 70 percent of net new jobs annually over the past decade. But as the flow of credit has dried up during this recession, small business owners who were prudent and responsible have been set back by the behavior of others in our financial system who were not," the White House said in a statement.
Geithner urged banks to lend to small businesses and said the federal government will keep closer track.
(Obama's full remarks are below.)
Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts praised the proposals, which his office said incorporated provisions he suggested last year to eliminate fees on SBA loans.
“President Obama’s small business package will provide small businesses with access to capital so they can stay afloat and get back in the business of creating jobs,” Kerry said in a statement. “The faster we get small businesses on track the faster our economy will recover. I’m glad that the provisions I wrote and pressed last year as Chairman of the Small Business Committee are now being enacted to help our struggling small businesses. President Obama gets it when it comes to helping small businesses in the toughest economy in decades.”
(The full White House release is below.)
Obama also plans to take his economic message to a different forum this week -- "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno."
Obama will appear Thursday night on the late-night staple, which says it is first appearance of a sitting president on a late night talk show.
Earlier that day, he will tour the Edison International electric vehicle technical center in Pomona, a day after holding a town hall meeting on his economic recovery plans in Costa Mesa.
A new poll reflects the worry and fear that Obama faces on the recession.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released this morning says that 63 percent of Americans believe the economy is the most important issue facing the country. No other issue makes double digits.
Also, the poll found that of a range of economic problems, 36 percent are worried about unemployment -- nearly three times the number from a similar poll about a year ago, when inflation was the biggest concern. Only 38 percent were very confident that their employer would not have to resort to layoffs in the next six months, down from 55 percent in the April 2008 survey.
The poll also shows Obama's approval rating, while still high, is dropping: 64 percent, down from 67 percent a month ago, and 76 percent in early February.
On the economy, a smaller number, 59 percent, approve of what Obama is doing. But if the economy doesn't improve over the next year, 54 percent would blame former President Bush and the Republicans and only 32 percent Obama and the Democrats.
Overall, only 11 percent of Americans want Obama to fail, but 32 percent worry that he will.
The new survey was conducted Thursday through Sunday and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
President pledges help to vets
President Obama renewed his vow today to uphold the "sacred trust" with those serving in harm's way abroad.
"They are our best and brightest, and our bravest, enlisting in a time of war," he said at the Department of Veterans Affairs, whose mission, he said, is more vital now during the "long and difficult conflicts" in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Obama has promised to increase military pay, improve benefits to veterans, and offer more help to military families. Last week, first lady Michelle Obama visited Fort Bragg, the sprawling Army base in North Carolina, to bring that message.
The president noted that his own family -- particularly his grandfather, a World War II veteran -- benefited from aid to veterans without which, he said, he would not be in the White House.
His full remarks, as provided by the White House, are below:
FULL ENTRYObama adds outrage on AIG bonuses
President Obama said this afternoon that the White House will use the "leverage" from federal aid and "every single legal avenue" to try to block the AIG bonuses that have outraged politicians of all stripes.
"This is a corporation that finds itself in financial distress due to recklessness and greed," he said at an event to announce more aid for small businesses. "Under these circumstances, it’s hard to understand how derivative traders at AIG warranted any bonuses, much less $165 million in extra pay. I mean, how do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?"
The bonuses, which were in contracts with executives last year, were to be paid by Sunday, mostly to executives at AIG Financial Products, the unit that put the insurance giant on the brink of bankruptcy with risky bets on securities linked to the housing bubble. AIG has received more than $170 billion in a series of federal rescues that have put the government stake at about 80 percent.
Obama said that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is on the case, trying to resolve the matter with AIG's CEO, Edward Liddy.
"This not just a matter of dollars and cents. It’s about our fundamental values," the president said. "All across the country, there are people who are working hard and meeting their responsibilities every day, without the benefit of government bailouts or multi-million dollar bonuses....All they ask is that everyone, from Main Street to Wall Street to Washington, play by the same rules.
"That is an ethic that we have to demand," Obama added. "What this situation also underscores is the need for overall financial regulatory reform, so we don’t find ourselves in this position again, and for some form of resolution mechanism in dealing with troubled financial institutions, so we've got greater authority to protect the American taxpayer and our financial system in cases such as this."
It's the second time that Obama has publicly, angrily blasted Wall Street for greed. After the last time, the White House and Congress imposed limits on bonuses and pay for executives in companies receiving federal aid.
Obama gears up for budget battle
Facing strong Republican opposition to his budget, President Obama is harnessing much of his campaign operation to push it through Congress.
He is enlisting Organizing for America, the post-election vehicle for his millions of grassroots supporters, plus the Democratic Party and its allies in labor and advocacy groups, to build support for the $3.6 trillion blueprint that includes ambitious proposals on healthcare, energy, education, and more.
Mitch Stewart, director of Organizing for America, urged supporters to go out in their neighborhoods this weekend to build backing for Obama's budget.
"The current debate in Washington over President Obama's budget has made one thing clear -- ensuring our long-term prosperity won't come without a fight," Stewart wrote today in an email.
"Partisan voices and special interests are showing real resistance to President Obama's call for making the necessary reforms and investments in energy, health care, and education. That's why we need to bring the conversation back into homes and communities across America."
Americans United for Change, a coalition of labor and liberal groups, started running a national cable TV ad on Sunday that attacks Republicans for not offering anything but opposition.
"President Obama has proposed a budget plan to turn the page on the failed economic policies of the past – creating jobs and changing the way things are done in Washington," the announcer says. "The Republican response? 'No, no, no.'
"So what kind of budget have the Republicans proposed to get us out of the mess they created? Here are the details," the announcer continues.
There's a blank screen and the sound of crickets chirping.
"That’s right – nothing," the announcer says. "Tell the Republicans that Americans won’t take NO for an answer. Tell them we want our President – and America – to succeed."
Over the weekend, the Democratic National Committee took a similar tack in a new web ad that accuses Republicans of "sitting on the sidelines" during the economic crisis and that jumps on comments that Representative John Boehner, the top House Republican, made to the New York Times saying that his party doesn't have offer an alternative and “ought to get the idea out of their minds that they are legislators.”
"John Boehner’s claim that his Party has no responsibility to legislate or offer any plans of their own - despite the economic crisis facing our country - are exactly the kind of typical Washington political games the American people rejected last November,” DNC spokesman Brad Woodhouse said in a statement.
Last week, the DNC took a page out of the Republican playbook during the presidential campaign and launched a “Party of No” clock that highlights how long Republicans have said “no” instead of offering an alternative to Obama’s budget.
As of today, the clock was at 17 days and counting.
A spokesman for Boehner disputed the DNC ad, saying that Republicans did offer an alternative to the $787 billion stimulus package and blaming Democrats for freezing Republicans out of the legislative debate.
"This web ad may be the most poorly-researched piece I’ve ever seen, especially since the New York Times story the DNC cites completely discredits its entire premise," spokesman Kevin Smith said in a statement. "Mr. Boehner said Republicans will be the party of better solutions on the opening day of this Congress before he handed the gavel to the Speaker, and we have followed through on that promise by offering better alternatives on SCHIP and the stimulus. We will do so again on the budget. Good try, but it doesn’t pass the straight-face test.”
Obama says broad agenda needed for solid economic foundation
Before an audience of top business leaders, President Obama hit back today at those who say he is taking on too much with a far-reaching agenda while the economy burns.
In a speech to the Business Roundtable, Obama said that the "problems in the financial markets, as acute and urgent as they are, are only a part of what threatens our economy."
"We must not use the need to confront them as an excuse to keep ignoring the long-term threats to our prosperity: the cost of our healthcare and our oil addiction; our education deficit, and our fiscal deficit," he added.
"I am not choosing to address these additional challenges just because I feel like it, or because I’m a glutton for punishment. I am doing so because they are fundamental to our economic growth, and to ensuring that we don’t have more crises like this in the future."
Obama argues that only aggressive pushes on healthcare and clean energy, among other priorities, will put a stop to "endless cycles of bubble and bust" and create lasting wealth -- in contrast to the housing bubble that helped plunge the economy into recession.
"Instead, we must build this recovery on a foundation that lasts – on a 21st century infrastructure and a green economy with lower healthcare costs that creates millions of new jobs and new industries; on schools that prepare our children to compete and thrive; on businesses that are free to invest in the next big idea or breakthrough discovery," he said.
"We cannot wait to build this foundation. Putting off these investments for another four years or eight years would be to continue the same irresponsibility that led us to this point. It would be doing exactly what Washington has done for decades. And it will make our recovery more fragile and our future less secure."
His full remarks, and a White House transcript of a question-and-answer session, are below:
Obama tries to lower tensions with China
President Obama met this afternoon in the Oval Office with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi in the wake of harsh words between the two countries over a confrontation between Navy ships in the South China Sea.
According to the White House account of the closed meeting, Obama stressed the importance of raising the level and frequency of the U.S.-China military-to-military dialogue in order to avoid future incidents.
Obama and Yang also discussed the overall state of the U.S.-China relationship and ways to improve it, along with other issues including the international financial crisis, North Korea, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the situation in Sudan, the White House said.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was criticized by human rights advocates for seeming to soft-pedal the issue on her recent visit; the White House said Obama noted that the promotion of human rights is an essential aspect of US foreign policy and expressed hope there would be progress in the dialogue between the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama’s representatives on Tibet.
The full White House synopsis is below:
FULL ENTRYWho you calling a deadbeat?
In his push for more diplomacy, President Obama has highlighted the role of the United Nations in helping preserve peace around the globe.
So the White House didn't take too kindly to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon describing the United States as a "deadbeat" because it is habitually late paying its dues.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Ban's choice of words in a private meeting with members of Congress on Wednesday -- a day after meeting Obama for the first time -- was "unfortunate."
"I think given the contribution that the American taxpayer makes, I do think it would be appropriate to acknowledge that role," Gibbs told reporters at his daily briefing, noting that the United States is the biggest funder of the UN, ponying up more than one-fifth of its nearly $5 billion annual operating budget.
Obama pays tribute to Lincoln, again
President Obama's Lincoln fealty went a step further today as he took time out to speak at the dedication of Abraham Lincoln Hall at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C.
While there are many monuments to Lincoln across the country, Obama, quoting Lincoln, said it is still "altogether fitting and proper" to name the hall after a president whose time in office was marked by the Civil War.
And while technology has changed warfare, it is still individual soldiers who make the difference, Obama said, thanking the members of the military studying there, and all the troops serving in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere.
"The threats to our nation are real and they are direct," he said, pledging to keep the US military the strongest in the world.
In the 21st century, though, the US military must deal with unconventional threats and with civilian populations of different cultures and languages, Obama said. "That's the education that takes place within the walls of this university," he said.
(His full remarks are below.)
Obama announced his presidential bid at the old State House in Springfield, Ill., retraced some of Lincoln's rail journey to Washington, held his major pre-inaugural event on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and used the same Bible as Lincoln to take the oath of office. He made sure last month to make it back to Springfield for the commemoration of the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth.
Obama also borrowed from Lincoln's "team of rivals" approach to bring one-time rivals, most notably Hillary Rodham Clinton, into his administration.
In speeches, Obama has often mentioned or quoted Lincoln, sometimes in the context of unifying the country during a crisis.
FULL ENTRYWhite House talks tough again on stimulus
Even as the buzz grows for the need for a second massive economic stimulus package, President Obama and Vice President Biden huddled with state and local officials today to reinforce the need to spend the approved $787 billion wisely.
The White House is hosting a day-long conference on the recovery package.
Obama told the officials that they have the rare opportunity to stoke the economy and build prosperity with "precious tax dollars" -- but also have the responsibility to live up to taxpayers' trust.
"The American people are behind what we're doing. And the question then becomes, 'Are we going to be able to deliver for them?' " he said.
"My main message to all of you is I think you're up to the task," Obama added, warning again, "if we see money misspent, we're going to put a stop to it." (Read the president's full remarks.)
Biden, who is overseeing the stimulus package, spoke to the officials earlier this morning.
He said the White House will release regulations Friday to further restrict the spending of stimulus money. "No swimming pools in this money," the vice president said.
Biden also repeatedly warned that states' ability to get aid from Congress is on the line. "If we don't get this right folks, this is the end of the opportunity to convince the Congress that anything should go to the states," he said, according to the pool report. (Read the vice president's full remarks.)
But according to the press pool report, some state officials expressed confusion about what role states will play in passing on stimulus money to cities and towns and what reporting requirements they'll face. They also complained that there has been a lack of communication so far between the feds and the state government about projects that have so far been announced.
While the Obama administration is promising unprecedented transparency and accountability, Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, called today for the General Accounting Office to regularly audit the spending.
"I am deeply concerned by reports that oversight will stop at the state level once a governor designates the federal money to be spent at the local or municipal level," McConnell wrote in a letter to the acting comptroller general. "The American taxpayer will benefit from full transparency at each step of the process as these funds are disbursed. Furthermore, taxpayers need to know how these entities are spending stimulus funds at the project level. Tracking money only to the state level is insufficient, as it fails to measure the actual expenditure of taxpayer dollars and the projects for which these funds are being spent."
But even though most of the $787 billion hasn't been spent yet, some are saying the faltering economy will need another boost. They could have more ammunition for their cause in the latest jobless numbers.
The Labor Department reported today that first-time requests for unemployment insurance rose to 654,000 last week, and the total number receiving benefits for more than a week increased 5.3 million, the most in at least four decades.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who earlier this week seemed to open the door to a second stimulus bill, all but closed that door today, saying she wanted to give time for the initial package to work.
"I really would like to focus on the first one," she told reporters on Capitol Hill. "I don't think you ever close the door to being prepared for what eventuality may come, but I think that is not a near, near thing."
FULL ENTRYObama creates women's council
In his latest gesture on women's issues, President Obama signed an executive order this afternoon creating a White House Council on Women and Girls.
“The purpose of this council is to ensure that American women and girls are treated fairly in all matters of public policy,” Obama said in a statement. “My administration has already made important progress toward that goal. I am proud that the first bill I signed into law was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act. But I want to be clear that issues like equal pay, family leave, child care and others are not just women’s issues, they are family issues and economic issues. Our progress in these areas is an important measure of whether we are truly fulfilling the promise of our democracy for all our people. I am confident that Valerie Jarrett and Tina Tchen will guide the Council wisely as its members address these important issues.”
The council, the White House says, "will provide a coordinated federal response to the challenges confronted by women and girls and to ensure that all Cabinet and Cabinet-level agencies consider how their policies and programs impact women and families."
It will be led by close Obama adviser and friend Valerie Jarrett.
"I sign this order not just as president, but also as a son, a grandson, a husband and a father, because growing up, I saw my mother put herself through school to follow her passion for helping others," Obama said. "But I also saw how she struggled to raise me and my sister on her own, worrying about how she would pay the bills, educate herself and provide for us."
He said he signed the order (read it here) to honor all the women who came before him, such as his grandmother who was a bank vice president but was denied promotions because of her gender. He and said the fight for gender equality is far from over, citing pay disparities, domestic violence, and the relatively few women in Congress and in the executive offices of major companies.
"I think we need to take a hard look at where we're falling short, and who we're leaving out, and what that means for the prosperity and the vitality of our nation," said Obama, who as part of International Women's History Month also last week with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton jointly announced a new post of ambassador at large for women's issues around the world.
"And I want to be very clear: These issues are not just women's issues. When women make less than men for the same work, it hurts families who find themselves with less income, and have to work harder just to get by. When a job doesn't offer family leave, that also hurts men who want to help care for a new baby or an ailing parent. When there's no affordable child care, that hurts children who wind up in second-rate care, or spending afternoons alone in front of the television set. And when any of our citizens cannot fulfill their potential because of factors that have nothing to do with their talent, their character, their work ethic, that says something about the state of our democracy."
The American Association of University Women issued a statement applauding the move.
“AAUW is delighted that President Obama has decided to formally give women and girls a seat at the White House table,” said the group's executive director, Linda D. Hallman, who will attend the White House signing ceremony. “The council will help ensure that the unique issues and challenges facing women and girls continue to be at the forefront of the administration’s policies and priorities.”
Lisa M. Maatz, AAUW director of public policy and government relations, added that the Clinton administration's White House Office for Women’s Initiatives and Outreach and the President’s InterAgency Council on Women were disbanded by President George W. Bush.
“We applaud President Obama for the creation of this council and for his leadership on behalf of women and girls across the country,” said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “In these tough economic times, American women and their families are struggling with a wide range of issues, not the least of which is access to quality, affordable health care. We look forward to working with the president and the White House Council on Women and Girls on issues that are critical to strengthening women’s health, including providing comprehensive health care information and services, reducing unintended pregnancies and decreasing the alarming number of sexually transmitted infections.”
The White House release on the council is below, as are Obama's remarks:
Obama announces foreign policy picks
President Obama announced this afternoon his nominations for several key foreign policy posts.
He selected Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry as ambassador to Afghanistan, Christopher R. Hill as ambassador to Iraq, Ivo Daalder as ambassador to NATO and Alexander Vershbow as assistant secretary of defense for International Security Affairs.
If confirmed by the Senate, Vershbow and Daalder will coordinate on US defense, development, and diplomatic objectives at the NATO summit next month in Germany, the president said.
“I am honored and grateful that these dedicated public servants have agreed to join my administration as we work to tackle the great challenges of our time. These extraordinarily accomplished individuals have served their country with great distinction, and they have each agreed to take on tough assignments. I am confident that they will work with a sense of purpose and pragmatism, along with Secretary Clinton and Secretary Gates, as we renew American diplomacy, strengthen our military, and advance our values and interests around the world,” Obama said in a statement.
The mini-biographies of the nominees, as provided by the White House, are below:
Obama issues signing statement on spending bill
True to his word, President Obama this afternoon issued a signing statement raising objections to some provisions in the $410 billion spending bill that he says run afoul of the constitution.
In a two-page statement (read it here), Obama says provisions on negotiations with foreign governments and international organizations would "unduly interfere" with his constitutional authority in foreign affairs. He also questioned a provision on funding United Nations peacekeeping operations, as well as the funding of congressional committees.
Obama announced Monday that while he would not use signing statements to disregard provisions of laws for policy reasons -- as his predecessor was criticized for doing, especially on national security issues -- he would use them in a limited way on constitutional grounds.
Obama said Monday that signing statements -- official documents in which the president lays out his legal interpretation of the bill for the federal bureaucracy to follow -- have been abused.
President George W. Bush has been criticized for using the statements to expand his power as commander in chief.
MoveOn turns to healthcare
MoveOn.org is moving on from the Iraq war to healthcare.
The powerful grassroots group, which was a key early supporter of Barack Obama, got its start in 1998 when it pushed for a censure of President Clinton and end to impeachment proceedings over the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and made a name with its vehement opposition to the Iraq war.
But now that Obama is president and has announced a withdrawal plan from Iraq, the group is expanding into other legislative priorities.
Starting Thursday, MSNBC reports, it plans to run a national cable TV ad on Obama's healthcare overhaul plan.
The spot takes on insurance companies, which MoveOn says will oppose a public insurance plan because it would cost them money. Obama has not committed to such an option, though it is under consideration in Congress.
"You know what the insurance companies see when they look at you?" the announcer asks. "Money -- which is why they're against the president's healthcare reform."
"Don't let the insurance companies get away with it," the announcer says, urging viewers to call their members of Congress to "put people before profits."
Obama: global action needed on recession
Before dispatching Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to lay the groundwork for the G-20 economic summit next month, President Obama today stressed the need for global action to stem the worldwide recession.
"We can do a really good job here at home with a whole host of policies, but if you continue to see deterioration in the world economy, that's going to set us back," Obama told reporters. "And I think it's very important for the American people to understand that as aggressive as the actions we are taking have been so far, it's very important to make sure that other countries are moving in the same direction, because the global economy is all tied together."
Geithner added, "Everything we do in the United States will be more effective if we have the world moving with us. You know, we're the most productive economy in the world, most productive workers in the world, but they need markets for their products that are expanding, and we have a lot of work to do, but I think we can make a lot of progress."
Obama, seated with Geithner in the Oval Office, also said he has two goals for the G-20 meeting April 2 in London: "to make sure that there is concerted action around the globe to jumpstart the economy" and to move forward on "a regulatory reform agenda that ensures that we don't see these same kinds of systemic risks and the potential for this kind of crisis again in the future."
Their full remarks are below:
Obama calls for earmark reform
After days of being hammered for not opposing a business-as-usual, pork-filled spending bill, President Obama rededicated himself this morning to reforming the budget process to weed out wasteful or politically-driven projects.
Obama, who during the presidential campaign vowed to limit earmarks, did not stand in the way as lawmakers of both parties put some 8,000 of them into the $410 billion bill given final congressional approval Tuesday night.
"I am signing an imperfect omnibus bill because it is necessary for the ongoing functions of government," he said this morning, arguing that "the nearly 99 percent that you probably haven’t heard much about" in the bill is not earmarks but funding necessary to keep the government running.
"But I also view this as a departure point for more far-reaching change."
"The future demands that we operate in a different way than we have in the past," Obama declared before signing the bill this afternoon. "So let there be no doubt: this piece of legislation must mark an end to the old way of doing business, and the beginning of a new era of responsibility and accountability that the American people have every right to expect and demand.
"If we are going to solve our economic crisis; if we are going to put Americans back to work; if we are going to make the investments required to build a foundation for our future growth, then we must restore the American people’s faith that their government is working for them, and that it's on their side. That's the government I promised. That's the government I intend to lead."
Obama said, however, that not all earmarks are wrong. "Done right, earmarks have given legislators the opportunity to direct federal money to worthy projects that benefit people in their districts, and that’s why I have opposed their outright elimination," he said. "I also find it ironic that some of those who railed most loudly against this bill because of earmarks actually inserted earmarks of their own – and will tout them in their own states and their own districts."
Still, he acknowledged, "earmarks have been used as a vehicle for waste, and fraud, and abuse. Projects have been inserted at the eleventh hour, without review, and sometimes without merit, in order to satisfy the political or personal agendas of a given legislator, rather than the public interest. "
Going forward, starting with next year's budget, Obama said, any earmarks should be required to meet strict standards. They should be aired at hearings and posted on lawmakers' websites in advance for public scrutiny. Any earmark for a for-profit private company should be subject to competitive bidding because they are most corrupting kind. "Furthermore, it should go without saying that an earmark must never be traded for political favors," he said.
"And finally, if my administration evaluates an earmark and determines that it has no legitimate public purpose, then we will seek to eliminate it, and we will work with Congress to do so," Obama vowed.
Besides limiting earmarks, the president called on Congress to pass appropriations bills separately and in an "orderly way" so that "massive, last-minute" omnibus bills such as this one aren't necessary.
Senator John McCain, Obama's Republican presidential rival and perhaps the loudest voice against earmarks, was not impressed by Obama's speech.
“The President's rhetoric is impressive, but his statement affirms we will continue to do business as usual in Washington regarding earmarks in appropriations legislation," McCain said in a statement. "The President could have resolved this issue in one statement – no more unauthorized pork barrel projects – and pledged to use his veto pen to stop them. This is an opportunity missed.”
Senator Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, also said Obama isn't going far enough. He promoted the bill he and McCain are sponsoring that would require a 60-vote supermajority in the Senate to keep unauthorized or undisclosed earmarks in spending bills.
Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts said he opposed the McCain-Feingold bill, saying that budget committees can review the projects and the vast majority are worthy.
Kerry said on MSNBC that while there were some "horrible" projects in the bill, but he defended the earmarks he inserted. (For a list of many of the Bay State projects, click here).
"You never have a perfect bill," Kerry said. "Then you're held accountable for your vote."
Obama's full remarks are below:
Earmark-filled bill passes Congress
In the end, most senators held their nose, gulped hard, and voted for a $410 billion bill to keep the federal government running.
The spending measure passed on a voice vote this evening after a motion to cut off debate passed 62-35, by two more votes than necessary.
The bill became a huge political headache for Congress and for President Obama because of days of publicity about 8,000 or so local projects, called pork-barrel by critics.
Obama plans to sign the measure Wednesday, but will also announce steps to limit earmarks, the White House said.
Without apology, Massachusetts lawmakers inserted dozens of earmarks for projects across the state, including $30 million for the Fitchburg commuter rail line and $22 million for an addition to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.
But in approving the measure, the Senate did agree with the House to skip an automatic cost-of-living pay increase they otherwise would have received next Jan. 1. Members of Congress make $174,000 a year.
Obama huddles with UN chief
President Obama met today for the first time with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and according to the pool report, Darfur, where the United States has declared a genocide is underway, was a major topic.
Obama told reporters that it is crucial to send a unified international message on the crisis. “The United States wants to work as actively as possible to try to resolve the immediate humanitarian crisis and to start putting us on the path for long-term peace and stability in the Sudan,” he said.
The president said the two leaders also discussed global climate change, Afghanistan, and the economic crisis.
The UN was a favorite target for Republicans during the Bush administration, but Obama said, “I think the United Nations can be an extraordinarily constructive, important partner in bringing about peace and stability to people around the world.”
According to the pool report, Ban said it is “a very good sign” for the UN that the meeting was happening only 50 days into Obama's administration.”
Ban, who is to meet Wednesday with Senator John F. Kerry, the new chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said 2009 is a "make or break year” for the UN on a range of crises and said the UN will be relying on the United States on Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Iraq, nuclear nonproliferation, and North Korea.
“The United Nations stands ready to work together with you Mr. President to make this make-or-break year turn into a make-it-work” year, he said.
Their full remarks (transcript provided by the White House) are below:
FULL ENTRYTop intelligence pick withdraws
Another top Obama administration official pulled the plug today on their appointment, and this time it has nothing to do with unpaid taxes.
Charles Freeman, picked as chairman of the National Intelligence Council, resigned before even starting his job after criticism over policy, specifically his opprobrium for Israel and his ties to Saudia Arabia.
"Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair announced today that Ambassador Charles W. Freeman Jr. has requested that his selection to be Chairman of the National Intelligence Council not proceed. Director Blair accepted Ambassador Freeman's decision with regret," Blair's office said in a statement.
The council draws information and analysis from all US intelligence agencies to produce national intelligence estimates.
Freeman served as assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs from 1993 to 1994 and was US ambassador to Saudi Arabia heading into and during the Persian Gulf War.
Since 1997, the Washington Post reported today, he has presided over the Middle East Policy Council, a Washington-based nonprofit funded in part by Saudi money. In that role, Freeman has occasionally criticized the Israeli government. The Post says that in 2007 he said, "The brutal oppression of the Palestinians by the Israeli occupation shows no sign of ending," adding, "American identification with Israel has become total."
Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee questioned Freeman's appointment. So did groups including the National Jewish Democratic Council, whose executive director Ira N. Forman had said Freeman is "not a pick I would make" and appears to be a "strong Arabist."
Republican Jewish Coalition Executive Director Matt Brooks applauded Freeman's withdrawal. "This news will come as a relief to the large and growing group of Americans who have grown concerned about the judgment and process that led to the selection of this flawed appointment," he said in a statement, adding that "it is unfortunate that important questions went unaddressed by the Obama White House on those occasions they were raised. It's troubling how much effort it took to get them to face up to this problem."
Representative Steve Israel, a New York Democrat on the House Select Intelligence committee, also said Freeman had done the right thing.
“Ambassador Freeman has every right to his opinions, however those opinions would have no place in our National Intelligence Estimates. We learned from eight years of the Bush administration that intelligence cannot be cherry-picked. It cannot be colored by opinion or even the appearance of conflict. With Ambassador Freeman’s departure, we have preserved the impartiality of US intelligence," Israel said in a statement.
Obama highlights education
Stressing education in the biggest way since taking office, President Obama called today for higher standards and stricter accountability to improve student performance.
Obama's forum was a speech this morning to the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
"The future belongs to the nation that best educates its citizens," Obama said.
That can be the United States, he said. But despite "unmatched resources," American students don't fare as well as they should against peers around the world.
"We can't afford to let it continue," he said. "At stake is nothing less than the American Dream."
The president, however, acknowledged, "Of course, we have heard all this year after year after year – and far too little has changed."
He put the blame on the "same stale debates" in Washington, including fellow Democrats who oppose merit pay for teachers and Republicans who are against greater investments.
"The time for finger-pointing is over," Obama said. "The time for holding ourselves accountable is here. What’s required is not simply new investments, but new reforms. It is time to expect more from our students. It is time to start rewarding good teachers and stop making excuses for bad ones. It is time to demand results from government at every level."
In calling for tougher test standards, he highlighted progress in Massachusetts: "The solution to low test scores is not lower standards – it’s tougher, clearer standards. Standards like those in Massachusetts, where 8th graders are now tying for first – first – in the world in science."
Massachusetts students actually did best on the fourth grade science exam, coming in second just behind Singapore in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study in 2007. Bay State eighth graders ranked third, behind students in Singapore and Chinese Taipei.
UPDATE: However, the Massachusetts Department of Education said today that the differences are statistically insignificant and said Obama was correct in saying that Bay State eighth graders tied for the highest in the world.
(His full remarks are below.)
A "fact sheet" the White House released in advance of the address says that "Providing a high-quality education for all children is critical to America’s economic future. Education has always been the foundation for achieving the American dream, providing opportunity to millions of American families, newcomers, and immigrants. Our nation’s economic competitiveness depends on providing every child with an education that will enable them to compete in a global economy that is predicated on knowledge and innovation.
"Progress toward this goal requires a race to the top to reform our nation’s schools. It requires holding schools accountable for helping all students meet world-class standards aligned to the demands of the 21st century workforce. It requires solutions for schools to close the achievement gap, and strategies to accelerate the learning of those that are the furthest behind. It requires new reforms to promote effective teaching and attract the best and brightest into the profession. It requires a national strategy to confront America’s persistent dropout crisis, and strengthen transitions to college and career."
Obama is calling for better early childhood education, state-of-the-art testing, more performance pay for teachers, and more public charter schools.
The full fact sheet is below:
Union battle royal begins
Big labor has had a good run so far under President Obama, whom it supported with thousands of volunteers and millions in campaign cash.
Congress passed and the president signed a bill making it easier for workers to sue over pay discrimination. Over Republican objections and despite yet another tax issue, ally Hilda Solis was installed as labor secretary. The $787 billion stimulus package includes a "Buy American" provision and otherwise should create thousands of jobs for union members.
But today starts the real test of unions' newfound power.
Senators Edward M. Kennedy and Tom Harkin, and Democrats in the House, introduced a bill that would let workers check a card to join unions instead of going through elections in which companies often play a major role. Critics say it would allow unions to largely bypass secret-ballot votes.
Unions hope the so-called check-card bill, backed by Obama, will reverse a long slide in membership. But business groups vehemently oppose the bill. Both sides have launched advertising and dispatched armies of lobbyists to Capitol Hill.
Harkin told the New York Times today that there are enough votes in the Senate to pass the bill -- but not the 60 likely to be required to overcome Republican procedural hurdles.
Unions, however, see this as their best chance to get the legislation. "Today is a banner day for working Americans, a milestone on the road to rebuilding our nation’s middle class -- and it couldn’t come at a more crucial time," AFL-CIO president John Sweeney said in a statement.
"The introduction of this bill so early is a strong message that Congress is ready to move forward to help working families build an economy that works for everyone. It is common sense legislation that makes good on a simple promise: If a majority of employees in a workplace want a union, they should be able to have a union and bargain
for a better life."
Anna Burger, chairwoman of the Change to Win labor coalition, also sought to portray the bill as part of the economic recovery.
“The Employee Free Choice Act is a key part of a larger economic plan," she said in a statement. "It is vital to restoring our economy and putting workers back on a path of prosperity. Right now, millions of working families are struggling -- losing their jobs, their health care, and their retirement benefits. They’re working harder than ever before, yet they’re not able to share in the wealth they helped create. To really fix this economy, we must rebuild the middle class. The solution is simple: create good jobs that support a family so workers can again buy homes, cars and the necessities for their families -- and put money back into our economy."
Obama's promises, 50 days in
Halfway to the much-watched 100-day benchmark, President Obama has kept 17 campaign promises, broken two, and compromised on seven, a watchdog group says.
Politifact.com, which is tracking all 513 pledges it says he made during the long campaign, says two are stalled and 39 are in the works. There has been no action on the other 446.
The two Politifact says Obama has broken are to allow at least five days for the public to look at a bill passed by Congress before he signs it into law and to create a $3,000 per job tax credit for companies that create jobs.
Of what it describe as his top 10 promises, the president has kept one -- creating a foreclosure prevention fund -- and compromised on a second -- enacting a $500 tax credit for workers -- while the others remain in the works or left undone.
Obama rebukes Bush on signing statements
Rebuking his predecessor for the second time today, President Obama declared that he will not use "signing statements" to disregard parts of laws because he disagrees on policy grounds, but only when he strongly believes the provisions are unconstitutional.
In a presidential memo (read it here), Obama also ordered his top executive branch officials to seek advice from Attorney General Eric Holder about whether to enforce the hundreds of statements proffered by Bush that critics say he used to ignore bills properly passed by Congress and expand his power, particularly on national security.
"There is no doubt that the practice of issuing such statements can be abused. Constitutional signing statements should not be used to suggest that the president will disregard statutory requirements on the basis of policy disagreements," wrote Obama, who also overturned Bush's restrictions today on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.
"I will issue signing statements to address constitutional concerns only when it is appropriate to do so as a means of discharging my constitutional responsibilities," Obama pledged.
The president also promised to "take appropriate and timely steps, whenever practicable" to let Congress know of his constitutional concerns about bills before they pass. He also said he would clearly lay out his constitutional objection in any signing statements he does issue; Bush was harshly criticized for issuing signing statements with vague reasons.
A series of stories in the Globe, which eventually won the Pulitzer Prize, journalism's highest honor, pointed out that Bush used signing statements to disobey hundreds of bills approved by Congress on a wide range of issues.
They emerged as an issue after he used such statements to suggest he could bypass a law on harsh interrogations of terrorism detainees, and a law requiring the FBI to tell Congress how it was using expanded police powers under the Patriot Act. Bush also issued them on a wide range of issues including affirmative action, immigration, whistle-blower protections, and safeguards against political interference in scientific research. The statements are official documents, recorded in the federal register, in which the president lays out his legal interpretation of a bill for the federal bureaucracy to follow.
During the presidential campaign, Obama blasted Bush for how he used signing statements, but reserved the right to issue them, himself, in a more restrained way. Republican presidential John McCain said he would not use them at all.
While the Bush administration firmly defended its use of the statements as lawful and appropriate, they generated a vigorous debate on Capitol Hill and legal circles. The American Bar Association passed a resolution urging Bush and future presidents not to "misuse" them to disregard laws, calling such statements "contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional separation of powers."
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs asserted today that Obama will return to the traditional way the statements have been used "for two centuries in order for presidents to make known constitutional problems with ideas that are in legislation without necessarily dealing a veto to the entire piece of legislation."
"I think the previous administration issued hundreds and hundreds of signing statements that specifically entailed ...that people disregard portions of legislation or the intent of Congress," Gibbs told reporters. "This president will use signing statements in order to go back to what has previously been done, and that is to enumerate constitutional problems ... but not ask that laws be disallowed simply by executive fiat."
Obama: science should trump politics
President Obama, lifting an eight-year limit on federal funding of stem cell research, today portrayed his decision as part of a broader move to focus on science instead of politics.
Besides signing an executive order (read it here) reversing the Bush administration restrictions, Obama is also issuing a presidential memorandum (read it here) directing the head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to develop a strategy for restoring scientific integrity to government decision making.
The goal, the president said: "To ensure that in this new administration, we base our public policies on the soundest science; that we appoint scientific advisers based on their credentials and experience, not their politics or ideology; and that we are open and honest with the American people about the science behind our decisions."
On embryonic stem cell research in particular, Obama acknowledged the religious-based opposition. But he said there is an ethical way to do such research.
"Rather than furthering discovery, our government has forced what I believe is a false choice between sound science and moral values," he said in the East Room of the White House, filled with advocates of stem cell research who cheered and applauded his annoucement. "In this case, I believe the two are not inconsistent. As a person of faith, I believe we are called to care for each other and work to ease human suffering. I believe we have been given a capacity and will to pursue this research -- and the humanity and conscience to do so responsibly."
Under Bush's order, taxpayer money could only be used for research on a small number of stem cell lines created before Aug. 9, 2001. Since, hundreds more stem cell lines have been created, but off-limits to federal funding.
While urging Congress to give more money to stem cell research, Obama is leaving to Congress the particularly controversial issue of whether taxpayer money should be used to experiment on embryos themselves. A congressional ban has been in place since 1996. He also made clear he opposes cloning for human reproduction.
The president also said that while stem cell research holds much promise in the treatment of spinal cord injuries, diabetes, and Parkinson’s disease, there is no certainty.
"But that potential will not reveal itself on its own," Obama said. "Medical miracles do not happen simply by accident. They result from painstaking and costly research from years of lonely trial and error, much of which never bears fruit, and from a government willing to support that work.
"Ultimately, I cannot guarantee that we will find the treatments and cures we seek," he added. "No president can promise that. But I can promise that we will seek them -- actively, responsibly, and with the urgency required to make up for lost ground. Not just by opening up this new frontier of research today, but by supporting promising research of all kinds, including groundbreaking work to convert ordinary human cells into ones that resemble embryonic stem cells.
"I can also promise that we will never undertake this research lightly. We will support it only when it is both scientifically worthy and responsibly conducted."
Some patients, who could be helped by such research, attended the ceremony.
One was former Communications Workers of American vice president Pete Catucci, who was diagnosed with ALS, known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, in early 2007.
“Stem cell therapy is real. It’s time the United States caught up with the rest of the world and moved forward on this critical research," Catucci said in a statement. "I am grateful to President Obama for reversing the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research that’s blocked so much important research over the past eight years.”
But one vocal advocate was not. Actor Christopher Reeve, who was paralyzed in a horse-riding mishap and whose crusade Obama noted.
"Christopher once told a reporter who was interviewing him: 'If you came back here in ten years, I expect that I’d walk to the door to greet you,' the president said.
"Christopher did not get that chance. But if we pursue this research, maybe one day – maybe not in our lifetime, or even in our children’s lifetime – but maybe one day, others like him might."
Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts issued a statement praising Obama's move.
"Sometimes medicine advances through inspired discoveries in the laboratory, and sometimes through brilliant insights at the patient’s bedside. But today, an extraordinary medical breakthrough was achieved with the stroke of a pen. With today’s executive order, President Obama has righted an immense wrong done to the hopes of millions of patients. The President’s action today unlocks the enormous potential of life-sustaining medical progress against a wide range of serious illnesses and injuries, all within strong ethical guidelines.”
So did Kennedy's Bay State colleague in the Senate.
“Today’s announcement is a long time in coming,” Senator John F. Kerry said in a statement. “Finally an American President has reaffirmed our country’s commitment to potentially lifesaving, ethical stem cell research. For the past eight years, not only has scientific progress been restricted, but the best hopes for a dialogue that finds common ground have been diminished. I commend President Obama for no longer allowing politics to get in the way of promising work on spinal cord injuries, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, diabetes, heart disease, cancer and other diseases affecting millions of Americans, and for an approach that restores the promise of ethically-guided research in the best American tradition.”
Obama also won plaudits from an interesting quarter, former first lady Nancy Reagan. "I’m very grateful that President Obama has lifted the restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research,” she said in a statement. “These new rules will now make it possible for scientists to move forward. I urge researchers to make use of the opportunities that are available to them, and to do all they can to fulfill the promise that stem cell research offers."
UPDATE: Republicans in Congress, however, objected vociferously to Obama's decision.
"This decision runs counter to President Obama's promise to be a president for all Americans," Representative John Boehner of Ohio, the top Republican in the House, said in a statement. "For a third time in his young presidency, the president has rolled back important protections for innocent life, further dividing our nation at a time when we need greater unity to tackle the challenges before us.
"I fully support stem cell research, but I draw the line at taxpayer-funded research that requires the destruction of human embryos, and millions of Americans feel similarly," Boehner said.
Representative Chris Smith, co-chairman of the House Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, told reporters at a Capitol Hill news conference that scientific advances had already been happening under the Bush administration rules.
"At a time when highly significant, even historic breakthroughs in adult stem cell research have become almost daily occurrences and almost to the point of being mundane, President Obama has chosen to turn back the clock and starting today will force taxpayers to subsidize the unethical over the ethical, the unworkable over what works, and hype and hyperbole over hope," Smith said.
"Human-embryo-destroying stem cell research is not only unethical, unworkable and unreliable, it is now demonstrably unnecessary. Assertions that leftover embryos are better off dead so that their stem cells can be derived is dehumanizing and cheapens human life."
Obama's full remarks (transcript from the White House) are below:
FULL ENTRYNonprofits need national service boost, report says
National service advocates plan to tell a Senate committee on Tuesday that a surge in volunteerism could be a lifeline for overburdened nonprofit groups.
The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, whose chairman is Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, is to hear from Michael Brown, CEO of City Year, on the next generation of national service.
At the hearing, the Democratic Leadership Council's Bruce Reed, director of domestic policy in the Clinton administration, and John M. Bridgeland, who held the same job under President George W. Bush, plan to submit a report titled, "The Quiet Crisis: The Impact of the Economic Downturn on the Nonprofit Sector."
"As Americans struggle through the current recession, the nation's nonprofit organizations are facing a triple whammy: the evaporation of wealth has decimated charitable donations; the state and local budget crunch is costing nonprofits their foremost paying clients; and the human need for nonprofit help is skyrocketing while nonprofit resources shrink," the DLC says.
Among other recommendations, the report calls for Congress to pass a national service bill drafted by Kennedy and Senator Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican, and supported by President Obama, to triple to 250,000 the opportunities for Americans to perform national and community service.
Billionaire Buffett warns of 'muddled' message on economy
Another high-profile backer of President Obama added his voice today to those fretting publicly that the administration is not doing enough -- or taking the right actions -- to shore up the financial system and turn around the economy.
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett said on CNBC that the Obama team is sending mixed some signals about its approach, hurting consumer and market confidence.
"The message has to be very, very clear as to what government will be doing," Buffett said. "And I think we've had, and it's the nature of the political process somewhat, but we've had muddled messages and the American public does not know. They feel they don't know what's going on, and their reaction then is to absolutely pull back."
As the Globe reported on Saturday, there are some Obama supporters and others who say the government should more aggressively take on failing banks, putting them into federal receivership and following the response to the 1980s savings and loan crisis.
Buffett also admonished Republicans for unnecessarily beating up Obama, saying they "have an obligation to regard this as an economic war and realize you need one leader."
UPDATE: White House spokesman Robert Gibbs asserted that Buffett was criticizing Washington as a whole, not Obama in particular. He emphasized instead Buffett's call for Democrats and Republicans to cooperate for the good of the country.
In his daily briefing, Gibbs said that while there's always room for improvement in communicating the right message on the economy, "we have to continue to give people a realistic sense of where this economy is, but also ...we've got to make sure people understand that brighter days are ahead."
"But I think Mr. Buffett would agree that ... that this problem isn't going to be fixed overnight," Gibbs added. "The problems that we dealt with starting in sort of early to mid- September of last year didn't start last summer. Many of those problems started years ago. Many of the systemic problems that were rooted in what ultimately failed took place a while ago."
Obama to end stem cell research funding ban
By Joseph Williams, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- President Obama plans to sign an executive order on Monday overturning his predecessor's restrictions on federal funding of stem cell research.
Administration officials would only say, "there will be a stem cell related event on Monday."
But the White House sent out an email today saying it was planning a ceremony "on stem cells and restoring scientific integrity to the government process. At the event the president will sign an executive order related to stem cells."
Sources said the order would lift the restrictions on federal funding of human embryonic stem cells.
In 2001, then-President Bush limited federal funding for such research to existing lines of stem cells, acceding to the demands of some religious groups but angering many scientists.
Obama is expected to allow the National Institutes of Health to pay for scientists to study hundreds of lines of cells that have been developed since then.
The move will fulfill a campaign pledge that Obama used to differentiate himself with John McCain, his Republican rival. “Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe that embryonic stem cell research represents real hope to millions of families dealing with debilitating conditions," his campaign said.
Reaction to Obama's expected move is already coming fast-and-furious.
"This will be an enormous relief, because of the enormous constraints under which we've operated," said Doug Melton, co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. He said that if Obama's actions are what he hopes -- a lifting of the restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research -- he will throw a party in his lab to celebrate the end of the restrictions.
"Researchers who have been unable to study these cells will now be excited by the fact they are accessible and can be used in labs all over the US," Melton said.
Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, leader of the Interfaith Alliance, said in a statement, "Word that President Obama will overturn the ban on federal funding for stem cell research is good news for science and religion. The ban instituted by President Bush was based on the views of a select group of faiths rather then on sound science. Federally funded scientific institutions must be guided by objectivity, facts, and evidence, and not ideology. We do a disservice to religion when we ban scientific pursuits in its name."
But the Family Research Council blasted Obama, arguing that stem cell research is proceeding even with the Bush rules and that the executive order is the latest instance of Obama bypassing Congress on a controversial issue.
"It must be Friday night because word leaks of yet another deadly executive order by President Obama," the council's president, Tony Perkins, said in a statement. "Friday night orders include rescinding the Mexico City Policy, eroding conscience protections for health care providers and now word of greenlighting funding for experiments that encourage human embryo destruction. Today's news that President Obama will open the door to direct taxpayer funds for embryonic stem cell research that encourages the destruction of human embryos is a slap in the face to Americans who believe in the dignity of all human life.
"I believe it is unethical to use human life, even young embryonic life, to advance science. While such research is unfortunately legal, taxpayers should not have to foot the bill for experiments that require the destruction of human life. President Obama's policy change is especially troubling given the significant adult stem cell advances that are being used to treat patients now without harming or destroying human embryos."
Obama nominates ambassador for women's issues
Hillary Rodham Clinton made one of her biggest splashes as first lady when she spoke out on women's rights in Beijing.
This afternoon, Clinton, as secretary of state, and her boss, President Obama, jointly announced a new post of ambassador at-large for global women's issues.
"The president’s decision to nominate an ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues is unprecedented and reflects the elevated importance of global women’s issues to the president and his entire administration," the White House said in a statement announcing Obama's intent to nominate Melanne Verveer, CEO of an international nonprofit that grooms female leaders, to the job.
She also served as Clinton's chief of staff and was her chief assistant in her international activities, and took the lead in establishing the President’s Interagency Council on Women.
Obama also announced nominations for two other top State Department posts: Esther Brimmer as assistant secretary for international organizations and Phil Gordon as assistant secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs.
“Each of these individuals brings a deep knowledge and expertise in their field, along with a commitment to strengthen American diplomacy to meet 21st century challenges. They will be joining a leadership team at the State Department which will be at the forefront of our effort to renew America’s security and standing in an uncertain world,” Obama said in a statement.
Clinton added: “In my testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I spoke about the use of smart power. At the heart of smart power are smart people, and these talented individuals are among the smartest I know. Along with the entire State Department team, I will count on and turn to these individuals for their expertise, experience, and creative vision to make good on the promises of this new Administration.”
The nominees' mini-biographies, provided by the White House, are below:
'Reset' gift needs resetting
Maybe she should have just given him one of those "Easy" buttons from Staples.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton tried today to inject a little humor into the tense relationship with Russia, giving Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov a bow-topped box containing a mock "reset" button.
Her "little gift," she said, alluded to what President Obama and Vice President Biden have been saying about starting again, according to Bloomberg's account. "We want to reset our relationship," she said.
Only one glitch: instead of saying "reset" in Russian, the button said "overcharge," Lavrov told Clinton. "You got it wrong," he said.
"We won't let you do that to us," Clinton joked.
White House meeting on stimulus next week
Another week, another White House conference.
The Obama team announced this afternoon that next Thursday, President Obama and Vice President Biden will hold a "White House Recovery and Reinvestment Act Implementation Conference" on the $787 billion economic stimulus package.
The stated goal: "to ensure that dollars invested and spent as part of the Recovery act are effective, transparent and efficient."
The White House said that each state’s governor is being invited to send their senior official working on the stimulus to share ideas and hear from Cabinet secretaries and administration officials, including Earl Devaney, the former Massachusetts police officer leading the stimulus accountability board.
“States have a huge responsibility in partnering with us to ensure that dollars spent as part of the Recovery Act are spent wisely, with transparency and accountability,” Biden said in a statement. “We’re giving each state a chance to send a high-level representative to interact first-hand with top officials here in Washington. Our hope for this conference is to meet face-to-face with the state officials and streamline this implementation process so we can get our economy running again.”
Obama has already read the riot act to state and local officials, warning them that they'll be called out if they waste the money.
The president hosted a "fiscal responsibility" summit at the White House last week, and on Thursday one on healthcare.
Obama talks up stimulus as unemployment rises
With a flourish, President Obama signed the $787 billion stimulus package into law on Feb. 17. But he's still giving it the hard-sell and hitting back at its critics.
This morning, Obama sang its praises in Columbus, Ohio, at a graduation ceremony for 25 police cadets are joining the force, instead of being laid off before starting their beats, with stimulus money.
With the uniformed cadets arrayed behind him on stage, Obama admonished those who argued that the stimulus was "unwise and unnecessary" to talk to the teachers, nurses, firefighters, and the Columbus cadets who still have their jobs thanks to the plan.
"This country has never responded to a crisis by sitting on the sidelines and hoping for the best," he said, citing the extended unemployment benefits, healthcare provisions, and tax credits that will show up in bigger paychecks April 1.
He also announced that $2 billion in grants for more cops, prosecutors, probation officers, crime prevention programs, and equipment are now being made available. (The White House fact sheet on the money is below.)
But the president also acknowledged that the stimulus plan alone "won't turn economy around and solve every problem." (His full remarks are below.)
His challenge was made starkly obvious by the latest dire jobs report out today.
Obama says the stimulus plan will save or create 3.5 million jobs in the next two years. But the jobs numbers show that even if that happens, the economy won't be back to even.
The unemployment rate jumped to 8.1 percent last month, the highest since late 1983, with the loss of another 651,000 jobs, after cuts of 655,000 in January and 681,000 jobs in December. That means that since the recession began in December 2007, the economy has lost 4.4 million jobs -- what Obama called an "astounding" number.
The Laborers’ International Union of North America made a similar point, saying that more than 2 million construction workers are out of work and their unemployment rate is at 21.4 percent. "The economic recovery plan is a good start but there is a lot more work to do. Even if the recovery plan meets expectations and creates 700,000 construction jobs, there will still be more than 1.3 million construction workers looking for a job," the union's general president, Terry O’Sullivan, said in a statement.
The Alliance for American Manufacturing, noting that another 168,000 manufacturing jobs were lost last month, also says that the stimulus package is not enough to turn around the economy.
"This is a grim moment for American workers," Scott Paul, its executive director, said in a statement. "Washington's priority must be to put people back to work. One time-tested, effective way of doing that is more infrastructure investment using American-made materials. The economic recovery package passed last month was a good first step, but more needs to be done."
In advance of Obama's speech at the graduation, the White House issued a statement from Labor Secretary Hilda Solis on the jobs report:
“Today we learned that our economy lost another 651,000 jobs in February, bringing the unemployment rate to 8.1 percent. 4.4 million Americans have now lost their jobs since this recession began last year, and there are now nearly 3 million Americans who have been unemployed for six months or more.
"This data does not just represent abstract statistics. Rather it illustrates the struggles of millions of Americans who do not know how they will raise their families, or pay their bills and mortgages. They are the central focus of this Administration’s economic policies, and why we are moving swiftly and aggressively to jumpstart job creation and grow our economy.
"As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, President Obama and I have already moved to increase unemployment insurance benefits and to extend the duration of unemployment insurance. In addition, I am announcing today that the Labor Department is making available more than 3 and a half billion dollars to states for education, training and reemployment services.
"We will continue to do whatever is necessary to break the destructive cycle of job loss in this country and put Americans back to work. That includes our plans to re-start lending for consumers and small businesses, help responsible homeowners pay their mortgages and re-finance their homes, and address the long-term economic challenges we face—including the high cost of health care, our dependence on oil, and the state of our schools.
"From the day this Administration began, we knew that solving the economic crisis we were presented with would not be easy and would not happen overnight. But the President and I believe that this nation has both the resources and the will to meet this challenge and emerge stronger and more prosperous than before.”
AFL-CIO president John Sweeney issued a statement praising the stimulus package, but asserted that to rebuild a "robust real economy, with good jobs and a strong middle class, also demands attention to health care, education, pensions, climate change and other issues."
"America's steepest drop in employment in over 30 years shows just how long the road to economic recovery will be," Sweeney said. "The pain of February's widespread job losses was felt across virtually every employment sector -- with manufacturing and construction especially hard hit. Unemployment among African American men hit 14.9 percent last month – almost double the level a year ago.
"The economy has spiraled into a vicious downward cycle: Workers are losing their jobs and can't maintain their mortgage payments. Housing foreclosures are exacerbating the downward slide in housing prices and tightening credit. Frozen credit markets are forcing firms to lay off more workers. Our country has a tough path ahead as we work to create jobs, restore the middle class and ensure that our economy works for everyone, once again."
More healthcare wonkfests on tap
Following up Thursday's summit at the White House, the Obama administration announced today a series of regional events to continue gathering ideas on a healthcare overhaul.
They will be later this month and early next month and be hosted by the governors of California, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, and Vermont..
“Health care reform is a fiscal imperative,” Obama said in a statement. “Skyrocketing health care costs are draining our federal budget, undermining our long-term economic prosperity and devastating American families. The time for reform is now and these regional forums are some of the key first steps toward breaking the stalemate we have been stuck in for far too long. The forums will bring together diverse groups of people all over the country who have a stake in reforming our health care system and ask them to put forward their best ideas about how we bring down costs and expand coverage for American families.”
Like the White House version, the regional forums will include doctors, patients, providers, policy analysts, and others. The events will begin with a video from Obama, a summary of the findings from community gatherings in December, and an overview of Thursday's summit.
Obama off to Europe
President Obama plans his first extended foreign trip -- late this month to Europe to cement trans-Atlantic ties and to coordinate strategies on the worldwide economic downturn.
At a meeting today of NATO foreign ministers, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced that Obama's tour will start March 31 and end April 5 and include stops at the G-20 economic summit in Britain, NATO meetings in France and Germany, and a US-European Union conference in the Czech Republic.
UPDATE: The White House confirmed the trip, issuing this statement:
"President and Mrs. Obama will visit the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the Czech Republic March 31-April 5, 2009. In the United Kingdom, the President will continue discussions on important bilateral and global issues with British leaders and work with other G-20 Leaders to address the global financial crisis at the London Summit. On April 3, the President will participate in bilateral programs with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The President then looks forward to participating in NATO Summit events in Strasbourg, France, and Kehl, Germany, April 3-4, where leaders will celebrate 60 years of providing peace and security culminating in a unified Europe, discuss challenges and strategies for success of NATO’s mission in Afghanistan and other issues, and commit to preparing NATO to combat the new threats of the 21st century. The President will travel to Prague, Czech Republic, April 4-5 to meet with Czech officials and with leaders of European Union (EU) member states and the European Commission president to build a stronger partnership between the United States and the EU, one which will enable us to better confront our shared challenges together."
Since taking office on Jan. 20, Obama has left the country only once -- a one-day jaunt to Canada to meet with that country's leader. The president has taken to the road across the country to sell the economic stimulus plan and last week to North Carolina to announce his Iraq pullout plan.
Not paging Dr. Gupta
Cancel that page: The White House is not calling Dr. Sanjay Gupta to be the nation's surgeon general.
CNN is reporting this afternoon that its well-known medical correspondent has withdrawn from consideration, and will talk more about it tonight on "Larry King Live."
Gupta would have been one of the most visible personalities in that job, but critics questioned whether he could have been an independent voice on public health matters.
'Thelma and Louise,' not 'Harry and Louise'
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island fired off one of the best lines at today's White House healthcare summit.
As relayed by President Obama at the wrap-up session, Whitehouse argued during a small group session that it's time for an overhaul by saying it's not a "Harry and Louise" moment -- referring to the couple in the insurance company TV ads that helped scuttle health reform during the Clinton administration -- but a "Thelma and Louise" moment, alluding to the 1991 movie starring Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis whose characters drive off a cliff at the end.
"We're in the car headed toward the cliff and we must act," Obama quoted Whitehouse, before adding that while Thelma and Louise did go over the cliff, "that's not our intention here."
Obama vows to push through health overhaul
Opening his healthcare summit, President Obama vowed this afternoon to try to enact comprehensive reform by the end of the year, saying that Washington has ignored the problem for far too long.
Declaring that the "exploding cost" of healthcare is one of the greatest threats to the "very foundation of our economy," he said that sweeping change is a "fiscal imperative" as well as a moral one, noting that the ranks of the uninsured has grown by 8 million to about 46 million.
The president directly addressed skeptics who say, as he put it, "that at a time of economic crisis, we simply can't afford to fix our healthcare system as well."
Obama asserted that the country can't afford not to take on healthcare. "The same soaring costs that are straining our families' budgets are sinking our businesses and eating up our government's budget too," he said. "Too many small businesses can't insure their employees. Major American corporations are struggling to compete with their foreign counterparts. And companies of all sizes are shipping their jobs overseas or shutting their doors for good."
He added: "If we want to create jobs and rebuild our economy, and get our federal budget under control, then we have to address the crushing cost of health care in this year in this administration."
And to the doubters who point out that the Clinton administration utterly failed 16 years ago, Obama argued that many of those who bitterly opposed major changes in healthcare then are now on board.
"Our inability to reform healthcare in the past is just one example of how special interests have had their way, and the public interest has fallen by the wayside. And I know people are afraid we'll draw the same old lines in the sand, and give in to the same entrenched interests, and arrive back at the same stalemate that we've been stuck in for decades," he said.
"But I am here today -- and I believe you are here today -- because I believe that this time is different. This time, the call for reform is coming from the bottom up, from all across the spectrum – from doctors, nurses and patients; unions and businesses; from hospitals, health care providers and community groups. It’s coming from mayors, governors and legislatures, Democrats, Republicans who are racing ahead of Washington to pass bold health care initiatives on their own. This time, there is no debate about whether all Americans should have quality, affordable healthcare the only question is, how?"
Obama promised openness in the process, a reminder that the Clinton effort was assailed for being conducted mostly behind closed doors.
Ad libbing, he called an invitation to the summit "the hottest ticket in town."
"In this effort, every voice must be heard," the president said. "Every idea must be considered. Every option must be on the table. There should be no sacred cows. Each of us must accept that none of us will get everything we want, and that no proposal for reform will be perfect.... But when it comes to addressing our healthcare challenge, we can no longer let the perfect be the enemy of the essential.
"Finally, I want to be very clear at the outset that while everyone has a right to take part in this discussion, nobody has the right to take it over and dominate. The status quo is the one option that is not on the table. And those who seek to block any reform at all -- any reforms at any cost -- will not prevail this time around."
Obama said during the campaign and after, he received letters from people seeking help because they have put off going to the doctor or filling prescriptions, and have to go to the emergency room for care.
"There's a lot of desperation out there," he said. "Today, I want them, and people like them across this country, to know that I have not forgotten them. They are why we are here today – to start delivering the change they demanded at the polls in November.
Obama concluded, "It will not be easy. There will be false starts and set-backs and mistakes along the way. But I am confident that if we come together, and work together, we will finally achieve what generations of Americans have fought for and fulfill the promise of healthcare in our time. And what a remarkable achievement that would be."
UPDATE: At the close of the summit, Obama played moderator, summarizing the high points of what was discussed during small breakout sessions.
Obama warned both liberal groups that want universal coverage that it won't work without cutting costs, and fiscal conservatives that want to cut costs that reform won't work without expanding coverage.
He addressed the skepticism again that with the deepening recession, there are too many other priorities and healthcare reform should wait for another day.
Obama argued that the nation "didn't get it done" during good times, mild recessions, and war. "There is always a reason not to do it," he concluded.
His full opening remarks are below, followed by his closing remarks and the question-and-answer session at the close of the summit:
Kerry: Clean energy revolution coming
Senator John F. Kerry, who has added global warming atop the Foreign Relations Committee's to-do list, told industry officials and others today that a clean energy revolution is coming -- and they need to get on board.
"We are in the midst of a fundamental shift in our national and governmental priorities that could one day be remembered—alongside the presidencies of Roosevelt, Johnson, and Reagan—as truly transformational," Kerry said at a forum sponsored by Hitachi and featuring panels organized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Brookings Institution.
Kerry noted that the economic stimulus package includes $80 billion for alternative energy. He also pointed out that President Obama, in his address to a joint session of Congress last week and in his proposed budget, called for capping carbon emissions and creating a market for the sale of pollution credits.
"Cap-and-trade is no longer an academic question," Kerry said, according to prepared remarks. "The President and leadership in both houses of Congress are on board to make it a reality, and you need to start preparing to take advantage of it."
"If passed, this will constitute the most significant realignment of our energy system in US history," the Massachusetts lawmaker added. "For the first time ever, America will put a price on carbon that will light a fire under our green entrepreneurs, drive development of new clean technologies, re-energize our economy, and tackle global climate change—all at the same time. This should not be frightening. Far from it: the change and the challenge may both be tremendous, but so are the possibilities. I truly believe that the next four or five Googles are in the energy sector, staring us in the face."
His full prepared remarks are below:
FULL ENTRYObama convenes healthcare summit
Healthcare is the message of the day at the White House -- and if President Obama succeeds in an overhaul that helps many of the 47 million Americans without insurance -- could be one of his signature achievements.
Obama is convening a summit this afternoon with about 150 elected officials and representatives of groups that have much at stake in the outcome -- and that helped kill the last attempt at an overhaul during the Clinton administration 16 years ago.
"The Forum will bring together the people who have a stake in our health care system and the people who have the ability to change it; those who worked to pass health care reform a decade ago and those who worked to defeat it," the White House says in a background paper.
"Learning the lessons of past efforts, the President is starting by bringing diverse and bipartisan stakeholders together for a substantive and transparent discussion consistent with the principles he has laid out," the background paper says. "Participants will be asked to work together and offer up ideas to bring down costs and increase coverage for all Americans. The President will ask for the best ideas and the best ways to make reform happen. While the people around the table – Republicans, Democrats, insurance companies, labor, doctors and patient advocates – may not agree on everything, having them around the table is a critical, but first step in this process."
While some skeptics say healthcare is too heavy a lift during a deepening recession, Obama argues that the skyrocketing medical costs make reform essential to the recovery. In his proposed budget, he set aside $634 billion over 10 years for an initiative that many analysts say will cost more than $1 trillion.
The president plans to make opening remarks at about 1 p.m. Then, the participants will break into small groups for discussion. Obama plans to make closing remarks about 4 p.m.
UPDATE: The White House released a list of attendees, which is below. It includes several "everyday" Americans who took part in house meetings and other gatherings to discuss healthcar.
The graying of Obama
A front-page New York Times report today on President Obama already getting some gray hair barely six weeks into his term is the latest evidenc of a Washington truth: the weight of the presidency prematurely ages its occupants.
The Globe reported in January that the average president ages two years for every year in office, according to Dr. Michael Roizen, a specialist on aging.
"The pounding stress of the job can unleash biological forces that translate into wrinkles, gray hair, weight fluctuation - and sometimes even premature death, although there is far from universal agreement on the long-term health effects of the presidency," the article went on to say.
Click here for a gallery of how some previous presidents aged.
Mass., other states seek freedom on auto emissions
Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley is getting her say today as the Environmental Protection Agency holds a hearing on whether to allow states to set tougher auto emissions standards than the federal government.
In his first week in office, President Obama ordered the EPA to reconsider a petition from Massachusetts and more than a dozen other states that want to enact rules by California. The Bush administration had blocked the request. Obama's order was part of a broader push to wean the country from foreign oil and cut carbon emissions to lessen global warming, overturning skepticism from the Bush years.
"Since the EPA will ultimately have to set federal standards at least as strict as those already set by California, the debate about whether there should be one set of national standards is in the end much ado about nothing,” Coakley said in a statement. “We are urging the agency to grant the California waiver while it proceeds to put federal standards in place that will establish national standards at least as strict.”
In its comments to the EPA, Coakley said her office is focusing on one policy issue: whether there should be only one set of nationwide auto emissions standards to address arguments from the auto industry that a single set of standards is necessary to help the battered industry. The comments say that the EPA can achieve the automakers’ goal of having national standards by adopting ones at least as strict as those set by California.
Coakley also urges the EPA not to undermine states' authority to adopt stricter standards, arguing that the current rules have "driven technological and regulatory innovation, and economic and environmental progress."
Guess who came to dinner
He's had key members of Congress over for cocktails. He invited them to watch the Super Bowl. He went to their turf on Capitol Hill to show he's serious about consultation.
In his latest outreach to the legislative branch, President Obama had the leaders of congressional committee and their spouses over for dinner Wednesday night.
The menu: celery soup, mushroom crisps, steelhead salmon, saffron couscous, crispy spinach and greens, and milk chocolate velvet cake.
And a big serving of humble pie from the president.
"We just want to say welcome on behalf of Michelle and myself. We're so glad all of you could join us," Obama told his guests.
"Obviously the country is going through an extraordinarily difficult time, and we are going to have some monumental debates taking place over the next several months and years," he added. "We also know that we're not always going to agree on everything. But given how hard so many of you are working on both sides of the aisle, day in, day out, we thought it was important for us to be able to step back for a moment, remind ourselves that we have things in common -- family, friends, laughter -- and hopefully, we'll have a chance to appreciate each other a little bit, take a time-out before we dive back into the game."
Congress has given Obama his $787 billion economic stimulus plan, but his emissaries are getting grilled on the banking system rescue and home foreclosure aid, and his first budget is drawing fire from both sides of the aisle.
"So we hope you have a wonderful evening -- not to mention the fact that this is a pretty big house, so we get lonely. So -- and it's hard for me to move around out there sometimes so I've got to bring the world to me," he said in closing his remarks. "But, anyway, I'm grateful for all of you coming. Michelle is thrilled that you're here. And we hope you just have a wonderful evening. Thank you."
Will Obama be like Bush on executive power?
By Joseph Williams, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- As a Senate committee debated today whether to create a "truth commission" to investigate alleged abuses of White House authority during the Bush era, President Obama has quietly adopted some of his predecessor's expansive views of the power as commander-in-chief -- especially concerning anti-terrorism policies.
Those moves could lead to a confrontation over the scope of presidential authority with the Democratic-led Congress, whose leaders say they intend to recalibrate the balance of power between Congress and the White House. Some top Democrats, Obama allies, and civil libertarians say they are closely watching how the new president uses his power, and intend to challenge him if he does not voluntarily roll it back to pre-Bush limits.
Senator Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat and member of both the Senate judiciary and intelligence committees, was one of several lawmakers who co-sponsored legislation to limit use of a "state secrets" exemption after Justice Department lawyers, under new Attorney General Eric Holder, invoked the provision in a federal lawsuit against Jeppesen, Inc., a subsidiary of Boeing. The attorneys argued that the White House believes the case should be dismissed because it could force the revelation of classified information which could jeopardize national security.
"I'm certainly on guard that it's not abused by the Obama administration," Feingold said, referring to the president's view of power. "I will be disagreeing with some of their conclusions."
Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat and judiciary committee chairman, is pushing for the "truth commission" to investigate the Bush administration's national security policies, including search and seizure powers.
"Nothing has done more to damage America’s place in the world than the revelation that this nation stretched the law and the bounds of executive power to authorize torture and cruel treatment," Leahy said in opening remarks at today's hearing.
Quoting a recent decision by Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, Leahy said the Constitution "is not something an administration is able 'to switch … on and off at will,' " and that to prevent future abuses the nation "must not be afraid to look at what we have done" no matter how painful.
"We must understand that national security means protecting our country by advancing our laws and values, not discarding them," Leahy said.
However, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the top Republican on the committee, rejected the proposal, saying that the Justice Department is already investigating the Bush policies and releasing its secret memos justifying them. Democrats, he said, "can walk in the front door" of the Justice Department and "ask directions to the relevant filing cabinet."
The ongoing Justice Department investigation will be thorough, Specter said. "They're not going to pull any punches on the prior administration," he said.
The Senate debate comes as the American Civil Liberties Union and other watchdog groups say they are carefully monitoring the president and his staff, ready to sound the alarm if Obama follows in Bush's footsteps and more fully adopts the expanded view of presidential power.
The ACLU filed the lawsuit against Jeppesen on behalf of five terrorist suspects who sued the company, alleging it helped transport them overseas for harsh interrogations. When Justice Department lawyers cited the state secrets provision in the Jeppesen lawsuit, the ACLU expressed outrage.
"It was more than disappointing," said Caroline Frederickson, director of the ACLU's Washington office.
Given that Obama, on the campaign trail, derided Bush's views of executive power, Frederickson said it's unclear "whether the government's posture in the recent cases reflect the final judgment by the Holder Justice Department or whether it's a placeholder position as they evaluate" the national-security assertions of the Bush administration.
"It's really hard to say yet which it is," Frederickson said. "But it's worrisome."
Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller declined to comment specifically about the case today because it is still in litigation. He said the department is reviewing the bills that would restrict the use of the state secrets provision.
In a written questionnaire during his Senate confirmation hearings, Holder pledged to use the state secrets provision only "when legally and factually appropriate" and promised to "consult with appropriate career personnel at the Department of Justice and perhaps in other agencies, before making a final judgment" on whether to support a bill restricting its use.
Kerry sees opening in Syria
By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- Senator John F. Kerry, who recently returned from a Middle East trip that included stops in Syria and Gaza, called today for loosening sanctions on Syria, which he praised a for opening a stock market and sending an ambassador to Iraq.
"Loosening certain sanctions in exchange for verifiable changes in behavior can actually benefit US businesses," Kerry, the new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee told a packed auditorium at the Brookings Institution. "The sanctions can always be tightened again if Syria backtracks."
In his speech, the Massachusetts Democrat urged the Obama administration to play a role in mediating ongoing peace talks between Syria and Israel -- a move that he said Syrian President Bashar Assad would welcome.
The Bush administration shunned Syria for more than four years, accusing the regime of fostering the insurgency in Iraq, meddling in Lebanon's affairs by assassinating its elected leaders, and supporting anti-Israeli militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas.
But the Obama administration has signalled a thaw in relations, in an attempt to encourage Syria to make peace with Israel and to pry the regime from its close alliance with Iran. Syria's ambassador to the United States, Imad Moustapha, who attended Kerry's speech yesterday, met last week for two hours at the State Department after years of relative diplomatic silence. Under Obama, the Treasury Department has also authorized the transfer of $500,000 of Syrian funds which had been frozen to a Syrian charity and the repair of aircraft with US parts.
US laws still discourages trade with Syria. Medicine and food can be sent to Syria, but other goods must apply for special permission.
Critics called it premature to loosen sanctions. David Schenker, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a conservative-leaning think tank, said that Syria is still "actively undermining every US interest in the Middle East."
In today's speech, Kerry also described his visit to the town of Izbet Abed Rabo in Gaza, a rare trip for US officials who have avoided the territory for years because of the danger of militant attack, and because it is controlled by Hamas, which the United States considers a terrorist organization.
"I saw little Palestinian girls playing in the rubble where, just months ago, buildings stood," Kerry said. Upon seeing the ruins of the American school there, he said: "I was moved by the enormity of the humanitarian challenge."
Kerry called for a regional "road map" based on a 2002 Saudi peace initiative in which Arab states would commit to specific actions -- such as ending support for Hamas -- to bring about a regional peace with Israel.
He said he believes that Israeli prime minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu, despite his hard-line reputation, is prepared to do "important things" for peace. Kerry also called on the Obama administration to take measures to ensure that Israel freezes settlements in the West Bank.
"Nothing will do more to make clear our seriousness about turning the page than demonstrating - with actions rather than words - that we are serious," Kerry said. "For decades, American presidents, Democrat and Republican alike, have opposed new settlement activity and recognized that the settlements are an obstacle to peace. But in our honest moments we would all acknowledge that this policy has usually existed on paper alone."
Liberal-labor coalition launches drive for Obama budget
A coalition of liberal and union advocacy groups that lobbied aggressively for President Obama's economic stimulus package announced today that it will mount a similar effort to push through his budget.
The groups plan similar grassroots events, phone banks, and e-mails campaigns targeting members of Congress, as well as paid advertising. More than 40 major organizations have so far signed onto the $5 million to $7 million campaign, Americans United for Change said.
"Make no mistake: the Obama budget is real change – the change that Americans voted for in November," Chuck Loveless, legislative director for the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, said in a statement. "As we were during the economic recovery plan, AFSCME will be a leader in the fight to pass the Obama agenda. Our members make America happen. And America deserves nothing less.”
Obama's $3.6 trillion spending outline is facing stiff opposition in Congress because of tax hikes on the wealthy, expansions of a range of government programs, and projected trillion-dollar deficits.
The joint statement for the "Rebuild and Renew America Now!" campaign and the list of participating groups is below:
FULL ENTRYMcCain continues battle against earmarks
Senator John McCain is not giving up his fight against earmarks, even though the Senate rejected his attempt on Tuesday to strip them from the spending bill going through Congress.
Teaming up with Democratic Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, the Arizona Republican and former presidential candidate announced this morning they're introducing legislation to give the president a line-item veto to block earmarks.
McCain said earmarks -- which critics call pork-barrel projects -- represent a "corrupt practice" that has infiltrated Congress.
"I don't use the term corruption lightly," McCain said.
Feingold noted that White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said last week that President Obama might want to "test drive" a line-item veto, different versions of which have been declared unconstitutional by federal courts.
It's time to "walk the walk," Feingold said.
UPDATE: Feingold said he believes this legislation would pass constitutional muster because Congress would have to vote whether to agree to the earmark cuts the president wanted. If either the House or Senate voted by a single majority against the cuts, the projects would be funded.
Gibbs said while the administration needs to study the details of the bill, Obama wouldn't turn down a line-item veto that is approved by the courts.
"I think what the president wants is to be able to, as he outlined today, with Democrats and Republicans, work with Congress to reduce the amount of wasteful spending that we have each year," Gibbs told reporters at his daily briefing. "That's the best way to go out and do this, to continue to look for the inefficiencies and the waste, to follow prescribed solutions for this that in many cases have been identified and just simply not acted on."
The $410 billion spending measure includes more than 8,500 earmarks totaling $7.7 billion, watchdog groups say. The Senate voted 63-32 on Tuesday against the attempt by McCain to remove them.
So far, the White House has cast the earmarks as last year's business, since the bill would finish out the budget that started last Oct. 1, before Obama became president.
Frank aide signing on at HUD
Representative Barney Frank's chief of staff is joining the Obama administration, the White House announced this afternoon.
Peter Kovar, a veteran Capitol Hill aide, is being nominated as assistant secretary for Congressional and intergovernmental affairs in the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He worked on Frank's 1982 reelection campaign and subsequently joined the Massachusetts Democrat's Washington office as a junior staffer. He later worked for Senator John F. Kerry, then returned to Frank’s office, where he has been chief of staff since 1991.
President Obama said he also plans to nominate Brian Kennedy as Assistant Secretary for Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs in the Department of Labor; Dana Gresham as Assistant Secretary for Governmental Affairs in the Department of Transportation; and Sherburne Abbott as Associate Director of Environment, Office of Science and Technology Policy.
“These individuals have not only shown talent and expertise in their respective fields, but have also proven their commitment to public service. I know that they will serve their fellow Americans well during these challenging times,” Obama said in a statement.
Their mini-biographies, as provided by the White House, are below:
FULL ENTRYObama names FEMA leader
President Obama announced this afternoon he will nominate Florida's emergency director to head the Federal Emergency Management Agency -- a post that is largely invisible when things go well, but is under the microscope when they go badly.
Exhibit A: Michael Brown, who was vilified for the government response, or lack thereof, to Hurricane Katrina.
For his first public appearance as FEMA nominee, Craig Fugate will join Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano at an event in New Orleans, which was devastated by Katrina.
Obama said in a statement: "From his experience as a first responder to his strong leadership as Florida’s Emergency Manager, Craig has what it takes to help us improve our preparedness, response and recovery efforts and I can think of no one better to lead FEMA. I’m confident that Craig is the right person for the job and will ensure that the failures of the past are never repeated.
Napolitano said in a statement, “FEMA must have experienced leadership to succeed in its challenging mission. Craig Fugate is no stranger to emergency management or to FEMA. He is one of the most respected emergency managers in the nation, and the work he’s accomplished in Florida serves as a model for other states to follow. He will be a tremendous asset to FEMA and its employees, and I look forward to working with him.”
Fugate's mini-biography, provided by the White House, is below:
Obama targets fraud and waste in contracts
President Obama this morning announced a retooling of how government contracts are awarded to ramp up competition, changes that the White House says would save taxpayers about $40 billion a year.
He said while huge investments are needed to get the economy turned around, the government must make sure it spends all its money wisely.
"It starts with reforming our broken system of government contracting," he said.
Government spending on goods and services increased from $200 billion in 2000 to more than $500 billion in 2008 and too much of that spending was plagued by cost overruns or outright fraud, the president said.
Obama signed a presidential memo ordering his budget director, Peter Orszag, to work with Cabinet and agency chiefs to come up by July 1 with a way to review existing contracts for waste or fraud.
By the end of September, Orszag is to come up with new rules designed to make it more difficult for contractors to cheat taxpayers by strengthening oversight and ending unnecessary no-bid contracts and "cost-plus" contracts that allow their price tag to escalate.
Obama shared the stage with his Republican presidential rival John McCain, who highlighted the contracting problems last week by pointing out that the new fleet of presidential helicopters could cost as much as Air Force One.
Obama said he endorsed the goals of the bipartisan effort on defense procurement reform led by McCain and Democratic Senator Carl Levin. Obama noted that a study last year by the Government Accountability Office of 95 major defense acquisitions projects found cost overruns of 26 percent, totaling $295 billion over the life of the projects.
Obama said that William Lynn III, the former Raytheon lobbyist who is now deputy defense secretary, will help lead the procurement reform in the Pentagon.
Ironically, McCain helped lead the opposition to Lynn, who had to receive a White House waiver from ethics rules and to pledge to recuse himself from decisions affecting the Waltham-based defense contractor to win confirmation.
The White House fact sheet is below, followed by the president's remarks:
Obama thanks, praises unions
President Obama thanks Big Labor for its help pushing through his economic stimulus package in a video message tonight to the AFL-CIO executive council gathering in Miami.
"We have already started to change America on behalf of working people," the president says, according to remarks released by the White House.
Obama extols what's in the stimulus plan for workers, and also bills he has signed into law on pay discrimination and an expansion of a children's health program.
Unions provided millions of dollars and tens of thousands of volunteers during the campaign, and Obama says he's now repaying their trust.
"I do not view the labor movement as part of the problem," he adds. "To me, and to my administration, labor unions are a big part of the solution. We need to level the playing field for workers and the unions that represent their interests – because we cannot have a strong middle class without a strong labor movement."
His full prepared remarks are below:
FULL ENTRYObama: stock bargains out there
To all those scared to death about the tumbling stock market, President Obama played financial adviser today, offering the age-old counsel: Buy low and sell high.
The president, in a departure from usual form, directly addressed the swoon in the stock market. The benchmark Dow Jones industrial fell Monday to the lowest level in 12 years -- and more than 50 percent off its all-time high in October 2007 -- and is down slightly today.
Obama waved off the minute-to-minute ups and downs in the market, comparing them to tracking polls that often turned out not to predict real outcomes during the presidential race.
"What I'm looking at is not the day-to-day gyrations of the stock market but the long-term ability for the United States and the entire world economy to regain its footing," he said during an Oval Office mini press conference with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. "And, you know, the stock market is sort of like a tracking poll in politics. It bobs up and down day to day, and if you spend all your time worrying about that, then you're probably going to get the long-term strategy wrong."
"Now, having said that, the banking system has been dealt a heavy blow," he added. "And so there are a lot of losses that are working their way through the system. And it's not surprising that the market is hurting as a consequence. In fact, I think what we're seeing is that as people absorb the depths of the problem that existed in the banking system, as well as the international ramifications of it, that there's going to be a natural reaction.
"On the other hand, what you're now seeing is profit and earning ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you've got a long-term perspective on it."
UPDATE: Asked whether the president was "cheerleading" for the stock market, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said this afternoon that Obama's remarks were in line with what he has said that "brighter days for our economy are ahead if we take important steps and make important decisions now about addressing many of the problems and challenges that we face."
Obama is "obviously concerned about any number of economic indicators," including stock trends, Gibbs told reporters at the daily briefing.
Pressed on the issue, Gibbs tried a joke: "I will ask him if he's got any particular tips for you, Jeff. Maybe I should have cornered him and gotten a few of my own."
McCain loses earmarks battle
Senator John McCain's latest bid to strip earmarks from spending bills failed today.
On a 63-32 vote, the Senate rejected a proposal to remove nearly 9,000 earmarks from the $410 billion spending bill to fund government operations through the end of September. The proposal would have also frozen spending at last year's levels.
Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, who also broke from the party on the stimulus package, were among the eight Republicans who voted against McCain.
McCain has criticized President Obama for what he says is going against his campaign pledge against earmarks -- what critics call pork-barrel projects.
Obama stops by Transportation, Interior
President Obama rallied the troops today at two agencies that often get second-billing in Washington.
This morning, he stopped by the Transportation Department to talk about their role in the economic stimulus package. The $787 billion plan includes $48 billion for highway and other infrastructure projects, though some wanted a far bigger slice for public works projects, arguing that they would quickly pump up the economy.
Flanked by Vice President Biden and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Obama repeated the claim that the stimulus package represents the biggest investment in infrastructure since the interstate highway system in the 1950s.
The infrastructure spending will create or save 400,000 jobs fixing crumbling roads, bridges, and schools; repairing dams and levees; and improving mass transit.
Obama announced that $28 billion for highways is being released to state and local transportation departments, and the first contract will soon be awarded for road surfacing in Maryland.
"The American public is grateful to public servants like you -- men and women whose work isn't always recognized, but whose jobs are critical to our nation's safety, security, and prosperity," Obama told the Transportation employees. "You have never been more important than you are right now." (Click here for Biden and Obama's full remarks.)
The White House released a "fact sheet" saying that the highway spending will save or create 150,000 jobs by the end of next year. (It is below.) The White House said that state highway departments have already identified more than 100 transportation projects, totaling more than $750 million, where construction can start within the month.
States have 120 days to decide on specific projects, or risk losing some money.
According to the White House, Massachusetts will get $438 million, Connecticut $302 million, Maine $131 million, New Hampshire $129 million, Rhode Island $137 million, and Vermont $126 million.
"The jobs that we're creating are good jobs that pay more than average; jobs grinding asphalt and paving roads, filling potholes, making street signs, repairing stop lights, replacing guardrails," Obama said.
This afternoon, the president went to the Interior Department, which is celebrating its 160th anniversary, but which is trying to recover from seamy allegations of corruption, sex, and drugs involving agency officials and lobbyists for the oil and gas industries.
Obama told cheering Interior employees that their mission remains steadfast: to "defend the natural bounty of this country" and to further the welfare of Americans.
"You have become the Department of America," he said.
Obama said with so much of the nation's resources in public lands managed by the agency, it will play a key role in the clean energy initiatives he is pushing.
"Your mission is more important than ever before," he said.
Obama acknowledged what he called the prior "lapses," but praised Interior Secretary Ken Salazar for restoring integrity and accountability.
He also announced that he has put on hold a rule the Bush administration put in place in its waning days that allows federal agencies to decide themselves whether their actions would harm endangered species. Environmentalists want to restore a rule that requires agencies to get independent experts to weigh in on whether projects such as dams and power plants would endanger the animals.
Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts praised Obama's action.
“America’s wildlife and habitats are already facing looming natural threats without exacerbating the problem by removing protections against manmade threats,” Kerry, who his office said is pushing to protect polar bears, said in a statement. “With this action, President Obama has made it clear that the irresponsible, last-ditch policy changes of the Bush Administration will not stand.”
(Obama's full remarks at Interior are also below.)
FULL ENTRYBritish PM calls on Obama
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown gets the bragging rights today as the first European leader to visit the White House under President Obama.
Brown could also use some of Obama's popularity to rub off on him. He is facing much dissent back home and a resurgent Conservative Party that could soon unseat him.
Besides cementing the "special relationship" between the United States and Britain, Brown, who is scheduled to address a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, is also preparing for the G-20 economic summit in London next month that he is leading.
Brown is calling for a coordinated global "New Deal" and for tougher financial regulations as well as economic stimulus plans.
"Well, there's got to be deep regulatory change. We've just been talking, Barack and I, about the need for proper supervision of shadow banking systems, of areas where there was bank practices that were unacceptable, where remuneration policies got out of hand and weren't based on long-term success, but on short-term deals. And these are the changes that we've already announced that we are going to make," Brown said.
Obama also talked about keeping up the ties between the two countries and the need for global cooperation on the economy.
"The banking system has been dealt a heavy blow. It has to do with many of the things Prime Minister Brown alluded to: lax regulation, massive over-leverage, huge systemic risks taken by unregulated institutions as well as regulated institutions," Obama said. (Click here for their full remarks.)
Obama also picked a deeply unpopular leader of a close ally for his first foreign visitor. Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso stopped by last week.
FULL ENTRYKey healthcare players to do lunch
By Lisa Wangsness, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- Senator Max Baucus said this morning he plans to have lunch with Senator Edward M. Kennedy this week to discuss a major healthcare overhaul, the top priority for both senators, who chair the Finance Committee and the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, respectively.
The news is significant because Kennedy, who is suffering from brain cancer, has mostly been in Florida since Inauguration Day, when he experienced a seizure during a Senate luncheon. He returned to Capitol Hill briefly to cast a key vote on the economic stimulus package.
Baucus, speaking to reporters at a Kaiser Family Foundation breakfast, said he has been speaking frequently with Kennedy about healthcare, which is the subject of a summit President Obama is convening on Thursday. He did not say whether Kennedy would attend the summit, but he said the two are working together closely. They recently co-authored a Wall Street Journal opinion piece about the need for a health overhaul.
Obama, making healthcare a priority, put $634 billion in his 10-year budget plan as a downpayment and on Monday named two key aides to push an overhaul: Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius as health and human services secretary, and former Clinton administration official Nancy DeParle as director of the White House Office of Health Reform.
Limbaugh speaks up, riles up both Democrats and Republicans
Rush Limbaugh apparently wants to be the voice of the Republican Party as it tries to recover from the November elections.
And Democrats are only too happy to oblige, considering the conservative talk show host a sure-fire way to fire up their base.
Limbaugh gave a stem-winder of a speech Saturday -- complete with chest thumping and fist bumps -- imploring conservatives to stand by their principles and urging them not to listen to those who say the GOP has to become more moderate to regain power.
Limbaugh, who also threw his weight around at several points during the campaign, made no apologies for his biting criticism of President Obama, including telling his listeners on his radio show in January that "I hope he fails."
"What is so strange about being honest and saying I want Barack Obama to fail if his mission is to restructure and reform this country so that capitalism and individual liberty are not its foundation?" Limbaugh said at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel on Sunday called Limbaugh " the voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican party, and he has been up front about what he views, and hasn't stepped back from that, which is he hopes for failure."
"He said it, and I compliment him on his honesty," Emanuel said on CBS's "Face the Nation." "But that's their philosophy that's enunciated by Rush Limbaugh and I think that's the wrong philosophy for America."
Representative Ron Paul of Texas, who sought the Republican nomination last year, said that Limbaugh has a strong message, but warned that "it's pretty sad" that the GOP is so starved for leadership that it is looking to a talk show host.
Paul also cautioned that it could play into Democrats' hands.
"He does say the right things now. And I think a lot of people like to hear what he's saying, but I think it's also a little bit polarizing and confrontational, and I think that's why the Democrats are bragging that Limbaugh now speaks for the Republicans. So I guess the Democrats think it's to their advantage if he's leading the charge," Paul said today on CNN's "American Morning."
"But he really didn't broaden the base. I mean, it's still very narrow, and that is why some of us would like to see an approach that would emphasize personal liberties and civil liberties, looking at the drug war. And certainly looking at foreign policy," Paul added. "And in those areas, it's really the old Republican Party, because even Limbaugh was a strong supporter of Bush. So, he doesn't have anything new either when it comes to, you know, bringing our troops home and not expanding the war in Afghanistan, and talking about, you know, the danger to our personal liberties and our privacies. So, there is a group of us that would like to appeal somewhat differently to the Republican base and, as a matter of fact, to the American people. That's what is really important."
Michael Steele, the new chairman of the Republican National Committee who is trying to diversify the party, also rejected the idea of Limbaugh as the leader of the GOP/
"No, he's not," Steele said on CNN's "D.L. Hughley Breaks the News" on Saturday night.
"I'm the de facto leader of the Republican Party," Steele said. "Let's put it into context here. Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer. Rush Limbaugh, his whole thing is entertainment."
Steele went on to say that Limbaugh's show is sometimes "incendiary. Yes, it's ugly."
Steele said he's continuing his efforts to reshape the party. "What I'm saying is the brand needs help," he said. "The brand needs work. There's no doubt about that. I'm not trying to sell it. What I'm trying to make it is valuable and something that people can look at and consider, and I think that we do have something to say on some very serious issues that touch a lot of people on empowerment and ownership and opportunity, and I'm going to make sure we say it. And that's the point."
UPDATE: On his show today, Limbaugh fired back at Steele, suggesting that he was being used by the liberal media.
"Why do you claim to lead the Republican Party when you seem obsessed with seeing to it President Obama succeeds?" Limbaugh asked. "I frankly am stunned that the chairman of the Republican National Committee endorses such an agenda. I have to conclude that he does because he attacks me for wanting it to fail."
UPDATE: Now, Steele is apologizing to Limbaugh. "My intent was not to go after Rush – I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh,” the RNC chairman told Politico. "I was maybe a little bit inarticulate.…There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership.”
Asked about Limbaugh's comments, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said he had "doubled down" on his January comments.
At his daily briefing, Gibbs said the question should be posed to Republicans: "Do they want to see the president's economic agenda fail?"
Gibbs wondered aloud what would have happened if the shoe had been on the other foot during the Bush administration, and a liberal radio host had publicly hoped for his economic policies to fail.
Americans United for Change, a coalition of progressive and labor groups that used Limbaugh in a web ad, is now using his CPAC remarks as part of fund-raising appeal.
"Rooting for President Obama's economic plan to fail means rooting for more people to lose their jobs. It means rooting for more families to lose their homes. It means rooting for more families to lose their health care and their retirement security," the group said. "It means rooting against the American people and rooting against the strong future of our country."
Abortion foes go after Sebelius
Kathleen Sebelius apparently doesn't have a tax problem, but she might have an abortion hurdle to confirmation.
This afternoon, President Obama plans to introduce the Kansas governor as his backup pick for health and human services secretary after his first choice, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, withdrew amid a firestorm over taxes he didn't pay on a private driver.
Sebelius comes with bipartisan credentials, but the most vocal opposition to her nomination could come from abortion foes. A Catholic who personally opposes abortion, she has refused to go along with restrictions in Kansas, where the anti-abortion movement is strong.
Opponents are pointing to a meeting that Sebelius had in the governor's mansion with a Wichita abortion provider, who is about to go on trial for violating state restrictions on certain late-term abortion procedures.
"Governor Sebelius's record as Governor, a state representative, and a close ally of abortionists like the notorious George Tiller (whom she threw a party for in the Governor's mansion) leaves no doubt she will be a strong advocate for abortion disguised as 'health care,' " Tom McClusky, senior vice president of the Family Research Council, said in a statement.
Bill Donahue, president of The Catholic League, added in a statement: "Catholics do not expect that abortion-rights presidents will go out of their way to choose pro-life Catholics to be in their administration. But they also don’t expect them to go out of their way to offend them. Obama has done just that."
Dr. Charmaine Yoest, president & CEO of Americans United for Life Action, issued a statement as well: “As a member of the Kansas House and later as Governor, Gov. Sebelius has a long history of opposing and even vetoing measures such as parental involvement for a daughter's abortion; informed consent; medically-supported health and safety standards for abortion clinics; and reasonable limits on late-term abortions. Nominating someone with an extremist record on abortion who is also associated with the most notorious abortionist in America to be Secretary of Health and Human Services is offensive. This is a politically divisive move. The Senate should reject this polarizing nomination."
Catholics United, a liberal group, is coming to Sebelius's defense, issuing a list today of 25 Catholic leaders supporting her nomination. It also accuses anti-abortion groups of trying to smear the governor.
"Gov. Sebelius is a proven and tireless advocate for children's health care, education, adoption, and support for pregnant women, all components of a public policy agenda intended to benefit the common good. Under her leadership, the state of Kansas has witnessed sharp declines in both abortions and teen pregnancy,” Chris Korzen, executive director of Catholics United, said in a statement, “Because of her success in expanding health care coverage and reducing abortions, we feel that Gov. Sebelius is an excellent choice to lead our nation's Department of Health and Human Services.”
The group says that as governor, Sebelius, supported Pregnancy Maintenance Initiatives, which are programs run through agencies such as Catholic Charities that provide pregnant women with alternatives to abortion; signed Alexa’s Law to deal with certain crimes against fetuses, including in the slaying of a pregnant woman, murder charges in the death of the unborn child as well; signed a law doubling the adoption tax credit and oversaw an expansion of adoption support spending; and oversaw a decline in teen pregnancies between 2002 and 2007.
“Our nation desperately needs leaders who can bring Americans together behind common ground, common good solutions to the problems of our day,” said Korzen. “Kathleen Sebelius’ ability to lead as a popular Democrat in a very conservative state proves she is the right woman for the job. We call on all people of good will to support her nomination and we look forward to her service in this important position.”
UPDATE: Boston-based Catholic Democrats also came to Sebelius's defense today.
"Governor Sebelius's legislative record, experience as a governor, and Catholic sensibilities, particularly regarding preferential treatment for the poor, will be of tremendous value in addressing health care reform, the projected Medicare insolvency crisis as soon as 2016, and aiding the millions of people who are being pushed into poverty as a result of the economic crisis," Steve Krueger, the group's national director, said in a statement.
McCain blisters Obama on earmarks
Top aides to President Obama continue to dismiss criticism of a $410 billion spending bill -- laden with more than 8,500 pet projects -- as "last year's business."
Technically, it's true since the bill would finish out the current federal fiscal year, which started last Oct. 1.
But Senator John McCain, Obama's Republican presidential rival, is having none of it.
"That's insulting to the American people," McCain said on the Senate floor today as he blistered Obama for agreeing to sign the bill once it gets through the Senate.
McCain pointed out that Obama promised during their campaign to get rid of earmark spending as part of changing the culture of Washington. "So much for the promise of change," McCain sniffed, according to the Associated Press.
Kirk owes taxes, too
Does anyone pay their taxes anymore?
It might be a fair question with word that yet another of President Obama's top nominees owes back taxes.
The Associated Press is reporting that the Senate Finance Committee says Ron Kirk, Obama's nominee for US trade representative, has agreed to pay about $10,000 in back federal taxes. The committee says Kirk will file amended returns covering the years 2005, 2006, and 2007.
The committee said the taxes arise from Kirk's handling of speaking fees that he donated to his alma mater, and for his deduction of the full cost of season tickets to the Dallas Mavericks professional basketball team, the AP says.
While tax issues derailed the nominations of Tom Daschle for health and human services and Nancy Killefer as efficiency czar, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner survived. So, apparently, will Kirk, whom Senate Finance chairman Max Baucus says will be confirmed.
Obama names two to healthcare posts
President Barack Obama officially nominated Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius as secretary of health and human Services, and also tapped Nancy-Ann DeParle as his healthcare czar.
Obama initially planned for former Senator Tom Daschle to fill both roles, but his nomination was scuttled after questions about unpaid taxes.
Sebelius, an early Obama backer during the campaign, will also play a key role in Obama's planned healthcare overhaul -- he asked for $634 billion over 10 years as a downpayment.
DeParle, another former Clinton administration official who handled budget matters for federal healthcare programs and managed Medicare and Medicaid, will be counselor to the president and director of the White House Office for Health Reform.
“If we are going to help families, save businesses, and improve the long-term economic health of our nation, we must realize that fixing what’s wrong with our health care system is no longer just a moral imperative, but a fiscal imperative. Health care reform that reduces costs while expanding coverage is no longer just a dream we hope to achieve – it’s a necessity we have to achieve," Obama said in a statement.
"There's no easy formula for fixing our healthcare system," Obama said at a news conference, flanked by Sebelius and DeParle.
Healthcare costs are rising at a pace threatening the federal budget, he said. In recent years, he noted, a million Americans have joined the ranks of the uninsured, which now totals more than 47 million.
He said he is committed to a healthcare overhaul and is trying to bring Republicans as well as fellow Democrats together -- a task that he said Sebelius will make easier.
"She has forged a reputation for bipartisan problem-solving," Obama said, noting that former GOP presidential candidate and Senator Bob Dole was on the stage as well.
Sebelius also has a deep knowledge of healthcare and has been on the front lines of the issue, the president said.
Obama called DeParle one of the nation's leading experts on healthcare finances. "I have absolute confidence in her ability to lead the public and legislative effort," he said.
The president acknowledged that a healthcare overhaul will be difficult, and many interests would prefer the status quo.
"I didn't come to Washington to take the easy route," he declared. "I came here to deliver the sweeping change they voted for in November."
Sebelius expressed confidence that healthcare reform can happen. "The work won't be easy, but bringing about real change rarely is," she said.
(Click here for the full remarks of Obama and Sebelius.)
Before naming his picks, Obama also announced the release of $155 million from the $787 billion economic stimulus package to support 126 new health centers designed to provide comprehensive primary and preventive healthcare services to 750,000 Americans and create 5,500 jobs.
“We have acted quickly to put Recovery Act dollars to good use in communities across America,” Obama said in a statement. “The construction and expansion of health centers will create thousands of new jobs, help provide health care to an estimated 750,000 Americans across the country who wouldn’t have access to care without these centers, and take another step toward an affordable, accessible health care system.”
According to the White House, Massachusetts will get $1.3 million, enough for 7,060 patients and 50 jobs.
Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts said the Bay State money will go to the North Shore Community Health Center which has locations in Salem and Peabody, as well as a planned location in Gloucester.
“President Obama committed to invest recovery dollars in efforts that save jobs and help those who are struggling, and Massachusetts can attest that today’s announcement is proof that he’s keeping his word. This funding is a lifeline for the seniors, new and expectant parents and families who depend on North Shore Community Health Center for their medical care,” Kerry said in a statement. “The skyrocketing price of health care forces working people to make agonizing choices- between heating their homes or refilling their prescriptions, buying groceries or taking their children for an annual check-up. Were it not for North Shore Community Health Center too many people would be forced to gamble with their health, and the health of their children. I applaud President Obama and his Administration for recognizing the essential role North Shore Community Health Center plays in the lives of thousands and supporting their vital efforts.”
The other New England totals: Connecticut, $1.3 million, 5,240 patients, 40 jobs; Maine, $2.6 million, 11,170 patients, 85 jobs; New Hampshire, $930,000, 2,100 patients, 15 jobs; Rhode Island, $2.4 million, 7,380 patients, 55 jobs; and Vermont, $1.3 million, 4,170 patients, 30 jobs.
Reaction is pouring into the nomination of Sebelius, who is being praised by civil rights and women's groups.
“I know from personal experience as a Kansas native, and from my work at the University of Kansas, that Governor Sebelius is the right person to work with President Obama and Congress to reform our nation’s health care system and efficiently administer critical human services for Americans, both young and old,” Janet Murguía, President and CEO of the National Council of La Raza, the nation's largest national Hispanic civil rights advocacy group, said in a statement. “She has demonstrated compassion and courage in helping her state address difficult issues. She worked to reduce barriers to health care for low-income families by eliminating burdensome Medicaid paperwork requirements that disproportionately impact racial and ethnic minorities. As the insurance commissioner, she actively reached out to the public to ensure that a potential insurance company merger had the interests of patients in mind.”
Murguía continued, “At a time when 46 million Americans, including a full one-third of Latinos, go without health insurance, and millions more struggle to hang on to the little coverage they have, the challenges facing our health care system require immediate solutions. Governor Sebelius has exactly the right combination of skills to lead this effort. She is a proven executive and knows how to work across party lines, as well as with diverse interests, to achieve results.”
Ellen R. Malcolm, president of EMILY's List, said in a statement: "I am so pleased to congratulate Governor Kathleen Sebelius on her nomination as the next Secretary of Health and Human Services. With over 48 million Americans still uninsured and millions more scraping by, this nation needs a strong, innovative leader to reach across the aisle and fix our broken health care system. In her years as governor and insurance commissioner, Secretary-designate Sebelius proved her effectiveness by helping to modernize Kansas's health care system and extend health care to those who need it most. She will bring the same determination to our country's health care crisis and work with President Obama as he strives to make quality, affordable health care a reality for every American."
John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, also praised the pick in a statement.
"We congratulate President Obama on his choice of Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as our next Secretary of Health and Human Services. The nomination of Gov. Sebelius will provide a great boost to the effort to enact sweeping health care reform. Her experience as Kansas insurance commissioner and her outstanding record as governor uniquely qualify Gov. Sebelius for this demanding position. Time's selection of her in 2005 as one of the country's five best governors speaks to the critically important leadership and managerial abilities needed for this job.
Gov. Sebelius brings a track record of bipartisanship and the ability to work well with all the players in health care. We look forward to work with her to enact affordable, comprehensive health care for all."
Kerry added his praise in a statement.
“Governor Sebelius more than earned her spurs on reform in Kansas, reaching across the aisle, building consensus, and standing firm at the right moments on some of the thorniest issues of the health care system. As Kansas’ insurance commissioner, she took a gutsy stand against the big insurance giants in the name of preventing them from raising premiums on those already struggling to pay for health care. As Governor, she reached across the aisle in a red state to deliver health care coverage to tens of thousands of low-income children. That combination of toughness and bipartisan leadership will be critical to the success of health care reform on a national basis.”
FULL ENTRYObama: a time of peril and possibility
They went largely unnoticed because the headline of the day was his plan to end the war in Iraq and withdraw US troops.
But President Obama had some intriguing comments in his interview with "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" about how his administration is doing after nearly six weeks of dealing with the biggest economic crisis in decades and of taking on ambitious goals on healthcare, energy, the environment, etc., etc..
"I've got a full plate," Obama said.
Asked if he felt burdened, Obama replied, "I think that we are at an extraordinary moment that is full or peril but full of possibility and I think that's the time you want to be president. I think there's a sense that right now we are having to make some very big decisions that will help determine the direction of this country and in ways large and small the direction of the world for the next generation."
But Obama quickly added that he wishes the issues weren't all landing at once.
"It would nice to be able to stage them on one another," the president said. "Let's -- you know, we'll take, you know, the economy first and then we'll take Afghanistan after that and then Iraq after that and Iran after that and, you know, the banking system somewhere out there, autos, you know. It would be wonderful if we didn't have all the planes in the air at the same time. But having said that, I meant what I said in my joint address to Congress. I think that there's -- there's something about this country where hard times, big challenges bring out the best in us. This is when the political system starts to move effectively. This is when people start getting out of the petty and the trivial debates. This is when the public starts paying attention in ways that they -- you know, when things are going well, you know, they've got better things to do than to think about public policy, you know. So I am -- I am invigorated by the challenges.
Obama said he is proud of what his team has accomplished so far.
"But look, we've got a lot of big stuff ahead of us," he added. "Not every decision we're going to make is going to be perfect. Not every plan that we lay out is going to work out exactly as we intended. But if we get the big stuff right then, you know, the ship of state is a -- is a big tanker and, you know, you can't simply reverse direction on the economy or any of these things overnight, but you can start moving in a better trajectory so that 5 years, 10 years down the road you can say, you know, what, because of good decisions now our kids are safer, more secure, more prosperous, more unified than they were before."
First Lady goes sleeveless, again
Michelle Obama, who has swiftly taken her place as fashion style-setter, seems to be enamored of sleeveless sheaths.
She wore one to President Obama's address to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night. She is pictured with one on the cover of People magazine that hit newsstands today. And she's wearing a black Michael Kors in her official portrait newly posted on the White House website.
The portrait in the Blue Room is accompanied by her biography.
"When people ask Michelle Obama to describe herself, she doesn't hesitate. First and foremost, she is Malia and Sasha's mom," it says. "As First Lady, Michelle Obama looks forward to continuing her work on the issues close to her heart -- supporting military families, helping working women balance career and family, and encouraging national service."
Obama addresses Iraq plan critics
President Obama defends his Iraq pullout plan against critics among fellow Democrats and antiwar groups who say it doesn't keep his campaign pledges to withdraw nearly all US combat troops within 16 months of his inauguration.
"Well, what I would say that is that they maybe weren't paying attention to what I said during the campaign," Obama says in an interview airing tonight on "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" on PBS. "I said that we were going to take 16 months to withdraw our combat troops from Iraq. We are now taking 18 months rather than 16. I said that we would have a residual force, a transition force that could continue so stand up Iraq security forces, provide them logistical support and training and also make sure that we are protecting US civilian and military personnel. I said that we would have a counterterrorism capacity to make sure that Al Qaeda or other extremist organizations did not try to take advantage of a diminished U.S. presence there.
"So everything that I said I would do during the campaign I am now doing," he adds. "Obviously because of consultation with commanders on the ground, something I also said we would do, there are some modifications to the plan. But this is basically the thrust that I have been talking about for several years and I think it is a responsible solution."
Obama, asked directly whether the accomplishments in Iraq were worth the US and Iraqi casualties, answered, "I don’t want to look backwards. As you know, I opposed this war, I did not think it was the right decision, but I don’t want to in any way diminish the enormous sacrifices that have been made by our men and women in uniform. I think the fact that Saddam Hussein is gone is a good thing. I think the fact that Iraq has now carried out a series of elections with diminished violence each time, I think that's a good thing. A lot of the ultimate outcome in Iraq now is going to depend on how the political issues that have dogged Iraq for a very long time get resolved."
The president was also asked what he hopes to accomplish in Afghanistan, where he is sending 17,000 more troops.
"Now, I can articulate some very clear, minimal goals in Afghanistan, and that is that we make sure that it’s not a safe haven for Al Qaeda, they are not able to launch attacks of the sort that happened on 9/11 against the American home land or American interest," he said. "How we achieve that initial goal, what kinds of strategies and tactics we need to put in place, I don’t think that we’ve thought it through, and we haven’t used the entire arsenal of American power.
"We’ve been thinking very militarily, but we haven’t been as effective in thinking diplomatically, we haven’t been thinking effectively around the development side of the equation, you know, what are we doing to replace poppy crops for Afghans that allow them to support themselves," he added. "Obviously, we haven’t been thinking regionally, recognizing that Afghanistan is actually an Afghanistan/Pakistan problem, because right now the militants, the extremists who are attacking U.S. troops are often times coming over the border from Pakistan."
The full transcript of the interview is below:
More on Iraq withdrawal plan
The White House this afternoon released its "fact sheet" on President Obama's withdrawal plan.
On his first day in office, President Obama ordered a comprehensive review of United States Iraq policy by military commanders on the ground, the Joint Chiefs, Secretary Gates, and his national security team. That review led to the President’s February 27, 2009 announcement at Camp Lejeune of a plan to responsibly end the war in Iraq. The three-part strategy he announced will make our country more secure by transitioning to Iraqi responsibility and by allowing the United States to focus on a broader set of national priorities. The Administration will pursue broad support for this plan and other major national security priorities by consulting closely with the Congress, on a bi-partisan basis, and by working closely with friends and allies.
Responsible Removal of Combat Brigades
Based on the recommendations of his military commanders and national security team, the President has chosen a timeline that will remove all U.S. combat brigades from Iraq over the next 18 months. By August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end and Iraqi Security Forces will have full responsibility for major combat missions.
After August 31, 2010, the mission of United States forces in Iraq will fundamentally change. Our forces will have three tasks: train, equip, and advise the Iraqi Security Forces; conduct targeted counterterrorism operations; and provide force protection for military and civilian personnel.
The President intends to keep our commitment under the Status of Forces Agreement to remove all of our troops from Iraq by the end of 2011.
Sustained Diplomacy
Iraq’s future is now its own responsibility and the long-term success of the Iraqi nation will depend upon decisions made by the Iraqi people. A strong political, diplomatic, and civilian effort on our part can advance progress and help lay a foundation for lasting peace and security. A new American Ambassador will be supported by the courageous and capable work of American civilian personnel, diplomats and aid workers.
We will work to support Iraqi national elections in 2010, help improve local government, serve as an honest broker for Iraqi leaders as they resolve difficult political issues, increase support for the resettlement of Iraqi refugees, and help strengthen Iraqi institutions and their capacity to protect rule of law, confront corruption, and deliver services.
Comprehensive Engagement Across the Region
The future of Iraq is inseparable from the future of the broader Middle East. It is time for Iraq to be a full partner in a regional dialogue and for Iraq’s neighbors to establish productive and normalized relations with Iraq. Going forward, the United States will pursue principled and sustained engagement with all nations in the region, including Iran and Syria. We have already begun to renew our diplomacy in the region, to refocus on: eliminating al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan; preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon; and actively seeking a lasting peace between Israel and the Arab world.
Finally, the President made a commitment to give our men and women in uniform the resources and clear direction they deserve and to build our civilian national security capacity so that we can use all elements of American power to achieve our objectives in the world.
The White House also released the remarks of Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates about the plan. They are below:
FULL ENTRYA new course in Iraq
In April 2003, a month into the Iraq war, then-President Bush gave a major speech at Camp Lejeune, paying tribute to the Marines Corps leading the fight.
"These missions are difficult and they are dangerous, but no one becomes a Marine because it's easy. Now our coalition moves forward. Marines are in the thick of the battle. And what we have begun, we will finish," Bush told them.
"The United States and our allies pledged to act if the dictator did not disarm. The regime in Iraq is now learning that we keep our word. By our actions, we serve a great and just cause: We will remove weapons of mass destruction from the hands of mass murderers. Free nations will not sit and wait, leaving enemies free to plot another September the 11th, this time, perhaps with chemical or biological or nuclear terror. And by defending our own security, we are freeing the people of Iraq from one of the cruelest regimes on Earth."
Today, nearly six years and 4,300 US military deaths later, President Obama goes to the sprawling base in Eastern North Carolina to announce his plan for withdrawal.
It will be his highest profile appearance yet in his role as commander in chief, as he has been focusing on his role as CEO of the economic recovery.
Obama is expected to say that most of the 142,000 troops will come home by the end of August 2010, though the vast majority will stay through the end of this year to safeguard national elections in Iraq and though 35,000 to 50,000 will stay beyond the pullout date with a new mission of training, civilian protection, and counterterrorism. Under the plan Obama is expected to detail, all US troops would withdraw by Dec. 31, 2011 -- the deadline set under the agreement signed by former President Bush.
The size of the residual force and the timetable -- slower than the 16 months candidate Obama promised -- is drawing criticism from some fellow Democrats and antiwar groups.
Thursday evening, Obama had an unscheduled huddle at the White House to dampen the dissent.
Senator John McCain of Arizona, Obama's Republican presidential rival, is more supportive.
"I think the plan is reasonable," he said on the Senate floor today. "I am cautiously optimistic that the plan laid out by the president will lead to success."
But McCain also argued, "I think the plan is significantly different than the plan Obama had during the campaign."
Obama has already announced plans to send 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan, including a big contingent from Camp Lejeune.
Ad ties Republicans to Limbaugh
A labor union and progressive group launched a new national cable TV ad that tries to protect President Obama from Republican attacks by arguing that the GOP takes it marching orders from conservative radio icon Rush Limbaugh.
The spot from AFSCME and Americans United for Change says that congressional Republicans followed Limbaugh's lead in nearly unanimously opposing the $787 billion stimulus package, and are now echoing his opposition to the budget outline Obama unveiled Thursday.
The ad shows a succession of Republican leaders saying, "No" to Obama's proposals, then shows Limbaugh saying on his radio show that he wants Obama "to fail."
Alex Conant, spokesman for the Republican National Committee, responded: “The Democrats are running a permanent campaign rather than doing the bipartisan work of governing. These ads are part of the Democrats’ larger strategy to do something, anything to try to take the focus of their massive spending binge.”
A rebellion on Iraq
President Obama is holding an unscheduled huddle this afternoon with Senate Democrats, trying to quell a rebellion in the ranks over his Iraq plan he is expected to unveil Friday.
At Camp Lejeune, the huge Marine base in North Carolina, Obama is widely expected to confirm plans for a withdrawal by August 2010, though as many as 52,000 of the 142,000 troops now in Iraq could remain and some could retain combat roles.
"I have been one for a long time who has called for significant cutbacks in Iraq," Harry Reid of Nevada, the top Senate Democrat, told reporters. "I’m happy to listen to the secretary of defense and the president but when they talk about 50,000, that’s a little higher number than I anticipated."
The senators, along with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are questioning whether 50,000 is too many to actually "end the war," as Obama promised.
Some liberal critics have already been raising concerns about the 19-month timetable -- three months longer than what Obama pledged during the campaign.
In an CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll last week, 67 percent of Americans said they opposed the Iraq war, up slightly from December, and 69 percent supported removing most troops, while Americans were evenly divided whether the United States is "winning."
In the same survey, however, 63 percent favored Obama's plan to send 17,000 more troops this spring to Afghanistan, though a majority oppose the war. Also, only 31 percent said the US is winning the war in Afghanistan, though 62 percent said the US can win.
Pentagon ends photo ban on war dead return
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced this afternoon that the Pentagon has decided to lift the complete ban on video and photos of the return of the war dead to US soil.
Now, it will be up to the families of the service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan whether to allow such media coverage.
Gates said the decision "should be made by those most directly affected, on an individual basis, by the families of the fallen. We ought not presume to make that decision in their place."
At his daily briefing, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said, "The president asked that the secretary of defense review our policy toward media and photos at Dover air base for victims returning of -- from Iraq and Afghanistan. And what the...president supports is a policy consistent with that that we have at Arlington cemetery, which allows at the families position for that to be open, which allows them to make that decision and protect their privacy if that's what they wish to do."
President Obama said earlier this month he was reconsidering the policy, which was put in place during the 1991 Persian Gulf war and covers the solemn transfer of flag-draped caskets at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, the first US stop on the journey to the final resting place for the military personnel.
Press groups pushed for the change, but the American Legion and other military groups opposed lifting the ban.
The Associated Press says that the emerging policy mirrors one for military services at Arlington National Cemetery, where families largely decide whether they want media coverage.
A poll this month suggested that two-thirds of Americans generally support the policy change.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey conducted last week asked, "When the remains of U.S. troops who were killed in Iraq or Afghanistan are flown back to the U.S., brief ceremonies are held when the caskets are taken off the plane at an air force base. Do you think the government should or should not allow the public to see pictures of those events on TV, in newspapers, and on websites?"
Sixty-seven percent said the government should allow such coverage, while 31 percent said it should not.
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, which bills itself as the country's first and largest nonpartisan organization for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, applauded the policy shift as a way to show Americans the true cost of the wars.
“Less than 1% of the American population has served in Iraq or Afghanistan. There has never been a greater disconnect between those who serve in harms warm and those back home. All too often, the sacrifices of our military are hidden from view. The sight of flag-draped coffins is, and should be, a sobering reminder to all Americans of the ultimate sacrifice our troops have made and the high price of our freedom,” said IAVA Executive Director Paul Rieckhoff.
Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts also issued a statement of support.
“Secretary Gates has made a courageous, respectful decision that first and foremost is accountable to all the families of our fallen heroes,” Kerry said. “I’ve heard from many families of our fallen soldiers who wanted the entire nation to share in the mourning when we bring our heroes home to Dover Air Force Base. This is one way our grateful nation keeps faith with those in uniform, and the new policy is appropriately sensitive to the families who prefer to close an arrival to the media.”
Word of the policy shift comes a day before Obama goes to Camp Lejeune, the sprawling Marine base in eastern North Carolina, to announce the "way forward" in Iraq.
He is widely expected to confirm plans for a withdrawal by August 2010, though as many as 52,000 of the 142,000 troops now in Iraq could remain and some could retain combat roles.
Obama has already announced he is sending 17,000 more troops this spring to Afghanistan.
Obama outlines budget with healthcare fund, tax hikes for wealthy
Unveiling his first budget outline, President Obama this morning said it is "an honest accounting of where we are and where we intend to go" -- including the full cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq -- and focuses on basics, not items that are "nice to have."
While the country needs to add to the federal deficit in the short term to get the economy going, fiscal discipline is needed for long-term prosperity, Obama said. And that includes investments in education, energy, and healthcare that will create savings later on.
His $3.55 trillion spending plan is for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. It projects a federal deficit in the current fiscal year that ends Sept. 30 of a record-shattering $1.75 trillion, up from the most recent estimate of $1.3 trillion. As a proportion of the full economy, the deficit would be the highest since World War II, and the White House projects it would hover around $1 trillion for the next two years before starting to decline to $533 billion in 2013.
Obama is also pledging to cut the federal deficit in half by the end of his first term, telling Congress and the nation that his administration has already identified $2 trillion in savings over the next decade.
But White House budget director Peter Orszag told reporters today that the $2 trillion is actually $1 trillion in spending cuts and $1 trillion in tax and fee increases.
Republicans quickly trashed Obama's budget, saying it doesn't make sense to raise taxes during a recession and criticizing the level of spending.
"The era of big government is back, and Democrats want you to pay for it,” said House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio said at a news conference. Obama is starting to make former President George W. Bush -- whom even fellow Republicans have assailed for dramatically increasing the federal deficit -- "look like a piker when it comes to spending," Boehner added.
Senator Judd Gregg of New Hamphire, who almost joined Obama's cabinet as commerce secretary, said Obama's plan doesn't do enough to trim the deficit.
"It's like you take four steps back and then only take two steps forward," he told reporters. "I mean, basically, that's what's happening here. We're taking four steps back in the deficit fight, and then we're only taking two steps forward in the deficit fight, when the -- when if you were just to stay on the basic course you were on, you would take three steps forward."
UPDATE: Many Democrats welcomed the budget as a badly-needed change of direction after the Bush administration.
“After eight years of missed opportunities and slight of hand budget gimmicks to hide reality, this budget reflects an honest change in Washington that begins to reckon with our biggest challenges,” Senator John F. Kerry said in a statement.
“Finally we have a President who is up front about the true costs of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and finally we have a President grappling with big challenges here at home. For too long, our tax system has rewarded exorbitant wealth over hard work. That ends today. The President’s budget will give 95% of Americans a permanent tax cut to give relief to millions struggling. The more than $630 billion committed to health care will cut costs and provide a down payment towards covering every American. The cap and trade proposal demonstrates that real global climate change solutions are a top priority for this President. This is nothing short of a sober, honest assessment of where our country stands and a tough, realistic plan to get our budget in line with our priorities.”
Obama's budget accounts for part of the cost of the $787 billion stimulus plan. It also accounts for as much as $750 billion more in aid to financial institutions, more than doubling the $700 billion financial rescue plan passed by Congress last October.
Obama also wants to set aside $634 billion over 10 years -- generated from higher taxes on the wealthy and cuts in payments to insurers, hospitals, and physicians -- as a down payment for a healthcare overhaul designed to cover more of the 47 million Americans without insurance. Advocates are calling the reserve fund the clearest sign yet that Obama is serious about taking on healthcare, even as he still tries to revive the recession-bound economy.
Obama is seeking an additional $75 billion for the wars through September, on top of the $40 billion already appropriated by Congress. The administration will also ask for $130 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan in fiscal 2010 and will budget the costs of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan at $50 billion annually over the next several years.
The plan also contains a controversial proposal to raise hundreds of billions of dollars by auctioning off permits to exceed carbon emissions caps, a major policy step on global warming.
Obama's 140-page budget outline is to be followed by a more detailed plan in mid- to late April, which he said will include the results of a line-by-line scrubbing of the budget for waste and inefficiency.
The president wants Congress to extend the $400 annual tax cut in the stimulus package that is to start showing up in most workers' paychecks in April. He also wants to extend the tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003 for couples earning less than $250,000 per year. Those tax cuts were due to expire at the end of 2010.
The tax cuts for couples making more than $250,000 a year, however, would end as scheduled, increasing the tax rate on earnings above that amount to rise from 35 percent to 39.6 percent. Under Obama's plan, wealthier people would also face cuts in itemized deductions for mortgage interest, charitable contributions, local taxes, and other expenses -- to 28 percent from the 35 percent they can claim now.
Obama's full remarks are below:
FULL ENTRYHealth aid for jobless starts today
President Obama announced this morning that another part of the $787 billion economic stimulus package kicks in today: subsidies for those who have been recently laid off to keep their healthcare coverage.
The program is known as COBRA, and Obama said the provision in the stimulus plan will help 7 million Americans.
"That's 7 million Americans who will have one less thing to worry about when they go to sleep at night," he said before unveiling his first budget blueprint . "Equally important, it prevents a further downward spiral in our economy by ensuring that these families don't fall further behind because of mounting health care bills. And it is a direct result of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that I signed into law the other week -- a recovery plan that has only just begun to yield benefits for the American people."
So far since he signed the bill last week, the states have also received $15 billion for Medicaid, the healthcare program for the poor, and $10 billion for making homes more energy-efficient and checking them for lead contamination.
Obama announces AIDS policy chief
President Obama today named the person who will coordinate federal efforts on HIV/AIDS.
Jeffrey S. Crowley, MPH, Senior Research Scholar at Georgetown University’s Health Policy Institute, will be director of the Office of National AIDS Policy.
“Jeffrey Crowley brings the experience and expertise that will help our nation address the ongoing HIV/AIDS crisis and help my administration develop policies that will serve Americans with disabilities,” Obama said in a statement. “In both of these key areas, we continue to face serious challenges and we must take bold steps to meet them. I look forward to Jeffrey’s leadership on these critical issues.”
Crowley's biography, provided by the White House, is below:
FULL ENTRYObama's speech gets good ratings
President Obama's speech to Congress this week wasn't officially a State of the Union address, but it drew better TV ratings numbers than most of the formal ones.
Nielsen Media Research says about 52.4 million viewers tuned in across 10 broadcast and cable networks on Tuesday night -- about half of all TVs in use between 9 and 10:30 p.m.
That viewership is higher than the 49.5 million for Obama's first prime-time press conference on Feb. 9 and the record 38 million for his Democratic National convention acceptance speech.
But it is shy of the nearly 67 million who watched President Bill Clinton's first State of the Union in 1993, or President Bush's speech launching the Iraq war in 2003.
Kennedy, Baucus back Obama on healthcare
President Obama told Congress and the nation that a healthcare overhaul can't wait -- and backed up his words by calling today for a $634 billion reserve fund as a down payment on the changes.
The two key US senators working on healthcare have Obama's back as well, jointly penning an op-ed piece in today's Wall Street Journal.
"Some argue that repairing the health-care system now is impossible, given the urgency and high cost of ending the financial crisis. The claim is that we can fix one problem or the other -- but not both. In truth, the two are inextricably intertwined: Solving the nation's health-care crisis is a fundamental part of healing our economy," write Senator Edward M. Kennedy, chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and Senator Max Baucus, chairman of the Finance Committee.
The two Democrats add that "there is also a moral imperative to follow economic recovery efforts with health reform. If Congress can bail out the nation's banks, surely we can help families get the quality, affordable health care they deserve."
They conclude, "Health is a public good worthy of major, long-term investment. Our starting point will be the down payment of more than $600 billion that the president included in the budget released today. The challenge of crafting this public policy is certainly large. But just as Congress and the president met the first challenges of restoring our nation's economy, we must also keep our commitment to reforming health care -- now."
A tough slog ahead in Afghanistan
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator John McCain come at the subject of Afghanistan from vastly different viewpoints.
But they agreed today that the Obama administration, which is sending 17,000 more US troops this spring to the war-torn country, faces a tough slog there.
"I have to give straight talk and that is I think things are going to get worse in Afghanistan before they get better," McCain said this afternoon at the American Enterprise Institute. "And so I think that it's very important that the president and members of Congress and other people in leadership and respected positions inform the American people that it's going to be a long and hard and tough."
Pelosi, who just returned from leading a congressional delegation to Afghanistan, called it "a tragedy."
In an interview airing tonight on MSNBC's "Rachel Maddow Show," Pelosi said the Bush administration, while waging war in Iraq, was "without a plan, adrift" for 7 1/2 years on Afghanistan, where Al Qaeda is believed to have re-established havens on the border with Pakistan.
"Everyone in the military says this cannot be accomplished militarily only. So it's about how we work with our allies in NATO for a military presence there that will be effective in our defeating the Taliban and eliminating Al Qaeda," she added. "It's about governance. It's about the government of Afghanistan and how legitimate, and reducing corruption and the whole poppy trade, the drug trade, the rest of that."
Clinton applauds Obama speech
Former President Bill Clinton was perhaps the most notable voice to advise President Obama to lighten up a little and be more hopeful about the economy.
With his address Tuesday night to a joint session of Congress, Obama struck just the right tone and pulled off "a real success," Clinton told Greg Sargent ofWhoRunsGov.com today.
Obama succeeded in telling “the American people that we’re gonna get out of this and it’s gonna be alright in the end,” Clinton said in the interview. “I think he drew the right balance — he didn’t sugar-coat anything, he didn’t say it’s gonna get better tomorrow.”
Obama convenes meeting on financial rules
Following up on his exhortation to fix the fundamental causes of the economic crisis, President Obama plans to huddle today with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and key members of Congress to discuss "the critical need for financial regulatory reform."
He plans to meet in the Oval Office with the chairmen and ranking members of the Senate Banking and House Financial Services committees, which have overseen the financial rescue that is costing taxpayers $700 billion and counting. Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut leads the banking panel and Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts the financial services panel.
UPDATE: In prepared remarks obtained by the Associated Press, the president offers no specific regulations he wants, but talks of "core principles," including consumer protections and accountability for executives.
"Let me be clear: the choice we face is not between an oppressive government-run economy and a chaotic and unforgiving capitalism," Obama says, according to the remarks. "Rather, strong financial markets require clear rules of the road, not to hinder financial institutions, but to protect consumers and investors."
An administration official told the AP that Obama wants Congress to work on the regulatory overhaul in the next several weeks, before April's meeting of the world's 20 major economies. "We must recognize that the challenges we face are not just American challenges, they are global challenges," Obama says, according to the prepared excerpts. "So as we work to set high regulatory standards here in the U.S., we must challenge the world to do the same."
In his speech Tuesday night to a joint session of Congress, Obama talked of a "day of reckoning" after "an era where too often short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity; where we failed to look beyond the next payment, the next quarter, or the next election....Regulations were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market. People bought homes they knew they couldn't afford from banks and lenders who pushed those bad loans anyway. And all the while, critical debates and difficult decisions were put off for some other time on some other day."
Obama said that "to ensure that a crisis of this magnitude never happens again, I ask Congress to move quickly on legislation that will finally reform our outdated regulatory system."
"It is time -- it is time to put in place tough, new common-sense rules of the road so that our financial market rewards drive and innovation, and punishes short-cuts and abuse," he added.
Even as he tried to raise the nation's sights to take on ambitious and costly initiatives in energy, education, and healthcare, he warned that more taxpayer aid will be needed to get banks on sounder footing and credit flowing again to consumers and businesses.
"It's not about helping banks; it's about helping people," he said. "Because when credit is available again, that young family can finally buy a new home. And then some company will hire workers to build it. And then those workers will have money to spend. And if they can get a loan, too, maybe they'll finally buy that car, or open their own business. Investors will return to the market, and American families will see their retirement secured once more. Slowly, but surely, confidence will return, and our economy will recover."
"So I ask this Congress to join me in doing whatever proves necessary. Because we cannot consign our nation to an open-ended recession."
Obama's remarks after the meeting are below:
White House dog on the way
The first family dog saga is almost over.
Michelle Obama, who is on the cover of People again, told the magazine that her daughters Sasha and Malia will get their promised pooch in April, after spring break, and they are looking for a Portuguese Water Dog to adopt from a shelter.
"Temperamentally they're supposed to be pretty good," Obama says in the issue hitting newsstands on Friday. "From the size perspective, they're sort of middle of the road -- it's not small, but it's not a huge dog. And the folks that we know who own them have raved about them. So that's where we're leaning."
During the campaign, President Obama promised his girls the dog at the end -- and it became a subject of much speculation and lobbying by advocates of various breeds. There was early talk that the Obamas would get a labradoodle.
The first couple and their daughters have been going back and forth on possible names, and Michelle Obama told People she nixed "Frank" or "Moose."
Obama names third choice at commerce
President Obama can only hope the third time is a charm for his commerce secretary.
This morning, he officially nominated former Washington Governor Gary Locke for the post, saying he has lived the American Dream and "shares my commitment to do whatever it takes to keep it alive in our time."
Locke, the first elected Chinese-American governor, is Obama's third choice for the job, which deals with trade and oversees the politically touchy Census. As governor, Locke was deeply involved in Pacific Rim trade, a key growth area for the United States.
Locke, a 59-year-old Democrat, said he will push Obama's agenda, saying, "The American people and I fully support you and have confidence in your bold strategy to turn our economy around."
Obama's first pick, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, withdrew amid an investigation into state contracts. The president's second, Republican Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, pulled out after deciding he disagreed with Obama too much on the economic stimulus and other issues.
"I'm sure it's not lost on anyone that we've tried this a couple of times. But I'm a big believer in keeping at something until you get it right," Obama said.
Their full remarks are below, as are the official White House statement and Locke's mini-biography:
FULL ENTRYBiden plays bad cop
"Nobody messes with Joe," President Obama declared Tuesday night, noting that Vice President Biden is leading the effort to make sure the $787 billion economic stimulus package doesn't go to waste.
"Isn't that right? Obama ad-libbed as members of Congress applauded. "They don't mess with you."
Today, Biden took that message to the morning news shows. On ABC's "Good Morning America," he said the money "cannot be squandered" and warned that if states don't use the money as intended, the government may "use the television and the radio and the media to embarrass them for them not doing what they're supposed to do."
Meeting later with cabinet members, Biden said he plans to use "the moral approbation of this office" to make sure the stimulus cash is wisely spent. And Earl Devaney, the former Massachusetts police officer heading a stimulus plan accountability board, said he will push each of the 50 states to name a watchdog to oversee spending, the Associated Press reported.
According to a press pool report, Biden said of Devaney, "They said last night 'Don't mess with Joe.' Well, this is the guy to not mess with."
Biden said while there is no "magic bullet" for quickly reviving the economy, the stimulus is designed to "drop kick" the economy out of recession.
The full remarks of Biden and Devaney, as provided by the White House, are below:
FULL ENTRYObama, Jindal preview tonight's speeches
The White House just released a very preliminary excerpt from President Obama's speech tonight to Congress in which he tries to inspire confidence among Americans.
"While our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken; though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before," Obama plans to say.
"The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation. The answers to our problems don’t lie beyond our reach. They exist in our laboratories and universities; in our fields and our factories; in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on Earth. Those qualities that have made America the greatest force of progress and prosperity in human history we still possess in ample measure. What is required now is for this country to pull together, confront boldly the challenges we face, and take responsibility for our future once more."
UPDATE: This evening, the White House released more advance excerpts of Obama's speech:
We have lived through an era where too often, short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity; where we failed to look beyond the next payment, the next quarter, or the next election. A surplus became an excuse to transfer wealth to the wealthy instead of an opportunity to invest in our future. Regulations were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market. People bought homes they knew they couldn’t afford from banks and lenders who pushed those bad loans anyway. And all the while, critical debates and difficult decisions were put off for some other time on some other day.
Well that day of reckoning has arrived, and the time to take charge of our future is here.
Now is the time to act boldly and wisely – to not only revive this economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity. Now is the time to jumpstart job creation, re-start lending, and invest in areas like energy, health care, and education that will grow our economy, even as we make hard choices to bring our deficit down. That is what my economic agenda is designed to do, and that’s what I’d like to talk to you about tonight.
…..
The recovery plan and the financial stability plan are the immediate steps we’re taking to revive our economy in the short-term. But the only way to fully restore America’s economic strength is to make the long-term investments that will lead to new jobs, new industries, and a renewed ability to compete with the rest of the world. The only way this century will be another American century is if we confront at last the price of our dependence on oil and the high cost of health care; the schools that aren’t preparing our children and the mountain of debt they stand to inherit. That is our responsibility.
In the next few days, I will submit a budget to Congress. So often, we have come to view these documents as simply numbers on a page or laundry lists of programs. I see this document differently. I see it as a vision for America – as a blueprint for our future.
My budget does not attempt to solve every problem or address every issue. It reflects the stark reality of what we’ve inherited – a trillion dollar deficit, a financial crisis, and a costly recession.
Given these realities, everyone in this chamber – Democrats and Republicans – will have to sacrifice some worthy priorities for which there are no dollars. And that includes me.
But that does not mean we can afford to ignore our long-term challenges. I reject the view that says our problems will simply take care of themselves; that says government has no role in laying the foundation for our common prosperity.
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Yesterday, I held a fiscal summit where I pledged to cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term in office. My administration has also begun to go line by line through the federal budget in order to eliminate wasteful and ineffective programs. As you can imagine, this is a process that will take some time. But we’re starting with the biggest lines. We have already identified two trillion dollars in savings over the next decade.
In this budget, we will end education programs that don’t work and end direct payments to large agribusinesses that don’t need them. We’ll eliminate the no-bid contracts that have wasted billions in Iraq, and reform our defense budget so that we’re not paying for Cold War-era weapons systems we don’t use. We will root out the waste, fraud, and abuse in our Medicare program that doesn’t make our seniors any healthier, and we will restore a sense of fairness and balance to our tax code by finally ending the tax breaks for corporations that ship our jobs overseas.
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I know that we haven’t agreed on every issue thus far, and there are surely times in the future when we will part ways. But I also know that every American who is sitting here tonight loves this country and wants it to succeed. That must be the starting point for every debate we have in the coming months, and where we return after those debates are done. That is the foundation on which the American people expect us to build common ground.
….
But in my life, I have also learned that hope is found in unlikely places; that inspiration often comes not from those with the most power or celebrity, but from the dreams and aspirations of Americans who are anything but ordinary.
I think about Leonard Abess, the bank president from Miami who reportedly cashed out of his company, took a $60 million bonus, and gave it out to all 399 people who worked for him, plus another 72 who used to work for him. He didn’t tell anyone, but when the local newspaper found out, he simply said, ''I knew some of these people since I was 7 years old. I didn't feel right getting the money myself.”
I think about Greensburg, Kansas, a town that was completely destroyed by a tornado, but is being rebuilt by its residents as a global example of how clean energy can power an entire community – how it can bring jobs and businesses to a place where piles of bricks and rubble once lay. “The tragedy was terrible,” said one of the men who helped them rebuild. “But the folks here know that it also provided an incredible opportunity.”
And I think about Ty’Sheoma Bethea, the young girl from that school I visited in Dillon, South Carolina – a place where the ceilings leak, the paint peels off the walls, and they have to stop teaching six times a day because the train barrels by their classroom. She has been told that her school is hopeless, but the other day after class she went to the public library and typed up a letter to the people sitting in this room. She even asked her principal for the money to buy a stamp. The letter asks us for help, and says, “We are just students trying to become lawyers, doctors, congressmen like yourself and one day president, so we can make a change to not just the state of South Carolina but also the world. We are not quitters.”
The initial excerpts were released soon after the Republican National Committee released excerpts of the response that Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal will deliver after Obama's speech.
Jindal also offers optimism for the future, a hand to Obama for bipartisan cooperation and criticism of Democrats in Congress, and an acknowledgement that Republicans strayed from fiscal conservatism.
His excerpts:
“As I grew up, my mom and dad taught me the values that attracted them to this country - and they instilled in me an immigrant’s wonder at the greatness of America. As a child, I remember going to the grocery store with my dad. Growing up in India, he had seen extreme poverty. And as we walked through the aisles, looking at the endless variety on the shelves, he would tell me: ‘Bobby, Americans can do anything.’ I still believe that to this day.
…
“Republicans are ready to work with the new President to provide those solutions. Here in my state of Louisiana, we don’t care what party you belong to if you have good ideas to make life better for our people. We need more of that attitude from both Democrats and Republicans in our nation’s capital. All of us want our economy to recover and our nation to prosper. So where we agree, Republicans must be the President’s strongest partners. And where we disagree, Republicans have a responsibility to be candid and offer better ideas for a path forward.
…
“The strength of America is not found in our government. It is found in the compassionate hearts and enterprising spirit of our citizens.
…
“To solve our current problems, Washington must lead. But the way to lead is not to raise taxes and put more money and power in hands of Washington politicians. The way to lead is by empowering you - the American people. Because we believe that Americans can do anything.
…
“Democratic leaders say their legislation will grow the economy. What it will do is grow the government, increase our taxes down the line, and saddle future generations with debt. Who among us would ask our children for a loan, so we could spend money we do not have, on things we do not need? That is precisely what the Democrats in Congress just did. It’s irresponsible. And it’s no way to strengthen our economy, create jobs, or build a prosperous future for our children.
…
“In recent years, these distinctions in philosophy became less clear - because our party got away from its principles. You elected Republicans to champion limited government, fiscal discipline, and personal responsibility. Instead, Republicans went along with earmarks and big government spending in Washington. Republicans lost your trust - and rightly so.
…
“A few weeks ago, the President warned that our nation is facing a crisis that he said ‘we may not be able to reverse.’ Our troubles are real, to be sure. But don’t let anyone tell you that we cannot recover - or that America’s best days are behind her.”
The human faces for speech
It's not officially a State of the Union address, but President Obama's speech tonight will have many of the accoutrements, including the people who sit next to the first lady in the gallery and get pointed out on national television.
They include Ty'Sheoma Bethea, an eighth grader from Dillon, S.C. (best known as the home of South of the Border), whose letter appealing for help fixing up her school made its way to Obama; Leonard Abess Jr., a Florida banker who gave away $60 million in proceeds from selling his shares of a bank; and Geneva Lawson, a bank teller who benefited from Abess's generosity.
Obama plans to highlight Bethea as a child who would benefit from the school building money in the $787 billion stimulus plan, and Abess as an example of the kind of CEO responsibility he wants.
UPDATE: The White House said late this afternoon that those in Michelle Obama's box will also include Earl Devaney, the former Massachusetts police officer who is moving from his current job as inspector general at the Interior Department to head of the board policing the stimulus package; and Vermont Governor Jim Douglas, a Republican who backed the stimulus plan.
The full list, provided by the White House, is below:
Solis in as labor secretary
President Obama finally has a labor secretary, leaving his picks at commerce and health and human services still to go to complete his cabinet.
The Senate late this afternoon voted 80-17 to confirm California congresswoman Hilda Solis at labor, two months after Obama nominated her. Her nomination was held up by Republican concerns over her pro-union activities, then by reports of tax liens against her husband's business.
Labor groups have been aggressively pushing for Solis, and immediately applauded her confirmation.
"The confirmation of Rep. Hilda Solis is a huge victory: finally Americans will have a Secretary of Labor who represents working people, not wealthy CEO’s. It is also a historic moment as Rep. Solis becomes the first Hispanic Secretary of Labor," AFL-CIO president John Sweeney said in a statement.
"The delay of Rep. Solis’s nomination for partisan and ideological reasons was overcome by the grassroots support of millions of Americans who are struggling and desperately need a secretary of labor who will be their voice," he added, calling her "uniquely qualified to help struggling families through these difficult economic times because she knows firsthand what they are going through."
"She grew up in a working class family and understands what programs our nation’s workers need the most. She will fight to improve skills development and job creation programs, including development of 'green collar' jobs," Sweeney added. "She will work to assure that workers get the pay they have earned and that they work in safe, healthy, and fair workplaces. She’s ready to address the retirement security crisis and will work hard to protect every worker from job discrimination, regardless of race, sex, veteran status, or disability."
"In the midst of this economic crisis – when thousands of jobs are lost every day – it is crucial to make the economy work for working people again. Americans need a plan to help put families back to work, back in their homes, and back on the path of prosperity. In addition to bold economic recovery plan, America’s workers need a strong Department of Labor," added Anna Burger, chairwoman of the Change to Win coalition.
“Hilda Solis is the right person to lead that charge. She has long been a champion of working families. She has fought for fair pay for women, health care for children, green jobs and the right for workers to have a voice in the workplace to improve wages, conditions and benefits. We applaud Congress for their confirmation of Hilda Solis as U.S. Secretary of Labor and look forward to working alongside her. We are confident that she will help restore the economy, rebuild the middle class and renew the American Dream for America’s workers.”
The Communications Workers of America, along with other unions, highlighted her support for a bill that would make it easier for workers to organize.
“Secretary Solis has long been an effective voice for workers’ rights,” said CWA President Larry Cohen.
Ellen R. Malcolm, president of EMILY's List, which supports female candidates who back abortion rights, added her congratulations.
"Today, I congratulate Secretary Hilda Solis and wish her well as our new Secretary of Labor. Along with the thousands of EMILY’s List members who petitioned Senate Republicans standing in her way, I am heartened to see the Senate confirm Solis and put progress ahead of partisan politics. It is critical that the Department of Labor have a strong, intelligent, and effective leader like Secretary Solis to advocate for our nation’s workers during these tough economic times,” she said in a statement.
Tom Daschle withdrew at health and human services over tax problems, and though reports have suggested Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius is in line for the appointment, Obama has yet to announce it.
As soon as Wednesday, Obama is expected to nominate former Washington Governor Gary Locke as his third try at Commerce. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson withdrew over an investigation into state contracts, then Republican Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire jilted Obama at the political altar, saying he had too many policy differences with the new Democratic president.
Japan's leader comes calling
Japan Prime Minister Taro Aso looked over at President Obama during today's meeting. (AP)
In another sign of the primacy of Asia for the Obama administration, the first foreign leader with an official Oval Office visit is Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso today.
Hillary Clinton, President Obama's secretary of state, chose Asia for her first foreign tour last week, making stops in Japan, Indonesia, Korea, and China, and causing quite a stir along the way.
Aso, unlike Obama, is deeply unpopular with his people and is struggling to stay in power. Still, Japan is the world's second largest economy, behind the United States, and can offer some lessons on what to do -- and what not to do -- to deal with a financial crisis.
During the traditional pre-meeting photo opportunity, Obama said that the two nations have key shared concerns and said that Japan "has been a great partner" on issues such as climate change and Afghanistan.
"I'm looking forward to a very constructive dialogue," the president said.
Aso said he and his nation were "very honored" to be the first foreign guest and agreed that there are many issues the two countries must cooperate on as the world's two largest economies.
"We have to work together, hand in hand," Aso said.
(Their full remarks, as provided by the White House, are below.)
After the meeting, the White House issued this summary:
President Obama today held in-depth consultations with the Prime Minister of Japan on the global economic crisis and other areas for bilateral cooperation. The President underscored his firm commitment to the U.S.-Japan Alliance and called for continued progress in modernizing the Alliance by implementing the joint realignment initiative.
The two leaders agreed to work closely and urgently, as the world’s leading economies, to stimulate demand at home and abroad, to help other countries respond to the global crisis, to unfreeze credit markets, and to seek concrete results from the April London Economic Summit and through the G-8. They agreed fully on the need to resist protectionism.
With respect to regional issues, they pledged to work closely through the Six-Party process to verifiably eliminate North Korea’s nuclear program and to deal with the problem of North Korea’s missiles, as well as other matters including Japan’s abducted citizens.
Noting the importance of stabilizing Afghanistan, President Obama expressed appreciation for Japan’s extensive contributions to date and strongly welcomed Japan’s intention to play a greater role in assisting Afghanistan as well as Pakistan to improve security and economic development.
The two leaders both saw climate change as a priority for both nations and discussed ways of working together, including in an effort to assist developing nations. They pledged to build on the strong record of joint research and development on clean energy technology.
Obama considers grounding new White House helicopter program
In one of the more noteworthy exchanges in Monday's "fiscal responsibility summit," President Obama and his Republican campaign rival John McCain agreed that new White House helicopters seemed like a waste of money.
Railing against cost overruns in Pentagon procurement, McCain pointed out that the new fleet of 28 Marine One helicopters being built to replace the existing 30-year-old copters will cost $11.2 billion total -- nearly double their original budget.
"Your helicopter is now going to cost as much as Air Force One. I don't think there is any more graphic demonstration of how good ideas have cost taxpayers an enormous amount of money," McCain told Obama in what resembled prime minister's question time in Britain, where members of the opposition in Parliament get to directly question the prime minister each week.
"It is an example of the procurement process gone amok, and we're going to have to fix it," Obama agreed, adding that he had already talked to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates about reviewing the program and its ballooning costs.
Joking about the issue, Obama said the old helicopters seemed fine, though noting he had never had a helicopter before and "maybe I've been deprived and I didn't know it."
This morning, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told CNN that Obama is talking to Gates about officially putting the helicopter program on hold.
"The president talked to the secretary of defense, and I think as he said yesterday to Sen. (John) McCain, we don't need any new helicopters at the White House," Gibbs said on CNN's "American Morning."
Asked if that meant the order was being put on hold, Gibbs said: "That's exactly what he talked to the secretary about."
D.C. representation clears hurdle
District of Columbia advocates' hope that President Obama will be the one to finally give Washington a full voting representative in Congress moved a big step closer today.
The US Senate voted 62-34, two more votes than needed, to begin debate on a bill that would grant heavily-Democratic D.C. a seat in the House, while balancing it by giving Republican Utah a seat, growing the chamber to 437 members.
Obama was an original cosponsor of the bill when he was in the Senate and is expected to sign it if it reaches his desk. His election in November renewed hopes among D.C. boosters.
Republicans blocked the bill two years ago and could seek to filibuster it again, but now Democrats control seven more seats in the Senate.
"I find it unimaginable that 600,000 Americans have no voice and no vote in the United States Congress," the Senate's second-ranking Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois, said in urging support for the measure, according to the Associated Press.
Tufts prof gets plaudits from organic boosters
Tufts professor Kathleen Merrigan, nominated Monday to be deputy agriculture secretary, is getting high marks from "sustainable agriculture" advocates, The Washington Post's political blog notes today.
Merrigan is a specialist on organic farming who nearly two decades ago wrote legislation recognizing it while on the staff of US Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont.
"Merrigan has a fantastic background in supporting sustainable agriculture. She is the type of person we really believe should be leading change for 21st century agriculture," David Murphy, head of Food Democracy Now, told the Post.
The Iowa-based group, which opposes factory farms, had Merrigan on its "sustainable dozen" list of candidates for Agriculture Department posts on whose behalf it was urging members to lobby the Obama administration.
Obama riding high on eve of big speech
As he prepares to give his version of the State of the Union tonight, President Obama continues to hold the confidence of most Americans, even though support is dividing again along partisan fault lines.
Two new polls published today show his approval ratings in the political stratosphere, relatively speaking.
A Washington Post/ABC News survey puts his approval rating at 68 percent and says that 64 percent support the $787 billion stimulus package he championed.
A New York Times/CBS survey puts his approval rating at 63 percent and an even higher 77 percent said they are optimistic about the next four years under an Obama administration.
New findings released from a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey last week found that expectations are high for Obama's 9 p.m. address to a joint session of Congress, though not as high as they had been. In the recent survey, 28 percent said they expected the speech to be excellent and 44 percent expected it to be good. But that's down from 44 percent excellent and 41 percent good last month.
Previewing the speech, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs went on the morning news shows today to say that Obama will continue focusing on the faltering economy -- what has been done so far and what more needs to be done -- and continue the balancing act between being honest about the problems yet hopeful about the future.
"What I think the President is going to do tonight, and what I think he thinks is important is, to be honest with the American people about the challenges we face and talk about what we are doing each and every day to get our economy back on track,” Gibbs said on Fox News Channel. “The notion that brighter days are ahead.”
John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest labor federation, issued a statement with his expectations.
"Working people will be listening tonight for President Obama to make crystal clear that as we rebuild our nation’s economy, we will build it in a way that will work for everyone," said Sweeney, who will attend the speech as a guest of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
"President Obama’s economic recovery plan was a critical first step towards putting America back to work. Tonight, we hope to hear more about his plans to invest in infrastructure spending so we can rebuild America’s bridges and transportation systems with workers being paid a fair wage; to promote green technologies that will create good paying
jobs while also protecting our environment; and to provide universal healthcare for all Americans that will help millions of struggling families and help our economy recover.
"President Obama understands – and has said repeatedly – that our economy has become fundamentally imbalanced with too much power concentrated in the very few hands of the wealthy and corporate CEOs. It is time that America’s workers have a real voice on the job to bargain for better health care, job security, and wages without fear of harassment or intimidation.
"President Obama has shown tremendous leadership towards improving the lives of America’s workers – we look forward to hearing more tonight."
Harvard expert nominated for key Pentagon post
By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- President Obama late this afternoon nominated Harvard professor Ashton B. Carter, a leading authority on arms control, to take on a surprising new role, according to top administration officials -- as the Pentagon's chief weapons buyer.
The choice of Carter to run the office that oversees hundreds of billions of dollars for new weapons and research -- and the focus of intense lobbying by defense firms, retired generals, and members of Congress -- has been rumored for weeks. And word of his pending nomination has already sparked concern within the defense industry and some of the Pentagon bureaucracy.
But that may be exactly what Obama and Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates want.
Unlike most of his predecessors selected to be under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, Carter has no professional ties to America's arms makers or manufacturing industry, nor has he spent his career in government procurement. Instead, from his perch at Harvard's Kennedy School, Carter has been criticizing the Pentagon for buying too many armaments it doesn't need, decrying what he calls a lack of discipline and "failure to take account of cost growth in weapons systems and defense services."
A trained scientist with a doctorate in theoretical physics and a degree in Medieval history, Carter's advocates say the long-time Harvard professor and national security specialist is being chosen because his combination of technical expertise and knowledge of defense strategy will be needed to make what Gates calls "difficult choices" about which weapons programs to invest in and which ones to terminate.
"He is not being brought in to help the defense industry thrive," said Loren Thompson, president of the Lexington Institute, an Arlington, Va., think tank. "He is being brought in to decide what we need and what we can do without."
At a "fiscal responsibility summit" at the White House today, Senator John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee last year, highlighted serious cost overruns in the Pentagon budget as part of cutting the federal deficit, and said "tough decisions" on procurement need to be made as the country also pays for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"This is going to be one of our highest priorities," Obama replied.
Almost immediately after rumors surfaced that Carter was being considered for the high-profile job, Pentagon contractors and military procurement officials began waging a whisper campaign to raise doubts about the choice.
Some of them contend that Carter requires a special waiver from Obama in order to hold the post, citing an obscure law that asserts the candidate should have acquisition experience. (By contrast, the White House had to grant an ethics waiver to allow William Lynn III to become Gates's deputy because he was so close to the industry, having been a lobbyist for Waltham-based Raytheon.)
One former Pentagon acquisition chief and industry executive said he believes such experience is crucial to doing an effective job. "Having been in a factory and understanding the development process is what we were looking for," said the former official, who asked not to be identified because he was criticizing a presidential appointee.
But former Secretary of Defense William Perry, who drew up the original qualifications for the post as a member of the so-called Packard Commission in the 1980s, believes the language is being misused by those opposed to Carter's nomination and who fear he will buck the status quo.
The intent, he said, was to ensure the job wasn't filled by a political ally of the president with little or no experience in military matters, said Perry, who hired Carter for a top Pentagon policy position in the 1990s.
"Having held that job and supervised two different people who had that job I think I am pretty qualified to say who is qualified," Perry said in an interview. "My judgment is that a waiver is not required for Ash."
FULL ENTRYAmericans not confident in leaders, oppose more bailouts
Americans are scared witless about the economy and their own finances.
But newly released poll findings show they also have little confidence in government and business leaders -- other than President Obama -- to make things better.
According to the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey, 40 percent are very confident and 35 percent somewhat confident that the Obama administration "will make the right decisions to help the country overcome its current economic problems."
Only 19 percent are very confident in congressional Democrats and 9 percent in congressional Republicans, 11 percent for labor leaders, only 5 percent each for auto executives and bank executives, and a mere 4 percent are very confident in Wall Street investors.
The poll also suggests there's little appetite for forking over more taxpayer money to help bail out the struggling auto industry or Wall Street. Only 37 percent favor, and 61 percent oppose, more aid to the automakers. Only 36 percent favor, and 62 percent oppose, shelling out the remaining $350 billion in financial rescue funds.
But Americans support more direct help -- 63 percent favor government assistance to homeowners who can't pay their mortgages and 72 percent favor "a program that would increase the federal government's influence over the country's health care system in an attempt to lower costs and provide health care coverage to more Americans."
Obama vows honesty in budgets
President Obama, opening a "fiscal responsibility summit" to tackle the flood of red ink facing the federal government, declared today that Washington can no longer "spend as we please" -- and will no longer try to hide the size of the problem.
Facing the worst economic crisis in generations, he had no choice to add to the deficit in the short term with "extraordinary but necessary steps," Obama said.
"They will come at a cost," he said, and there also are long-term challenges in energy and healthcare that need funding.
But the deficits cannot be sustained and the American people are "already paying the price" for them, he said, noting that the government paid $250 billion in interest last fiscal year on the national debt -- one in 10 taxpayer dollars.
Getting deficits under control starts with honesty in budgeting, said Obama, vowing to end accounting gimmicks, such as not budgeting for the Iraq war in advance, that obscured how much the government was spending.
"I believe it is time for a frank conversation," he said. (His full remarks are below.)
The federal deficit, projected to reach a record $1.2 trillion this fiscal year, is expected to approach $900 billion next fiscal year -- and those figures do not include the cost of the $787 billion stimulus package.
On Thursday, the White House plans to release a budget that calls for slicing the deficit in half by 2013, largely by reducing the cost of the Iraq war through troop withdrawals and by allowing tax cuts for the highest-income taxpayers to end as scheduled in 2010.
UPDATE: At the close of the summit, Obama pledged this afternoon to keep working on the issues that were raised -- and called on former rival John McCain to comment.
McCain highlighted serious cost overruns in the Pentagon budget (including a new presidential helicopter), and said "tough decisions" need to be made as the country also pays for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"This is going to be one of our highest priorities," said Obama, who said he has already raised with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates whether the helicopter is needed.
The White House released the list of moderators for smaller, breakout sessions among the 130 attendees.
Social Security
Moderators: Chair of the National Economic Council Larry Summers and Gene Sperling of the Treasury Department
Healthcare
Moderators: OMB Director Peter Orszag and Domestic Policy Council Director Melody Barnes
Tax Reform
Moderators: Secretary Tim Geithner and Council of Economic Advisers Chair Christina Romer
Budget Process
Moderators: Secretary Ray LaHood and Deputy OMB Director Rob Nabors
Procurement
Moderators: Secretary Janet Napolitano, Deputy Secretary of State Jack Lew, and Rahm Emanuel
Patrick defends Obama's tax plan
Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts today stood by his friend and political ally -- President Obama -- on Obama's plan to let tax cuts expire as scheduled in 2010 for the highest-income Americans.
To help slice the federal deficit, Obama plans to allow the tax cuts passed under the Bush administration to lapse for individuals making $200,000 or more a year and families earning $250,000 or more.
Critics call it a tax increase that will hurt the economic recovery and is unfair to people already paying the lion's share of total taxes.
But asked about it on MSNBC, Patrick said Obama's plan would impose "a fair amount of taxes" on people who are relatively wealthy.
"Nobody is talking about taking that wealth away," Patrick, who is in Washington for a National Governors Association meeting, said from in front of the White House.
Patrick said he would be hit by the increase and had no problem paying more, having come "from nearly nothing" to where he is blessed to make an ample living.
Obama talks responsibility
President Obama plans to preach responsibility today in two events -- one on spending the economic stimulus money, the other on getting a handle on the federal deficit that the stimulus will increase.
This morning, he spoke to the National Governors Association, bringing a similar accountability message as he did to the nation's mayors on Friday, when he warned that he would "call out" anyone who wasted their share of the $787 billion package.
To show how serious Washington is about helping, Obama told the governors he is releasing $15 billion on Wednesday to help the states with shortfalls in their Medicaid programs for the poor.
According to the White House, Massachusetts will get $594 million in Medicaid money, Maine will get $94.5 million, New Hampshire $31.5 million, Rhode Island $93.5 million, and Vermont $45.5 million.
"That means that by the time most of you get home; money will be waiting to help 20 million vulnerable Americans in your states keep their health coverage," Obama said. "Children with asthma will be able to breathe easier, seniors won’t need to fear losing their doctors, and pregnant women with limited means won’t need to worry about the health of their babies.”
He also named Vice President Joe Biden to oversee the stimulus package, which Obama said shows the importance of the effort.
Obama also confirmed that Earl Devaney, the inspector general at the Interior Department and a former Secret Service agent from Massachusetts, will be chairman of the new Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board.
The president called Devaney a "tenacious and efficient guardian" of the taxpayers' money.
"He looks like an inspector....He's tough, you know, he barely cracks a smile," Obama said.
Obama urged governors to bring that same attitude to how the stimulus cash is spent in their states. "This is not a blank check," he said.
He praised Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts and two others for creating websites, similar to the one the White House has already launched, to help taxpayers track the spending, and urged other governors to do the same.
Obama acknowledged the "healthy debate" among the governors about the money. But he urged them not to lose perspective, saying that the provisions under criticism in the "cable chatter" is a mere "fraction" of the stimulus plan. For instance, he said, the unemployment provision in dispute is only $7 billion of the entire package.
(Obama's full remarks, provided by the White House, are below).
At the first formal White House dinner of his presidency, Obama told the governors Sunday night that it's crucial for the states and federal government to work together.
"You're where the rubber hits the road. And you have to make tough decisions all the time, even when there's a lot of fussing and fighting here in Washington. The bottom line is, you still have to make sure that schools are open, that children are learning, that people who are falling on hard times are getting help. And so our goal and aim is to make sure that we are making life easier, and not harder, for you during the time that we're here in Washington," he said, according to the press pool report.
"We are going through some tough times," Obama added. "I don't need to tell you -- you're seeing it in your own budget, you're seeing it in your own state. There are going to be some differences, both within your state and in the country, in terms of how we address these problems. Here's my assurance. I know that each and every one of you are making the decisions you make, and taking the positions that you take, based on what is best for your state. And not every state's the same, and each of you have to take into account the
particular characteristics and demographics and culture and perspectives of your states and your parties. But I want you to know that regardless of our occasional difference, and in this very difficult time, my hope is that we can all work together."
Some Republican governors are at least talking about turning down some of the money altogether. Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi is looking askance at millions of dollars in unemployment aid because when that money runs out, it would require increasing taxes on employers to maintain that level.
"The vast majority of the money is acceptable to us, the conditions are not significant or not objectionable," Barbour told reporters at the dinner. "There is some money that we won't take because of the requirements, particularly the unemployment compensation money. We do not, in our state, pay unemployment compensation to people who are not willing and able to work full time. This bill would require us to change that, which would result in a large tax increase when the federal money runs out, and that's why we're not going to take it."
Responding to the possible rejections, Representative Anthony Weiner of New York wants to make it easier for other states to divide up the money that other states pass up.
This afternoon, Obama plans introductory and closing remarks at a "fiscal responsibility summit" where 130 officials will discuss the long-term red ink threatening to overwhelm the federal government. It is running a projected $1.2 trillion deficit this year, and that doesn't count the stimulus package.
Obama acknowledges the deficit will increase in the short term, but White House officials over the weekend started divulging a plan to cut the deficit in half in the next four years, largely by withdrawing US troops from Iraq and allowing the Bush administration's tax cuts for the wealthy to lapse.
"It will require doing all we can to get exploding deficits under control as our economy begins to recover," Obama said in his weekend Internet and radio address. "That work begins on Monday, when I will convene a fiscal summit of independent experts and unions, advocacy groups and members of Congress to discuss how we can cut the trillion-dollar deficit that we've inherited."
A new poll shows that Americans are worried about the exploding deficit. The Washington Post-ABC News survey released today found that 59 percent of respondents are "very concerned" -- up 10 percentage points from December.
That concern, however, depends on party affiliation. Concern has actually dropped slightly among Democrats, while increasing among Republicans, 74 percent of whom express worry -- up 29 percentage points from December.
FULL ENTRYSupport rises for stimulus, though doubts on impact
Now that the $787 billion stimulus bill is law, support for it has grown, a new poll suggests.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released this afternoon shows that 60 percent favor the package and 39 percent oppose it, compared to earlier polls that found Americans evenly divided.
Fewer respondents, 53 percent, said they believed the stimulus would lead to a "significant improvement" in the economy, and only 31 percent said it would mean a significant improvement in their own financial situation.
Americans continue to be very high on President Obama, who hits the one-month mark in office today: 49 percent called the stimulus bill's passage a major victory for him, 74 percent say he has met or exceeded expectations, and 67 percent strongly or moderately approve of how he is handling his job, though that latter number is down from 76 percent earlier this month.
UPDATE: Later today, CNN released more findings of the poll that are something of a mixed bag for Obama.
Eighty percent say he is a "strong and decisive leader," up slightly from December, before he took office. About three-fourths of respondents say Obama is honest and trustworthy.
But 69 percent say he can bring the kind of change the country needs, down from 75 percent in December, and 63 percent say he generally agrees with them on the issues they care about, down from 68 percent. Those downturns could reflect the ethical lapses of some of his top nominees and the intense partisanship and Republican attacks over the stimulus plan.
The new poll, conducted Wednesday and Thursday, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Obama names rural health chief
With Tom Daschle's tax flame-out, President Obama does not have someone to shepherd a healthcare overhaul yet.
But today, he did name someone to focus on getting care to the uninsured and underserved.
Mary Wakefield, director of the Center for Rural Health at the University of North Dakota and described by the White House as one of the nation’s top rural healthcare professionals, will be administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration.
“As a nurse, a Ph.D., and a leading rural healthcare advocate, Mary Wakefield brings expertise that will be instrumental in expanding and improving services for those who are currently uninsured or underserved,” Obama said in a statement. “Under her leadership we will be able to expand and improve the care provided at the Community Health Centers which serve millions of uninsured Americans and address severe provider shortages across the country.”
The agency oversees community health centers across the country and programs that send doctors and nurses to underserved areas and will administer $2.5 billion in the stimulus package to improve healthcare infrastructure and train health care professionals.
Wakefield's biography, provided by the White House, is below:
Bill Clinton has friendly advice
President Obama continues to get lots of unsolicited advice from the last Democratic president, Bill Clinton.
Today, Clinton said it's time for Obama to be somewhat more optimistic about the economy to help the psychology of consumer confidence.
"I like trying to educate the American people about the dimensions and scope of this economic crisis," Clinton said in an interview aired on ABC's "Good Morning America." "I just would like him to end by saying that he is hopeful and completely convinced we're gonna come through this."
"You will see some good economic news form the stimulus fairly soon," he added.
At the same time, the former president said that "I like the fact that he didn't come in and give us a bunch of happy talk."
Asked about Clinton's comments, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said this afternoon that Obama is aiming for a balance.
Gibbs said "it's important to be straightforward with the American people" about the economic challenges facing the country, but also to inspire confidence that the steps that have been taken will work.
Obama gives pep talk, warning to mayors
By Donovan Slack and Foon Rhee, Globe Staff
President Obama told mayors from across the country this morning that help is on the way, in the form of the $787 billion economic stimulus he signed this week.
"We meet at such an urgent time," said Obama, who Thursday night signed an executive order establishing a new White House office for urban policy.
To lift the country out of recession, the president said, there must be a true partnership between mayors "on the front lines" and the White House.
"That partnership has to begin right now," Obama told about 85 mayors, including Tom Menino of Boston and his counterparts in other big cities.
Obama highlighted portions of the stimulus package, including a restoration of the program that helps cities pay for more police officers on the street.
While offering aid, Obama also warned the mayors that he will have no tolerance for them wasting taxpayers money or advancing their own personal agendas with the money.
American taxpayers, he said, are giving government officials their trust and their hard-earned money -- and expect to be repaid with smart spending and big impact.
"If a federal agency proposes a project that will waste that money, I will not hesitate to call them out on it, and put a stop to it," Obama said. "I want everyone here to be on notice that if a local government does the same, I will call them out on it, and use the full power of my office and our administration to stop it."
"Welcome back to the White House," Vice President Biden declared to applause, suggesting that mayors will get a friendlier reception in this administration than the previous one. "You can have our phone number and you know where we live."
Biden said that cities have been neglected, even though 70 percent of jobs are in them and they are essential to an economic recovery. "We know how important our cities are," he said.
But now, Biden said, municipal, state, and federal agencies must prove that the unprecedented infusion of cash is being spent effectively and is making a difference.
(The full remarks of Obama and Biden, as provided by the White House, are below.)
The mayors came out of the White House to praise the new partnership with cities.
"If we want to move this country forward, we need to move urban areas forward," said Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, president of the US Conference of Mayors.
Doug Palmer, mayor of Trenton, N.J., said he wasn't upset about the tough love from Obama.
"We don't mind being called out," he said. We welcome that kind of accountability."
Menino praised the outreach to the mayors by the Obama administration.
"This is a meeting that I've never seen happen before; we had a president, vice president, and cabinet officials explaining to us what this money will do for us," he said in a telephone interview shortly after the White House meeting. "I think the stimulus bill really is an unprecedented investment in America's cities."
Menino said he spoke to Attorney General Eric Holder about funding for Boston Police and Holder assured the mayor that the stimulus money could be used to avert layoffs, although it's unclear exactly how much Boston will receive and when. The mayor said he scheduled another discussion with Holder Tuesday, when he hopes to learn more.
With Boston facing an estimated $145 million budget shortfall this year, city officials have said that teachers and police officers both could face layoffs unless more revenue is found. City officials estimated earlier this week that Boston could receive at least $125 million from the federal stimulus package, including $69 million for schools, $30 million for housing, and $5 million for police. But officials said most of that money was directed toward infrastructure improvements.
Menino said that Obama also told him how much he liked Boston, where he campaigned in a major event last February with Senators John F. Kerry and Edward M. Kennedy and Governor Deval Patrick.
"He said 'You have a great city there, mayor, I'll be there soon, keep it up,' " Menino said.
UPDATE: This afternoon, Menino's office said it will create its own local version of the White House website so Boston residents can track how the money is being spent.
“Transparency and accountability are critical tools for maintaining the public’s confidence in this process, and we will make sure to uphold this responsibility,” Menino said in a statement.
On Monday, Obama plans to speak to the nation's governors.
The session with the mayors is the only public event on today's schedule for Obama, who plans to spend much of the day working on his speech Tuesday night to a joint session of Congress.
FULL ENTRYUnder fire, Obama extends Katrina effort
Facing some criticism that the $787 billion stimulus plan he signed this week does not include money set aside for Hurricane Katrina rebuilding, President Obama today re-upped a federal coordinator on the Gulf Coast recovery and dispatched two top officials to tour New Orleans and the coast next month.
The White House announced that Obama signed an executive order extending the Office of the Federal Coordinator for Gulf Coast Rebuilding, which was to expire on Feb. 28, through Sept. 30, and asked Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan to do an on-site visit on March 5 and 6 to assess the reconstruction efforts.
“The residents of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast who are helping rebuild are heroes who believe in their communities and they are succeeding despite the fact that they have not always received the support they deserve from the Federal government,” Obama said in a statement. “This executive order is a first step of a sustained commitment by my administration to rebuild now, stronger than ever.”
“We must ensure that the failures of the past are never repeated," he added. "My administration is committed to strengthening our preparedness, response, and recovery efforts.”
New York Post says sorry, sort of
So the New York Post, facing pickets outside its Manhattan headquarters and criticism in much of the media, did apologize for a cartoon that some saw as a racist comparison of President Obama to the rampaging chimpanzee killed in Connecticut this week.
The cartoon showed a chimp laying in a pool of blood and one police officer standing over the body saying, "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill."
But, as is the Post's personality, the apology -- posted online Thursday night and published today -- is in-your-face to some of its adversaries.
"It was meant to mock an ineptly written federal stimulus bill. Period," the statement says.
"But it has been taken as something else - as a depiction of President Obama, as a thinly veiled expression of racism. This most certainly was not its intent; to those who were offended by the image, we apologize.
"However, there are some in the media and in public life who have had differences with The Post in the past -- and they see the incident as an opportunity for payback. To them, no apology is due. Sometimes a cartoon is just a cartoon -- even as the opportunists seek to make it something else."
Obama, Harper pledge more cooperation
President Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, emerging with smiles after a meeting in Harper's office and a working lunch, said this afternoon they had agreed to work closely on stimulus plans to tackle the global recession, to create a joint clean energy initiative, and to pursue stability and progress in Afghanistan.
"The people of North America are hurting and that is why we are acting," Obama said at a joint news conference.
Obama expressed America's gratitude for Canada's contribution in Afghanistan, where more than 100 of its soldiers have died. Canada plans to withdraw its 2,500 combat troops by 2011 from Afghanistan, where Obama announced this week he is sending 17,000 more US troops.
Questioned by a reporter, Obama said he did not press Harper on the planned troop pullout, and mostly just wanted to thank Canada.
Harper said only the Afghans themselves can ultimately bring peace and security to their country.
Harper said while it's too early to lay out a "harmonized" policy on global warming, Canada will closely watch the US debate and is now optimistic that he has a partner on the issue, pointing out that regulations won't work only on one side of
the border.
Obama stressed the global nature of climate change and said that as two of the world's wealthiest countries, the US and Canada must take leadership roles.
Obama said he picked Canada for his first foreign trip to underscore the closeness and importance of the two countries' relationship -- and to renew that friendship. America's renewed leadership in the world, the president said, relies on such close alliances.
Harper also emphasized the close ties between the two neighbors and their shared values, including "equality of opportunity epitomized by the president itself."
"This has been a very constructive visit," Harper said, speaking first in French and then repeating his remarks in English.
He did not mention Canadian worries on trade.
The $787 billion stimulus plan Obama signed this week includes "Buy American" provisions, but the White House says it will follow all international trade deals. As a candidate, Obama vowed to renegotiate NAFTA, which unions say devastated manufacturing jobs, to incorporate more labor and environmental protections.
Asked about NAFTA, Obama said while he wants to include the labor and environmental standards in the main agreement, he wants to be careful to avoid any protectionism.
On the "Buy American" provisions, Obama said the US will keep its obligations under trade agreements.
Harper said there are ways to deal with concerns on NAFTA without unraveling the entire agreement, and argued that trade deals have "been nothing but beneficial" to the two countries.
Before wrapping up his first foreign visit and returning to Washington, Obama will meet with Canadian opposition leader Michael Ignatieff and US embassy employees and their families this afternoon at the Ottawa airport.
The White House summary of the Obama-Harper huddle is below:
Billionaire gave big bucks to pols
Billionaire R. Allen Stanford, under investigation for allegedly running an $8 billion CD fraud, was generous to politicians of both parties, a watchdog group reports today.
Stanford's political action committee gave $31,750 to President Obama's campaign, the third biggest donation for the 2008 election cycle, the Center for Responsive Politics says. An Obama aide told Bloomberg said that the money was donated Wednesday to charity.
Republican presidential candidate John McCain received $28,150 from Stanford, and also says he has given back the money.
In all, Stanford's PAC distributed about $134,000 to 2008 candidates, the center says. Stanford's company also spent $2.2 million last year for lobbying.
Obama names urban aides
President Obama, the first chief executive from a big city in a while, today filled out his new urban affairs office with two New York officials.
Adolfo Carrion, the two-term borough president of the Bronx, will be White House Director of Urban Affairs, and Derek Douglas, director of New York Governor David Paterson's Washington office, will be special assistant to the president for urban affairs.
The new office of urban affairs will coordinate all federal urban programs, develop a strategy for metropolitan America, and monitor all federal spending in urban areas.
"I look forward to working with these talented leaders to bring long overdue attention to the urban areas where 80 percent of the American people live and work. Vibrant cities spawn innovation, economic growth, and cultural enrichment; the Urban Affairs office will focus on wise investments and development in our urban areas that will create employment and housing opportunities and make our country more competitive, prosperous, and strong,” Obama said in a statement.
The White House released the biographies of the two appointments.
Adolfo Carrion, White House Director of Urban Affairs- Carrion has served two terms as Bronx Borough President and one term as the President of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO). As Bronx Borough President, Carrion oversaw the creation of 40,000 new units of housing in seven years, 50 new schools, $7 billion in capital and infrastructure expenditures, and over $400 million in new parks and parkland renovation. Prior to his service as Bronx Borough President, Carrion represented the 14th City Council District on the New York City Council and also served as an urban planner at the NYC Department of City Planning and a teacher in the New York City Public Schools. Carrion received his bachelors in World Religions and Philosophy from King’s College in 1985 and his Masters in Urban Planning from Hunter College in 1990.
Derek Douglas, Special Assistant to the President for Urban Affairs Douglas has served as Washington Counsel to New York Governor David A. Paterson and Director of Governor Paterson's Washington, D.C. Office. In this capacity, Douglas served as the Governor’s chief architect for federal policy and oversaw federal policy development and advocacy on domestic, economic, and urban policy issues for the State of New York. Prior to his appointment in 2007, Douglas served as Associate Director of Economic Policy at the Center for American Progress where he founded and served as Director of the Economic Mobility Program. Prior to joining the Center, Douglas was a Counsel at O’Melveny & Myers LLP and an Assistant Counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc (LDF). Douglas graduated from the University of Michigan with Highest Honors in Economics and from the Yale Law School.
Labor pushes on NAFTA
As President Obama and Prime Minister Stephen Harper meet today, the leaders of the major labor federations in the two countries weighed in on perhaps the most contentious issue on their agenda.
In a joint letter to Obama and Harper, the AFL-CIO and Canadian Labour Congress called on the leaders to review and renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement and to cooperate to address the current global economic crisis. The AFL-CIO says it represents 11 million members in the United States and Canada, while the Canadian Labour Congress claims 3.2 million members. To see the letter, click here.
As a candidate, Obama pledged to push for reopening NAFTA -- blamed by unions for steep manufacturing job losses -- to incorporate more labor and environmental protections. But he isn't talking as forthrightly in office, despite overwhelming labor support in the election.
Harper told CNN on Wednesday that he does not want to renegotiate NAFTA, which he said is working well for both countries.
"President Obama fully appreciates the gravity of the global economic crisis and knows that our recovery will come through the rebuilding of a strong middle class with good jobs for all," AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said in a statement. "We urge the United States, Canada, and Mexico to work together to build a stronger and more equitable North American economy, where workers' voices are heard and their rights are fully respected."
"Working people in both the United States and Canada are being hit hard by an economic crisis that was not of their making. They are paying a terrible price for the unfettered greed and recklessness of a corporate elite upon whose advice our political leaders have relied for too long," Canadian Labour Congress President Ken Georgetti said in his statement. "Now is the time for a different approach; one that includes working people and shifts the focus towards their prosperity."
Former Harvard prof meets Obama as Canada's opposition leader
Michael Ignatieff (REUTERS) |
On his first foreign trip in office, President Obama will observe diplomatic protocols -- one measured in how much time he is scheduled to spend with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and how little with the leader of the opposition.
Obama's itinerary has him on tap for three-and-a-half hours at Parliament Hill meeting with Harper, then having a working lunch, then holding a joint press conference.
He is scheduled to only have 20 minutes at an Ottawa airport conference room with Liberal Party leader Michael Ignatieff, who spent five years at Harvard.
But the Canadian press reports that Ignatieff has a clear agenda to push, including making clear that there is no give on our northern neighbor's plan to pull out of Afghanistan. Canada plans to withdraw its 2,500 combat troops by 2011, after the deaths of more than 100 since 2001. Obama announced this week he is sending 17,000 more US troops to take on the resurgent Taliban.
While Harper gets more face time, there's also a lot of buzz in Canada that Ignatieff might have the ear of the White House.
Harper leads the Conservative Party and was tied to former President George W. Bush. Ignatieff, on the other hand, knows quite a few key players in the Obama administration from his stint as director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard, including Obama's top economic adviser Lawrence Summers (who is accompanying Obama on the trip), legal adviser Cass Sunstein, and foreign policy adviser Samantha Power.
Ignatieff, a human rights activist and journalist, entered Canadian politics in 2005, then was chosen leader of the Liberal Party in December after its crushing loss in parliamentary elections in October.
Canada's leader hopeful for Obama visit
On the eve of President Obama's first trip abroad, the foreign leader he is going to meet on Thursday said today that he's optimistic that they'll find common ground on touchy issues such as trade.
Canadians are antsy because of Obama's campaign promises to renegotiate the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement and because of the "Buy American" provisions in the $787 billion stimulus plan.
The stimulus requires that US iron, steel, and other manufactured goods be used for public buildings and other public projects, but also says that the US must comply with existing trade deals, including NAFTA.
During the Democratic nomination fight, Obama told unions and other NAFTA foes that he might withdraw from the deal that cover the US, Canada, and Mexico, to get better labor and environmental standards.
In an interview aired Tuesday night on the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., Obama seemed to step back, stressing the importance of the $1.5 billion in daily trade between the US and Canada.
In an interview today with CNN, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said while he's willing to improve NAFTA, he opposes reopening the agreement.
"We're always willing to look at ways it could work better," Harper said . But it's a fine line between looking at ways to make it work better and actually starting to open the agreement. I think if you actually open the agreement, I think you would get into a negotiation that would never terminate. I don't think that's what President Obama is looking for. But obviously I'm looking forward to having a discussion on these kind of trade and economic matters with him.
Harper also said that Canadian officials will watch how the stimulus plan is implemented. He also noted that Canada's recent stimulus package did not include "Buy Canadian" rules, and indeed lowered trade tariffs.
"If there is one thing that could turn a recession into a depression, it is protectionist measures across the world," Harper said on CNN. "I'm very encouraged by the fact that President Obama said that he was concerned about that as well."
The full excerpts from CNN are below:
FULL ENTRYObama unveils housing plan
Warning that the housing crisis "strikes at the heart" of the American Dream, President Obama today laid out a $75 billion plan to help as many as 9 million homeowners refinance or restructure their mortgages.
The proposal -- more ambitious and expensive than expected -- is designed to assist 4 million to 5 million homeowners to refinance their mortgages to get lower payments, and to provide subsidies to lenders to lower the monthly payments of another 3 million to 4 million homeowners at risk of defaulting on their mortgages.
Aiming to aid those who owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth, those who are on the verge of losing their homes to foreclosure, and their neighbors who are being affected, Obama said the day after he signed the $787 billion stimulus bill that the housing crisis needs to be fixed before the broader economy can recover.
"In the end, all of us are paying a price for this home mortgage crisis," he said at a high school in the Phoenix suburb of Mesa, one of the epicenters of the foreclosure crisis that is threatening as many as six million homes across the nation.
"And all of us will pay an even steeper price if we allow this crisis to continue to deepen – a crisis which is unraveling homeownership, the middle class, and the American Dream itself. But if we act boldly and swiftly to arrest this downward spiral, then every American will benefit."
But he said the plan will only help "responsible" homeowners and families who "played by the rules."
"It will not rescue the unscrupulous or irresponsible by throwing good taxpayer money after bad loans," Obama vowed. "It will not help speculators who took risky bets on a rising market and bought homes not to live in but to sell. It will not help dishonest lenders who acted irresponsibly, distorting the facts and dismissing the fine print at the expense of buyers who didn’t know better. And it will not reward folks who bought homes they knew from the beginning they would never be able to afford.
"This plan will not save every home. But it will give millions of families resigned to financial ruin a chance to rebuild."
(Obama's full prepared remarks are below.)
Representative John Boehner, the top Republican in the House, issued a statement skeptical of major elements of Obama's plan.
“The housing crisis is at the heart of our economic troubles, and House Republicans want to work with the President on a plan that keeps families in their homes without asking taxpayers to bail out irresponsible lenders, scam artists, and borrowers who knowingly made bad decisions," the statement said. "While we hope to work together, there are many unanswered questions that remain about the proposal that was announced today. Why should we reward Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with $200 billion in taxpayer dollars without first reforming these housing entities that were at the heart of the economic meltdown? Will taxpayers be forced to subsidize the scandal-plagued activist group ACORN under this proposal? Should a responsible plan include a ‘cramdown’ provision that could increase the monthly mortgage payments for responsible borrowers?
“Taxpayers and homeowners who are playing by the rules expect their leaders in Washington to work together on solutions to get our housing industry – and our entire economy – moving again. The President’s announcement of his plan is an important step in that process, and Republicans look forward to working with him and our Democratic colleagues in Congress on this issue in the weeks and months to come.”
AFL-CIO president John Sweeney applauded Obama's initiative -- and bashed former President Bush.
"The swift action by the Obama Administration today to address the housing crisis is a welcome and refreshing change," Sweeney said in a statement.
"For more than a year, the Bush Administration ignored calls from the AFL-CIO and others to address a coming foreclosure tsunami. Tragically, in the months that followed, the deepening housing debacle turned millions of families' lives upside down and strengthened its chokehold on our economy.
"The Obama plan is designed to help up to nine million homeowners. The strong plan from the Administration correctly includes changing the bankruptcy laws to allow judges to modify the mortgages of distressed homeowners, including reducing the principal of these loans to the property's current market value.
"The crisis could not be more dire. An estimated eight million homes will fall into foreclosure over the next four years. Bankruptcy reform is a critical piece of the solution for working men and women. The AFL-CIO urges Congress to work with the Administration immediately to pass bankruptcy reform for homeowners."
Americans divided on Obama approach on terror
A public opinion survey out today suggests that while Americans give President Obama the benefit of the doubt on how he's handling terrorism, they remain deeply divided on the best approach.
The poll released by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that 50 percent of respondents approve of Obama's handling of terrorist threats, but that there is a huge partisan division: 66 percent of fellow Democrats, but only 26 percent of Republicans approve.
Also, 47 percent of Republicans say that Obama's policies make a terrorist attack more likely, while 76 percent of Democrats say the policies make a strike less likely.
And on his decision to eventually close the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, 46 percent overall are in favor, but 64 percent of Democrats and only 19 of Republicans.
The poll, conducted Feb. 4-8, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
A questionable cartoon
An uproar is brewing about an editorial cartoon in today's New York Post that appears to tie President Obama to a rampaging chimpanzee killed by police.
The cartoon, by Sean Delonas, shows a chimp splayed on the ground in a pool of blood. Two police officers stand over the body, one holding a smoking gun, and the second saying, "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill."
While Democrats, and a handful of Republicans, in Congress technically wrote the $787 billion stimulus bill, Obama has championed it, gone back out on the stump to sell it, and claimed it as his own while signing it in Denver on Tuesday.
The cartoon appears to refer to Travis, the pet chimpanzee and TV star who was shot to death by police in Stamford, Conn. on Monday after it mauled a friend of its owner.
The Rev. Al Sharpton told the Associated Press that the cartoon is "troubling at best."
Sharpton notes that Obama is the nation's first black president and that African Americans have been depicted as monkeys by racists through history.
"Being that the stimulus bill has been the first legislative victory of President Barack Obama and has become synonymous with him, it is not a reach to wonder are they inferring that a monkey wrote the last bill?" he asked, according to press accounts.
Sam Stein wrote on the Obama-friendly Huffington Post website that it seems "rife with racial and political sensitivities."
"At its most benign, the cartoon suggests that the stimulus bill was so bad, monkeys may as well have written it," Stein opined. "Most provocatively, it compares the president to a rabid chimp. Either way, the incorporation of violence and (on a darker level) race into politics is bound to be controversial."
The Post is standing by the cartoon, and questioning Sharpton's motives.
"The cartoon is a clear parody of a current news event, to wit the shooting of a violent chimpanzee in Connecticut," editor-in-chief Col Allan said in a statement. "It broadly mocks Washington's efforts to revive the economy. Again, Al Sharpton reveals himself as nothing more than a publicity opportunist."
UPDATE: Delonas told CNN this afternoon that the controversy was "absolutely friggin' ridiculous."
"Do you really think I'm saying Obama should be shot? I didn't see that in the cartoon," Delonas said. "It's about the economic stimulus bill. If you're going to make that about anybody, it would be [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi, which it's not."
The YWCA weighed in with its concerns.
"I think this cartoon is inflammatory, inappropriate and irresponsible," Lorraine Cole, YWCA's CEO, said in a statement. "It recalls deeply offensive negative stereotypes of African Americans characterized as monkeys and is seemingly directed at our first black president who championed the economic recovery stimulus bill. It also brings to mind racially charged police brutality incidents involving Black men who were recklessly shot by New York City police officers."
Despite about-face, Gregg gets White House invite
President Obama is apparently not one to hold grudges.
Senator Judd Gregg, a New Hampshire Republican, didn't help Obama -- and actually embarrassed him -- by pulling a stunning about-face last week and withdrawing as the new president's nominee for commerce secretary.
But Obama is inviting him back to the White House anyway for a "fiscal responsibility summit" on Monday that will tackle issues dear to Gregg, such as entitlement reform.
"I've been asked by the President, along with a number of other Members of Congress, to join him next Monday," Gregg said in a statement. "My goal for the summit will be to address the long-term fiscal tsunami that is headed our way as a result of the cost of making payments to the Baby Boom Generation through health and retirement entitlement programs."
"Reform is urgently needed, especially as long-term entitlement spending threatens to strangle our economy, and action must be taken sooner rather than later," Gregg added. "I will certainly do everything I can to work with the President and others in Congress to set a course for the long-run that addresses the issue of how we pass on to our children a government they can afford."
In withdrawing his name, Gregg said he concluded he had too many policy differences with Obama, including on the stimulus plan that the president signed on Tuesday.
"Our country is facing one of the greatest economic challenges of our lifetime, and I believe sizable action is needed to help our economy begin moving forward again. Today, the American people are worried about their jobs, home values, retirement savings, and Main Street businesses, and we need an economic plan that brings immediate relief, creates jobs, and strengthens American production to get our nation back on course," Gregg said in a statement on his office's website.
"However, I am concerned that this so-called stimulus bill falls short of what is needed. What was initially advertised as a well-intended effort to boost economic growth has become sidetracked by misplaced spending and lack of attention to the true problems facing the nation, especially housing. Massive amounts of money will be spent years after this bill is signed into law, thereby undermining claims that it is stimulative. Also, the bill’s tax relief provisions will not adequately spur investment and business activity, which are critical for job creation and economic growth.
"This bill, therefore, is not timely, targeted, and temporary, which is what a stimulus bill should be. And with a deteriorating budget situation, we cannot afford a proposal that will saddle future generations with massive amounts of debt with little to show for it in return.”
Obama talks to Canadians in advance of visit
President Obama tells Canadians tonight that he stands behind free trade and that he appreciates their sacrifices in Afghanistan, while sticking by his pledge to reform the North American Free Trade Agreement and to intensify US operations against the Taliban.
In an interview tonight with our northern neighbor's best-known newsman, Peter Mansbridge of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., Obama says he still hopes to persuade Canada's leaders to stay in Afghanistan past 2011, when the Parliament has decided to withdraw troops and end combat.
"I'm in the process of a strategic review of our approach in Afghanistan," said Obama, who makes his first foreign visit as president, to Canada's capital of Ottawa, on Thursday. "Very soon we will be releasing some initial plans in terms of how we are going to approach the military side of the equation in Afghanistan. But I am absolutely convinced that you cannot solve the problem of Afghanistan, the Taliban, the spread of extremism in that region solely through military means. We're going to have to use diplomacy, we're going to have to use development, and my hope is that in conversations that I have with Prime Minister Harper, that he and I end up seeing the importance of a comprehensive strategy, and one that ultimately the people of Canada can support, as well as the people of the United States can support, because obviously, here as well, there are a lot of concerns about a conflict that has lasted quite a long time now and actually appears to be deteriorating at this point."
Asked about the "Buy American" provisions in the $787 billion stimulus package, Obama said he will oppose protectionist policies, but reiterated that he wants to strengthen the environmental and labor protections in NAFTA.
"I think there are a lot of sensitivities right now because of the huge decline in world trade," the president says. "As I've said before, NAFTA, the basic framework of the agreement has environmental and labor protections as side agreements -- my argument has always been that we might as well incorporate them into the full agreement so that they're fully enforceable.
"But what I've also said is that Canada is one of our most important trading partners, we rely on them heavily, there's $1.5 billion worth of trade going back and forth every day between the two countries and that it is not in anybody's interest to see that trade diminish."
The full transcript of the interview, as provided by the White House, is below:
Partisan spat continues on stimulus
Democrats are crowing over the signing of the stimulus bill, not surprising that they provided all but three votes in Congress for its passage.
“Today, we’ve taken a big step toward digging out this dismal economic downturn,” Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts said in a statement. “This bill is an essential down payment towards a comprehensive economic recovery. But it won’t work unless we immediately solve our bedrock economic problems starting with recapitalizing our banking system and repairing our housing market.”
Governor Tim Kaine, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, issued a statement: “By signing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act today, President Obama took the first step towards keeping his promise to pass a responsible plan that saves or creates four millions jobs, provides tax relief for hard-working American families, and invests in our long-term economic future. At a time when hundreds of thousands of Americans are losing their jobs each month, President Obama called on our leaders in Washington to come together to find practical solutions that prevent this economic crisis from deteriorating even further. I applaud those who answered that call by putting partisanship aside to pass a bill that provides the practical solutions America’s working families need, expect and deserve. But this is only the beginning. Moving forward, we need more leaders in Washington to follow their example as we continue the hard work of getting our economy back on track.”
But Representative John Boehner of Ohio, the top Republican in the House, reiterated his opposition.
“Our nation is in recession, and responsible action is required to help our economy protect and create jobs. This isn’t it.," he said in a statement.
“The flawed bill the President will sign today is a missed opportunity, one for which our children and grandchildren will pay a hefty price. It’s a raw deal for American families, providing just $1.10 per day in relief for workers while saddling every family with $9,400 in added debt to pay for special-interest programs and pork-barrel projects. It will do little to create jobs, and will do more harm than good to middle-class families and our economy.
“In response to the President’s request for input, Republicans offered a better solution that would create twice as many jobs at half the cost. Instead of delivering a responsible, transparent, bipartisan bill to create ‘jobs, jobs, jobs,’ the Democratic Congress produced a trillion-dollar, special-interest pork-laden, partisan backroom deal that will do little to get our economy back on track.
“Upon his election, President Obama expressed a desire to govern from the center and to be a President for all Americans. I have cautioned that the President’s party would not always make it easy for him to meet this goal. Sadly, this proved to be the case with the economic recovery legislation. Despite this missed opportunity, Republicans stand ready to work with the President for better solutions to the challenges facing our country. We can do better, and we must.”
John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, said in a statement:
"President Obama’s signature on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act today is an important down payment on a more hopeful and secure future for America’s workers and their families.
"While it will still take many months for our economy to recover, this plan is a crucial first step that will put people back to work now, save and create good jobs, rebuild our crumbling roads, bridges, and schools and invest in a stronger economy at a time when there’s nothing more important.
"Now working people need our leaders to focus on setting the foundation of an economy that will begin to work for everyone so that we do not end up in this position again. It’s time to re-regulate the banking and financial industries, prioritize working family issues like health care and retirement security and ensure that all workers have the freedom to
improve their lives by forming unions and bargaining for better wages and benefits. We hope those leaders who opposed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will end party politics as usual and begin to join the forward-thinkers who are seeking solutions to our nation’s problems."
Americans United for Change, a liberal/labor advocacy group that pushed the stimulus plan, quickly unveiled a new cable TV ad hailing its passage.
The spot liberally quotes Obama at the signing ceremony today.
"This ad is designed to celebrate passage of President Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as a major victory for the American people who are seeking relief from the worst economic crisis in a generation," Brad Woodhouse, the group's president, said in a statement. “Passage of the Obama jobs plan will not only play a critical role in turning our economy around and getting people back to work, it represents a transformational and historic moment for our country. This achievement represents a dramatic shift away from the failed trickle down economic policies of the past to a new approach that builds our economy from the bottom up by investing in people and communities. As a result of the leadership of President Obama and Congressional Democrats, our country has taken a major step on the road to recovery.”
Obama announces Afghanistan reinforcements
President Obama has approved thousands more US troops to take on the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan.
Officials said that Obama plans to send one additional Army brigade and more Marines to Afghanistan this spring. One official told the Associated Press the total is about 17,000 troops.
Obama issued a statement confirming the deployment order:
"There is no more solemn duty as President than the decision to deploy our armed forces into harm’s way. I do it today mindful that the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan demands urgent attention and swift action. The Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan, and al Qaeda supports the insurgency and threatens America from its safe-haven along the Pakistani border.
"To meet urgent security needs, I approved a request from Secretary Gates to deploy a Marine Expeditionary Brigade later this spring and an Army Stryker Brigade and the enabling forces necessary to support them later this summer. This increase has been requested by General McKiernan and supported by Secretary Gates, the Joint Chiefs and the Commander of Central Command. General McKiernan’s request for these troops is months old, and the fact that we are going to responsibly drawdown our forces in Iraq allows us the flexibility to increase our presence in Afghanistan.
"This reinforcement will contribute to the security of the Afghan people and to stability in Afghanistan. I recognize the extraordinary strain that this deployment places on our troops and military families. I honor their service, and will give them the support they need.
"This increase is necessary to stabilize a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, which has not received the strategic attention, direction and resources it urgently requires. That is why I ordered a review of our policy upon taking office, so we have a comprehensive strategy and the necessary resources to meet clear and achievable objectives in Afghanistan and the region. This troop increase does not pre-determine the outcome of that strategic review. Instead, it will further enable our team to put together a comprehensive strategy that will employ all elements of our national power to fulfill achievable goals in Afghanistan. As we develop our new strategic goals, we will do so in concert with our friends and allies as together we seek the resources necessary to succeed."
During and since the campaign, Obama has said that the Taliban cannot be allowed to retake control and that Al Qaeda cannot have safe havens in Afghanistan, noting that the Sept. 11 plotters were there, not in Iraq.
Obama's GOP presidential rival, John McCain, largely agreed during the campaign about the need for more focus on Afghanistan. He issued a statement this evening in support of the reinforcements, but calling on Obama to give the public a clear strategy.
"I welcome the President's decision to deploy additional troops to Afghanistan,” Senator McCain said in a statement. “The situation there has deteriorated for several years, particularly in the south, and it is now dire. It is clear that success in Afghanistan will require additional troops and resources, including from the United States. In light of conditions on the ground, the additional force levels announced today can make a significant difference. “More troops alone, however, will not lead to success there.
“I believe the President must spell out for the American people what he believes victory in Afghanistan will look like and articulate a coherent strategy for achieving it. Today, notwithstanding the administration's ongoing policy reviews, there still exists no integrated civil-military plan for this war – more than seven years after we began military operations. Such a strategy should spell out the way forward, including the additional resource requirements for its execution. “So while I welcome today's announcement, I hope it is just the first step in a new comprehensive approach to Afghanistan. A major change in course is long overdue.”
Obama thanks backers for stimulus push
President Obama made sure this evening to thank his millions of supporters during the campaign for helping push through the stimulus plan.
Organizing for America, the new Obama campaign vehicle housed within the Democratic National Committee, played a role in the lobbying effort before Congress passed the $787 billion package on Friday.
"This is a historic step -- the first of many as we work together to climb out of this crisis -- and I want to thank you for your resolve and your support," Obama said in an email to backers.
"You organized thousands of house meetings. You shared your ideas and personal stories. And you informed your friends and neighbors about the need for immediate action. You continue to be a powerful voice for change throughout the country. "
He highlighted the new website for tracking progress of the stimulus plan and commenting.
"Our progress will also be measured by the tens of thousands of personal stories submitted by people who are struggling to make ends meet," Obama wrote. "Your stories are the heart of this recovery plan, and that's what I'll focus on every day as President."
More promises, promises
Whether the huge stimulus bill will quickly boost the economy is uncertain.
But by signing the $787 billion bill today, President Obama did keep or advance some 50 of his campaign promises -- what a watchdog website calls a "remarkable number."
Indeed, the 1,071-page bill includes nearly 10 percent of all his pledges, Politifact.com said today. "The accomplishment reflects the extraordinary scope of the bill, which covers everything from tax credits for workers to weatherizing homes," the fact-checking website said.
For instance, Obama gets credit for keeping promise No. 327 by getting $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts in the stimulus plan.
But he gets docked for breaking pledge No. 505 because the stimulus does not include a $3,000 tax credit for businesses for creating each job, which Politifact says now appears dead.
With history and flourish, Obama signs stimulus bill
Signing his modern-day equivalent to the New Deal, President Obama declared that the stimulus bill is the most sweeping economic recovery package in the nation's history -- one that helps keep his campaign promise to preserve the American dream.
"We have begun the essential work of keeping the American dream alive in our time," he said, before affixing his signature to the $787 billion stimulus bill passed by Congress on Friday.
Singing its praises as if the package had not yet passed, Obama continued selling the stimulus to a public that is far more enamored of him than of the bill.
He said the bill will "improve travel and commerce throughout the nation," will put the nation on track to transforming "the way we use energy," and "represents the biggest increase in basic research funding in the long history of America’s noble endeavor to better understand our world.
Combined with an expansion of a children's healthcare program he also signed, "we have done more in 30 days to advance the cause of health reform than this country has done in a decade," he added.
Obama said he signed "a balanced plan with a mix of tax cuts and investments. It is a plan that’s been put together without earmarks or the usual pork barrel spending. And it is a plan that will be implemented with an unprecedented level of transparency and accountability."
Still, Obama acknowledged that much more needs to be done to restore the economy, but said that the economic stimulus bill is the "beginning of the end" of the work.
While the White House says the stimulus bill will save or create 3.5 million jobs in the next two years, the impact will likely take several months to take root. In the meantime, Obama has several crises to deal with: perhaps giving more loans for General Motors and Chrysler to keep them afloat, figuring out the details of version 2.0 of the bank bailout, and Wednesday outlining a plan to stem home foreclosures.
Beneath the lectern were three identical placards saying, "Making America Work."
He spoke at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science after touring the solar panel array that the museum uses for part of its power and that he cited as an example of the "green" alternative energy jobs the stimulus will generate.
Obama was introduced by the head of a solar energy company that has grown from 3 to 55 employees in the past three years, but that had to impose a hiring freeze and slash spending in the economic downturn.
Governor Bill Ritter called Colorado "the home of the new energy economy."
"This is how we rebuild America...." he said. "This is the promise of a better tomorrow."
Obama also issued an official statement on the stimulus bill signing:
"Today I have signed into law H.R. 1, the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009." The Act provides a direct fiscal boost to help lift our Nation from the greatest economic crisis in our lifetimes and lay the foundation for further growth. This recovery plan will help to save or create as many as three to four million jobs by the end of 2010, the vast majority of them in the private sector. It will make the most significant investment in America's roads, bridges, mass transit, and other infrastructure since the construction of the interstate highway system. It will make investments to foster reform in education, double renewable energy while fostering efficiency in the use of our energy, and improve quality while bringing down costs in healthcare. Middle-class families will get tax cuts and the most vulnerable will get the largest increase in assistance in decades.
"The situation we face could not be more serious. We have inherited an economic crisis as deep and as dire as any since the Great Depression. Economists from across the spectrum have warned that failure to act quickly would lead to the disappearance of millions of more jobs and national unemployment rates that could be in the double digits. I want to thank the Congress for coming together around this hard-fought compromise. No one policy or program will solve the challenges we face right now, nor will this crisis recede in a short period of time. However, with this Act we begin the process of restoring the economy and making America a stronger and more prosperous Nation.
"My Administration will initiate new, far-reaching measures to help ensure that every dollar spent in this historic legislation is spent wisely and for its intended purpose. The Federal Government will be held to new standards of transparency and accountability. The legislation includes no earmarks. An oversight board will be charged with monitoring our progress as part of an unprecedented effort to root out waste and inefficiency. This board will be advised by experts -- not just Government experts, not just politicians, but also citizens with years of expertise in management, economics, and accounting.
"So much depends on what we do at this moment. This is not about the future of my Administration. This effort is about the future of our families and communities, our economy and our country. We are going to move forward carefully and transparently and as effectively as possible because so much is on the line. That is what we have already begun to do -- drafting this plan with a level of openness for which the American people have asked and that this situation demands."
Obama's full prepared remarks are below:
White House estimates job impact
Just hours from the formal signing of the economic stimulus package, the White House today issued an updated state-by-state estimate of how many jobs the huge $787 billion bill will save or create.
Nationally, the Obama administration says it is 3.5 million over two years. The most is estimated at 396,000 in California, where the unemployment rate is near double digits and the state is in a serious budget crisis.
In New England, 79,000 are to come in Massachusetts, 41,000 in Connecticut, 16,000 in New Hampshire, 15,000 in Maine, 12,000 in Rhode Island, and 8,000 in Vermont.
"The estimates are derived from an analysis of the overall employment impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act conducted by Christina Romer, Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, and Jared Bernstein, Chief Economist for the Vice President, and detailed estimates of the working age population, employment, and industrial composition of each state," the White House says.
Meanwhile, the White House has also gone live with the website designed to let Americans follow the money, part of an effort to make the bill transparent and accountable.
The journey home
President Obama is adding another political hot potato to his inbox by considering whether to allow photos and video footage of the return to the United States of remains of those killed in Afghanistan and Iraq.
He said last week he is looking at ending the ban, which was put in place during the 1991 Persian Gulf war and covers the solemn transfer of caskets at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, the first US stop on the journey to the final resting place for the military personnel.
The National Press Photographers Association is pushing for lifting the restrictions. "We believe that the Department of Defense ban on media coverage of the return of our fallen heroes, which in turn prevents the public from seeing images of these events, violates the very principles of free speech and free exchange of ideas, for which these very heroes have died," the group's president, Bob Carey, wrote to Obama.
But today, the American Legion came out strongly in opposition.
"From our point of view, there is nothing to discuss," the Legion's national commander, David K. Rehbein, said in a statement. "Photographing the caskets containing the remains of men and women who have made the supreme sacrifice on behalf of our country and its freedoms is little short of sacrilege. The practice would be intrusive and hurtful to the warriors' families. The return of fallen heroes is also a sacred moment for our armed forces, and should be respected.
"In The American Legion's opinion, our fallen warriors deserve to be honored without compromise and not made the object of a media event or be made vulnerable to exploitation for propagandistic purposes," Rehbein continued. "Unless a warrior's family expressly wishes media coverage of the return of their son or daughter in this fashion, and respectful accommodations can be made, we can see no good reason to allow it."
The setting for stimulus bill signing
Why Denver?
In picking the Mountain West city for the signing of the historic economic stimulus bill, President Obama returns today to one of the high points of his campaign -- when he accepted the Democratic nomination -- as well.
It also gets him outside the partisan backbiting of Washington and out into the real country as he tries to convince Americans that the $787 billion bill is worth the money.
But the precise setting -- the Denver Museum of Nature and Science -- is curious.
Ostensibly, it is to highlight the potential of "green energy" jobs. Just before signing the bill, Obama will tour the array of 465 solar panels that the museum uses to generate part of its power.
But could it also be something of an in-your-face move to opponents of funding for the arts?
The stimulus bill includes $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts, but it didn't come without a huge fight. Not only was not in the version originally passed by the Senate, but the Senate even passed an amendment that banned stimulus cash going to museums, arts centers, and theaters.
The conference committee's compromise, approved Friday by the House and Senate, restored the NEA money and killed the amendment.
The Denver museum, by the way, reported receiving two government grants of more than $100,000 each -- from NASA and the National Science Foundation -- in 2007, when it drew 1.25 million visitors.
Obama's first budget set for Feb. 26
President Obama plans to unveil his first budget on Feb. 26, two days after his first address to a joint session of Congress, the White House says.
His spending outline for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1 is highly unlikely to be anywhere close to balanced. The federal government is headed toward a $1 trillion deficit in the current fiscal year -- and that was before the economic stimulus bill that Obama will sign today that calls for spending and tax cuts totaling $787 billion over the next two years.
The president says the record deficit spending is needed in the short term to lift the country out of recession, but vows to get the budget under control -- including looking at Social Security and other entitlement programs -- over the long term.
"Our debt has doubled over the past eight years, and we've inherited a trillion dollar deficit –- which we must add to in the short term in order to jump start our sick economy," he said in his weekly radio and Internet address on Saturday. "But our long-term economic growth demands that we tame our burgeoning federal deficit; that we invest in the things we need, and dispense with the things we don't. This is a challenging agenda, but one we can and will achieve."
No longer cabinet nominee, Gregg speaks out
A day after stunning official Washington by pulling a "never mind" on his nomination to be commerce secretary, Senator Judd Gregg gave mixed reviews today to two key economic recovery initiatives of the man whose cabinet offer he eventually spurned.
The New Hampshire Republican said on CNBC this morning that Obama is on the right track in trying to shore up the financial system, despite the criticism that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was much too vague in outlining the proposals this week.
"You are talking over a trillion dollars ... to clear off the books in the areas of consumer credit and commercial-backed real estate loans. That's big," Gregg said. "You are talking very strong initiatives in the area of foreclosure abatement. And you're talking a significant commitment to capital into the banks coming in either a direct infusion or through buying bad debt off their books."
But Gregg said that Obama made a "tactical error" made on the $789 stimulus bill, expected to be approved by Congress as early as today, by allowing the budget committee leaders to write most of the bill.
Gregg is expected to vote against the stimulus package, which he said "should be focusing mainly on trying to stabilize the real estate markets, and promoting small business and getting jobs."
Gregg is breaking his silence after taking the unusual move of recusing himself from voting on any and all Senate matters while his nomination had been pending. In announcing his withdrawal on Thursday, he said he concluded he had too many policy differences with Obama.
Obama, meanwhile, has been publicly more understanding of Gregg's change of heart than the initial snippy White House statement, which suggested that Gregg knew that by accepting the nomination, he would have to back Obama on policy.
The president told reporters aboard Air Force One last night that he and Gregg agree on 80 percent of the big issues that Americans care about.
And during a dinner in Springfield, Ill., commemorating the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth, Obama even managed to joke about the turn of events.
"In 1854, Lincoln was simply a Springfield lawyer who'd served just a single term in Congress, possibly in his law office, his feet on a cluttered desk, his sons playing around him, his clothes a bit too small to fit his uncommon frame, maybe wondering if somebody might call him up and ask him to be commerce secretary ..." Obama said, trailing off as the crowd burst into laughter.
Senator John McCain, the GOP presidential nominee last year, opined today on Gregg's decision.
“I’m not sure of the evolution in Senator Gregg’s thinking, but I’m glad to have him back,” he said on Fox News Channel, according to excerpts released by the network.
McCain disputed suggestions that fellow Republicans were angry with Gregg and forced him to withdraw.
“I don’t think Senator Gregg was pressured by anybody," he said. "He’s a bit of a New Hampshire-ite with free will and thinks for himself.”
Obama offers condolences
President Obama had the perk of inviting Chesley "Sully" Sullenberberger to his inauguration, honoring the "Miracle on the Hudson" pilot who ditched his USAir jet into the Hudson River on Jan. 15, saving all 155 passengers and crew aboard.
But this morning, Obama is performing the solemn presidential duty of offering condolences -- for the first mass casualty event on his watch, the crash of a Continental commuter plane outside Buffalo on Thursday night that killed all 49 aboard and at least one person on the ground. It is the first fatal commercial plane crash in the United States since August 2006.
"Michelle and I are deeply saddened to hear of the tragic accident outside of Buffalo last night. Our hearts go out to the families and friends who lost loved ones. I want to thank the brave first responders who arrived immediately to try and save lives and who are continuing to ensure the safety of everyone in the area. We pray for all those who have been touched by this terrible tragedy to find peace and comfort in the hard days ahead," Obama said in the statement issued by the White House.
And it turns out that just last week Obama met one of the victims of Thursday night's crash.
The Associated Press reports that aboard the flight was Beverly Eckert, a Sept. 11 widow who became an activist and was one of the relatives of those killed in the 2001 attacks and the bombing of the USS Cole who met with the president to discuss how the new administration would handle terror suspects.
UPDATE: Obama also spoke about the crash before a meeting of his Business Council.
"I want to say a brief word about the terrible tragedy that took place outside of Buffalo last night. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends who lost loved ones, and as always, our thanks go out to the brave first responders who arrived immediately to try and save lives, and who are still on the scene keeping people safe," he said.
"Tragic events such as these remind us of the fragility of life and the value of every single day. One person who understood that well was Beverly Eckert, who was on that flight and who I met with just a few days ago. You see, Beverly lost her husband on 9/11, and became a tireless advocate for the families, those whose lives were forever changed on that September day. And in keeping with that passionate commitment, she was on her way to Buffalo to mark what would have been her husband's birthday and launch a scholarship in his memory. So she was an inspiration to me and to so many others, and I pray that her family finds peace and comfort in the hard days ahead."
Stories of the recession
On the eve of the passage of his economic stimulus plan, President Obama's unprecedented grassroots organization -- now housed within the Democratic National Committee -- this morning released the stories of real Americans hit by the recession.
“This week's report that more than 623,000 Americans requested first time jobless claims is a sobering reminder of the impact this economic crisis is having on America’s working families,” Governor Tim Kaine, chairman of the DNC, said in a statement. “The stories we've collected put a human face on the economic crisis and underscore the urgent need for action. These stories are the reason President Obama asked our leaders in Washington to put partisanship aside and pass an economic recovery plan that saves or creates four million jobs and invests in our economic prosperity in the long term. Congress needs to move swiftly toward final passage of the Economic Recovery Plan so the President can sign it into law and we can prevent this economic crisis from becoming a national catastrophe that costs millions more Americans their jobs, homes, and health care.”
Last week, Organizing for America, the post-election iteration of Obama's record-breaking on-the-ground campaign, encouraged meetings and house parties on the economic recovery plan and asked people to submit their stories about how the economic crisis is affecting them and their communities.
From more than 3,600 meetings in all 50 states, Americans submitted more than 31,030 stories -- and there's a sampling posted on its website.
"As of a week ago, our family has joined the ranks of the unemployed and thus uninsured. We have two children, a 6 year old and a 10 month old. With my part time jobs and unemployment, we should be able to keep the roof over our heads, at least one car in the driveway and food in our stomachs for a few months. The state of our health insurance is what truly scares us," said Nichole H. of Columbus, Ohio.
"I live in a small rural community in central Minnesota and have run my own small business for 32 years here. These last 8 years have been a slow steady decline economically. This has caused me to continually find ways to tighten my budget. Our small towns are really struggling with infrastructure and loss of businesses to attract and hold workers in their communities," said Judy T. of Motley, Minn.
"I am a teacher in Florida where we are 50th in the country in spending per student. I feel this generation of students is being cheated out of a quality education. I'm fortunate that I have a job. But our education system is failing our children. There are so many areas of education that are suffering because of massive budget cuts. The bottom line is: as the United States of America we can do better for our children," said Betty Jo A. of Deltona, Fla.
Obama honors Lincoln on bicentennial
President Obama's Lincoln worship reaches another crescendo today on the bicentennial of the birth of the president who bound the country together during the Civil War.
This morning, Obama spoke at a celebration in the US Capitol's Rotunda. In his remarks at the Rotunda, Obama compared the current times to when Lincoln was president -- and the need for national unity now as then.
"At a moment when we are far less divided than in Lincoln’s day, but when we are once again debating the critical issues of our time – and debating them fiercely – let us remember that we are doing so as servants to the same flag, as representatives of the same people, and as stakeholders in a common future. That is the most fitting tribute we can pay – and the most lasting monument we can build – to that most remarkable of men, Abraham Lincoln," Obama said. (His full remarks are below.)
Tonight, he spoke at the 102nd Abraham Lincoln Association Annual Banquet in Springfield, Ill.
(His prepared remarks are below.)
Like Abraham Lincoln, an Illinois lawmaker who ascended to the White House, the nation's 44th president has patterned himself after the 16th.
He announced his presidential bid two years ago on the steps of the old State Capitol in Springfield, where Lincoln served. He took a page from Lincoln's "team of rivals" strategy in assembling his cabinet.
Obama retraced part of Lincoln's whistlestop rail journey to Washington. He held his first public pre-inaugural event at the Lincoln Memorial. He used the same bible Lincoln did for his public inauguration (though not for the private do-over).
Wednesday night, the new president headlined the rededication of a newly renovated Ford's Theatre, where Lincoln was assassinated.
"We know that Ford’s Theatre will remain a place where Lincoln’s legacy thrives, where his love of the humanities and belief in the power of education have a home, and where his generosity of spirit are reflected in all the work that takes place," Obama said.
"It has been a fitting tribute to Abraham Lincoln that we’ve seen and heard from some of our most celebrated icons of stage and screen. Because Lincoln himself was a great admirer of the arts. It is said he could even quote portions of Hamlet and Macbeth by heart. And so, I somehow think this event captured an essential part of the man whose life we celebrate tonight.
"As commemorations take place across this country on the bicentennial of our 16th President’s birth, there will be reflections on all he was and all he did for this nation that he saved. But while there are any number of moments that reveal the exceptional nature of this singular figure, there is one in particular I’d like to share with you.
"Not far from here stands our nation’s capitol, a landmark familiar to us all but one that looked very different in Lincoln’s time. For it remained unfinished until the end of the war. The laborers who built the dome came to work wondering whether each day would be their last; whether the metal they were using for its frame would be requisitioned for the war and melted down into bullets. But each day went by without any orders to halt construction – so they kept on working and kept on building.
"When President Lincoln was finally told of all the metal being used there, his response was short and clear: that is as it should be. The American people needed to be reminded, he believed, that even in a time of war, the work would go on; that even when the nation itself was in doubt, its future was being secured; and that on that distant day, when the guns fell silent, a national capitol would stand, with a statue of freedom at its peak, as a symbol of unity in a land still mending its divisions.
"It is this sense of unity that is so much a part of Lincoln’s legacy. For despite all that divided us – north and south, black and white – he had an unyielding belief that we were, at heart, one nation, and one people. And because of Abraham Lincoln, and all who’ve carried on his work in the generations since, that is what we remain today."
Gregg withdraws as commerce nominee
Senator Judd Gregg, the New Hampshire Republican, withdrew this afternoon as President Obama's nominee for Commerce Secretary, saying he had too many policy differences on the stimulus package and the Census.
“It has become apparent during this process that this will not work for me as I have found that on issues such as the stimulus package and the Census there are irresolvable conflicts for me. Prior to accepting this post, we had discussed these and other potential differences, but unfortunately we did not adequately focus on these concerns. We are functioning from a different set of views on many critical items of policy," Gregg said in a statement.
At a news conference on Capitol Hill, Gregg said it became clear to him that he could not be "100 percent behind the team" and that it was "his mistake" to accept the nomination.
Using a football analogy, Gregg said it would be like blocking back who only pulls out to block for every second or third play.
"I've been my own person for 30 years...It really wasn't a great fit," he said. "Bottom line, it was a bridge too far for me."
Gregg acknowledged that "to withdraw at this point is unfair in many ways," but he said staying on would have been a bigger mistake .
Gregg praised Obama for reaching out to Republicans and including diverse views in his cabinet and said he will be an effective president.
The White House response suggested that Gregg was the one who forced the divorce -- and should have known about the policy differences.
“Senator Gregg reached out to the President and offered his name for Secretary of Commerce," press secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement. "He was very clear throughout the interviewing process that despite past disagreements about policies, he would support, embrace, and move forward with the President’s agenda. Once it became clear after his nomination that Senator Gregg was not going to be supporting some of President Obama’s key economic priorities, it became necessary for Senator Gregg and the Obama administration to part ways. We regret that he has had a change of heart”.
Obama, himself, told The State Journal-Register newspaper in Springfield, Ill. that Gregg's withdrawal was "something of a surprise."
UPDATE: Later, he told reporters on Air Force One that he was glad Gregg "searched his heart" and changed course before he was confirmed. "Clearly he was just having second thoughts about leaving the Senate, a place where he's thrived," Obama added.
Obama also said Gregg's withdrawal won't deter him from working with Republicans.
Gregg had recused himself from voting on the stimulus, or any other matter before the Senate, while his nomination was pending.
House Republican leaders today had criticized plans for increased White House involvement in the Census, saying that if Obama didn't trust Gregg to oversee the Census, he should find another Commerce nominee. The Census will help determine political power in Washington in the next decade.
Gregg's announcement also ended the short-lived plan for New Hampshire's Democratic governor, John Lynch, to appoint Republican Bonnie Newman to the Senate.
To pave the way for Gregg's nomination, Lynch agreed to appoint a Republican to serve out Gregg's term and not change the balance of power in the Senate, and Newman agreed not to run for the office.
The Associated Press is reporting that Lynch, who spoke to Gregg several hours before the announcement, said he respected Gregg's decision to withdraw and remain in the Senate. He also thanked Newman for her willingness to serve.
Newman issued this statement, according to the Associated Press:
"I spoke with Senator Gregg this afternoon and understand that he has withdrawn as the nominee for Secretary of Commerce. As I said last week, I have the greatest admiration for Senator Gregg. I know him to be a person of extraordinary integrity and ability. I believe as Secretary of Commerce he would have served the country well in these difficult times.
"I expect Senator Gregg's decision was not an easy one nor made lightly. Let me also say how much I appreciate Governor Lynch, his confidence in me, and his steadfast devotion to the people of New Hampshire. For me, it would have been a great honor to serve in the United States Senate, but I will continue in my own, quiet and non-political way to work on behalf of the people of New Hampshire."
The stunning withdrawal is the latest setback for Obama, who announced the nomination Feb. 3 and pledged to bring Republicans into his cabinet.
Tom Daschle stepped aside as health and human services secretary after questions about late tax payments. And Obama's first pick at commerce, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, withdrew amid an investigation of state contracts.
In a statement, Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, said Gregg "made a principled decision to return and we're glad to have him. He is among the smartest, most effective legislators to serve in the Senate -- Democrat or Republican -- and a key adviser to me and to the Republican Conference. It's great to have him back."
But Democratic Congressman Paul Hodes of New Hampshire, who plans to run for Gregg's seat in 2010, was critical.
“I am surprised and disappointed at this sudden withdrawal. Senator Gregg would take us back to the years of George W. Bush rather than moving forward with the change agenda that the American people clearly want. I will continue to work with President Obama to create jobs and rebuild our economy for the middle class.
"I will be a candidate for the United State Senate in 2010. I look forward to working every day to stand up for New Hampshire as we come together to confront the economic crisis facing our nation.”
Gregg's full statement:
“I want to thank the President for nominating me to serve in his Cabinet as Secretary of Commerce. This was a great honor, and I had felt that I could bring some views and ideas that would assist him in governing during this difficult time. I especially admire his willingness to reach across the aisle.
“However, it has become apparent during this process that this will not work for me as I have found that on issues such as the stimulus package and the Census there are irresolvable conflicts for me. Prior to accepting this post, we had discussed these and other potential differences, but unfortunately we did not adequately focus on these concerns. We are functioning from a different set of views on many critical items of policy.
“Obviously the President requires a team that is fully supportive of all his initiatives.
“I greatly admire President Obama and know our country will benefit from his leadership, but at this time I must withdraw my name from consideration for this position.
“As we move forward, I expect there will be many issues and initiatives where I can and will work to assure the success of the President’s proposals. This will certainly be a goal of mine.
“Kathy and I also want to specifically thank Governor Lynch and Bonnie Newman for their friendship and assistance during this period. In addition we wish to thank all the people, especially in New Hampshire, who have been so kind and generous in their supportive comments.
“As a further matter of clarification, nothing about the vetting process played any role in this decision. I will continue to represent the people of New Hampshire in the United States Senate.”
Dissension on the stimulus
While President Obama and the Senate are fine with the stimulus deal that appears headed for final votes in Congress on Friday and Obama's signature on Monday, the House is another matter.
And it's not just Republicans, who unanimously opposed the bill the first time around and continue to rail against the deal struck by the House-Senate conference committee on Wednesday.
Some House Democrats are upset with some of the changes made to preserve the support of three Republicans in the Senate, who wield virtual veto-power.
And there are reports that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was ticked off that Harry Reid, the top Senate Democrat, announced the compromise Wednesday afternoon before her rank-and-file had signed off.
UPDATE: Pelosi confirmed this afternoon that the House will vote on Friday and glossed over any dissension.
She said that the House version makes up the vast majority of the compromise, that it is a "major accomplishment" for both Congress and Obama, and that Americans are "excited" about the bill.
"This one is historic and transformational," she told reporters at a Capitol Hill news conference.
Meanwhile, top House Republican John Boehner's office released a statement with the accusation: "Democrats pile up the pork, but leave scraps for small business."
"While there are still plenty of unanswered questions as Congress prepares to vote on the Democrats’ trillion-dollar spending bill, here’s what we do know: the legislation is loaded up with plenty of unfocused and wasteful Washington spending – a price to be paid by small businesses, which apparently will see very little tax relief under the as-yet-unseen House-Senate “deal.” In fact, it appears the amount of direct small business tax relief in the legislation amounts to about one-third of one percent of the total bill, just $3 billion in tax relief out of a $789.5 billion bill. So, what’s getting funded at the expense of small business owners and workers across the country?" the statement continues.
"Here are just a few examples: $2 billion for 'Neighborhood Stabilization,' money which will be available to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), an organization accused of perpetrating voter registration fraud numerous times in the last several elections and reportedly under federal investigation; $1 billion for a new “Prevention and Wellness Fund,” which would be available for education programs on sexually-transmitted diseases; and millions for the federal government to buy plug-in cars.
"President Obama set an important goal at the beginning of this process: a bipartisan bill that will create more jobs, more quickly. Which begs the question: How will any of this spending create new jobs? And, since small businesses are the engine of job creation in this country, why are these programs and projects being funded at the expense of those who own and are employed by small businesses?"
On the road again
President Obama is apparently taking a liking to getting out of Washington and pitching his economic recovery plans on the road.
He appeared this afternoon at a Caterpillar plant in East Peoria, Ill., after similar events this week in Indiana, Florida, and northern Virginia.
Now, the Associated Press reports, he plans events in Denver and Phoenix next Tuesday and Wednesday to promote his stimulus plan, his version of the financial system bailout, and a yet-to-be-unveiled plan to stem home foreclosures.
If the House and Senate give their final sign-off on Friday, he could sign the $789 billion stimulus bill on Monday, the President's Day holiday, with some reports suggesting he might use a nationally televised primetime speech to do it.
Obama's remarks at the Caterpillar plant are below:
A deal on stimulus
Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins spoke about the agreement. (NECN video)
By Sasha Issenberg, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- Democratic leaders in Congress reached a compromise on an economic stimulus bill today, excising some tax cuts and new school funding to settle on a package totaling $789 billion to confront the worst recession in decades.
The deal was announced by Senate leaders, who appeared to drive the private negotiations with their House counterparts. They had to navigate competing interests as they worked to deliver a bill to President Obama by his end-of-week deadline, balancing a House majority that sought robust new funding for long-standing priorities and Senate centrists of both parties who had threatened to scuttle any bill that emerged larger than $800 billion.
"We came a long way in a relatively short time," said Senator Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent who affiliates with the Democrats and helped broker Republican support for the bill. "Everybody gave something in these negotiations to achieve something bigger for our country and our people."
Barring any last-minute snags, the bill will go to both chambers for an up-or-down vote as soon as Thursday to send it to Obama's desk.
The contours of the compromise plan -- significantly smaller than either the $819 billion plan the House passed on Jan. 28 or the $838 billion version the Senate approved Tuesday -- demonstrated the guidance and prodding of a popular White House, which held off from authoring the original House legislation but orchestrated the final Senate negotiations once the legislation began to teeter last week.
In a statement this evening, Obama thanked "the Democrats and Republicans in Congress who came together around a hard-fought compromise that will save or create more than 3.5 million jobs and get our economy back on track."
The elements that survived reflected the new president's shifting ambitions in what calls the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. He began the year trying to earn broad bipartisan support for the package, but this week his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, worked merely to hold enough votes for final passage.
A middle-class tax cut Obama pledged during his campaign survived largely intact, promising most workers more money in each paycheck.
So did expanded benefits for the unemployed, while costly provisions with backers in each chamber fell away. Negotiators abandoned half of the $79 billion in direct aid to states in the House version, along with tax cuts that had been adopted by the Senate with the support of Republican members who intended to oppose the legislation regardless. A $15,000 tax credit for homebuyers and a deduction for the sales tax paid by purchasers of new cars were both slashed.
"The middle ground we've reached creates more jobs than the original Senate bill and costs less than the original House bill," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
To the end, the leverage was held by three moderate, northeastern Republicans -- including Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine -- who had threatened to withdraw their support for the bill if it did not emerge from the conference committee to their liking. Over the last week, they proved a crucial bridge for an expanded Democratic caucus to reach the 60 votes necessary to pass such a bill in the Senate.
"The Republican moderates were able to see to it that more than $100 billion was cut from this program. Now there are people who like to spend less, some like to spend nothing," said Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter, the third key GOP supporter. "The fact is we hung tough and it was modified only in the case of absolute necessity."
Yet most Republicans, including those in the House who voted unanimously against the bill, said that the changes made it no more appetizing to them, though there not enough of them to stop passage.
House GOP leader John Boehner of Ohio told reporters that "it appears that Democrats have made a bad bill worse by reducing the tax relief for working families in order to pay for more wasteful government spending."
Obama, who has insisted that such a bill offers the nation its only path away from economic catastrophe, heralded the congressional negotiations in an appearance this morning designed to build public support for new spending on infrastructure projects.
"We're at the doorstep of getting this plan through Congress, but the work is not over," he said at a suburban Virginia highway construction site.
Indeed, even after Reid's afternoon announcement of a deal, the House-Senate conference committee required to formalize the arrangement was postponed. The move was apparently made by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who held out to expand the bill's funding for school construction.
She emerged this evening from meeting with her rank and file to say they are on board and are proud of the work they did on the bill.
"I think people are pretty happy," she said, though she acknowledged there were items she wished were still in the package.
Raytheon exec confirmed for Pentagon post, but not before Grassley blast
The US Senate this afternoon confirmed Raytheon executive William Lynn III to the No. 2 job at the Pentagon.
But not before Senator Charles Grassley blasted him, challenging Lynn to withdraw from consideration as deputy defense secretary and urging his fellow senators to squash the nomination.
Grassley, an Iowa Republican, and Senator John McCain of Arizona have questioned Lynn on his lobbying for the Waltham-based defense contractor until last year and what they call a dismal record in a previous stint at the Pentagon.
The White House has granted Lynn a waiver from revolving door restrictions on lobbyists, and Lynn has promised to steer clear of for one year from six programs on which he lobbied and to seek written permission from Pentagon lawyers on other matters that directly relate to Raytheon.
"If he is seriously devoted to serving his country and this President, Mr. Lynn should consider withdrawing his nomination and ask to be reconsidered in two years. This country will always need good leaders who lead by example," Grassley is saying, according to prepared remarks provided by his office.
"By doing this, he would set the standard of excellence for all other nominees to follow. It would restore integrity and credibility to President Obama’s new ethic rules. As it stands now, unfortunately, the Lynn nomination is now rolling down the low road at high speed."
But the White House and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates have said Lynn has an unique set of skills and experience and is needed at the Pentagon.
Lynn was confirmed on a 93-4 vote with Grassley voting no, along with fellow Republicans Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and John Cornyn of Texas and Democrat Claire McCaskill of Missouri.
"I thought I’d seen the last of Mr. Lynn when President George W. Bush first took office. I was dead wrong," Grassley added.
"So I had to send my staff out to where the Senate buries old skeletons. It is the Records Center out in Maryland’s scenic countryside about 20 miles from the Capitol. There they dug up the remains of what I came to know about Mr. Lynn some ten years ago. A little word of advice to my colleagues; archive all of your materials. I have found that political nominees, good and bad, come back like Australian boomerangs. Some take longer than others to return, but eventually you’ll see them again."
Grassley's full prepared statement is below:
Stimulus pitch stresses infrastructure
Infrastructure was the buzzword today on day three of President Obama's sales tour for his economic stimulus package.
He and Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, his pick to head the Democratic National Committee, visited the Fairfax County Parkway outside Washington, D.C., to highlight how many jobs could be quickly created with highway, bridge, mass transit, and other public works projects.
Kaine said the parkway has been under construction for more than 20 years and needs to be finished to link up to a large scientific facility, but two phases are unfunded.
Obama urged Congress again to finish work on the bill. "Now we have to get a final version to my desk, so I can sign it," he said.
"We're surrounded by unmet needs and unfinished business," he said, with the construction site in Springfield, Va., as a backdrop.
He said the consequences of insufficient investment in infrastructure show up in dramatic ways such as the failed levees in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrian and the deadly bridge collapse in Minneapolis -- and in daily ways such as traffic gridlock that drives down productivity.
(Obama's full remarks are below.)
Also today, Vice President Biden and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell will visit the Route 34 Bridge over the Conodoguinet Creek in Carlisle -- an example of the thousands of bridges across the country that need repair -- then speak at the State Capitol in Harrisburg about infrastructure.
While the White House says the stimulus plan represents the largest investment increase in our nation’s mass transit systems, roads, and bridges since the creation of the national highway system in the 1950s, some critics have said the package does not include infrastructure spending.
A House-Senate conference committee, with heavy input from the White House, is trying to quickly come up with a compromise that both chambers will approve and that Obama will sign into law.
The Senate's $838 billion version includes about $46 billion for transportation projects, including $27 billion for highway and bridge construction and repair and $11.5 billion for mass transit and rail projects. It also includes $4.6 billion for the Army Corps of Engineers; $5 billion for public housing improvements; and $6.4 billion for clean and drinking water projects.
The $820 billion House plans includes $47 billion for transportation projects, including $27 billion for highway and bridge construction and repair and $12 billion for mass transit. It also includes $31 billion to build and repair federal buildings and other public infrastructure.
The House plan also includes $20 billion for school modernization -- not in the Senate version -- that Democrats and Obama want to restore.
But the three Republicans who voted for the Senate plan -- Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania -- are threatening to take a walk if the conference committee compromise strays too far from the Senate version.
The Associated Press is reporting that Obama's negotiating team had prevailed in restoring some lost funding for school construction projects and had also increased aid to state governments above the $39 billion approved in a compromise with a handful of Senate GOP moderates.
But his signature tax credit would be reduced from $500 per worker to $400, and from $1,000 to $800 for couples, a Democratic aide close to the talks told AP.
UPDATE: The conference committee is reportedly putting together a package of about $790 billion -- less than either the House or Senate version -- in part by trimming back tax cuts for homebuyers and car buyers.
"We're getting closer," Senator Ben Nelson, a conservative Democrat from Nebraska who helped negotiate the Senate package, told reporters.
He said he does not see a "deal breaker" in the negotiations.
Obama: Promises kept and broken
How's President Obama doing keeping his campaign promises?
The latest update from Politifact.com, an indispensable fact-checking website, that is now tracking all 510 pledges: seven kept, one broken, one compromised, one stalled, 21 in the works, and 479 unaddressed so far.
It says Obama went back on promise No. 234 -- to give the public five days to look and comment before signing bills passed by Congress. But he was in a hurry to turn into law two bills opposed by his predecessor: an expansion of a children's healthcare program, and an overturning of a Supreme Court ruling so as to make it easier to sue for pay discrimination.
Still, he also gets credit for keeping two promises by signing those bills. Other promises kept include appointing a Republican to his cabinet, banning lobbyist gifts, and directing military leaders to end the war in Iraq.
Bank bailout, version 2.0
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner rolled out a plan this morning designed to strengthen America's banks and unfreeze credit to businesses and consumers.
The costly centerpiece is a public-private partnership of more than $1 trillion to buy bad assets, which Geithner said would lead to "cleaner and stronger" bank balance sheets.
"Right now, critical parts of our financial system are damaged," he said, adding that credit markets "are not working."
Without credit available, the economic stimulus plan emerging from Congress will not work as well as necessary to lift the country out of recession, he said.
Geithner said the job of restoring confidence in the markets is more difficult now because the first $350 billion of the $700 billion financial bailout was not spent effectively, because some financial executives continued receiving outsized pay and perks, and because taxpayers are skeptical about the government's proposals.
He promised more accountability and transparency so taxpayers can see where the money is going, announcing a new website to track the cash.
With President Obama headed to Florida to sell his stimulus plan, Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut stood in for the introduction.
Geithner realizes the "enormity of the challenges" facing the country -- something, Dodd said, his predecessors failed to do.
The early returns on Geithner's plan are not promising.
The Dow Jones industrial average, the most closely watched barometer on Wall Street, is down more than 350 points as of early afternoon, with investors expressing doubt that private firms will buy the bad assets.
UPDATE: In an interview airing tonight on ABC's "Nightline," Obama responded to the market drop, about 382 points at the end of trading.
"Well, you know, Wall Street, I think, is hoping for an easy out on this thing and there is no easy out," the president said, according to excerpts released by ABC. "Essentially, what you've got are a set a banks that have not been as transparent as we need to be in terms of what their books look like."
"And we're going to have to hold out the Band-Aid a little bit and go ahead and just be clear about some of the losses that have been made because until we do that, we're not going to be able to attract private capital into the marketplace," Obama added. "And so, you know, I think that you have two choices in this situation: You can prolong the agony and shareholders will be happy until they're not happy, and that could be a year from now or two years from now, or, in the case of Japan, eight years later."
"Or you can just go ahead and acknowledge that, yeah, there's a lot of work that has to be done to put these banks back on a firmer footing."
Some reaction to the plan is below:
Obama road trip, day two
President Obama took his economic recovery road show to Florida today for the second in a series of town hall meetings to build public support.
The setting is the Harborside Event Center in Fort Myers, one epicenter of the wave of home foreclosures that was the leading edge of the recession burdening the country. Like many fast-growing Sunbelt cities, there was a home construction boom, fueled in part by cheap loans and speculation. Now, home values have plummeted and many homes have been seized by lenders.
In the town hall meeting, Obama declared that his economic recovery plan is needed asap and tried to remind Congress of the people behind the dire statistics.
"You have seen hardship as well....We're not talking about faceless numbers," said Obama, greeted by the "Yes we can" chants of his historic campaign and introduced by Charlie Crist, Florida's Republican governor, who agreed that it's crucial to push through the stimulus plan.
"We need to do it in a bipartisan way," Crist said.
But when the Senate approved its stimulus plan as he answered questions from the audience, it came with only three Republican votes, after no Republicans voted for the House version.
The vote was 61-37 for the $838 billion Senate version of the stimulus plan, setting up what could be a contentious conference committee negotiation with the $820 billion House version.
After the vote, Harry Reid, the top Democrat in the Senate, announced that the conference committee will start meeting this afternoon.
He said the differences are "relatively minor" with the House version.
"One option we do not have is to do nothing," Reid said. "It's been a long, hard struggle to get where we are, but we're here."
Obama, however, continued hitting back at his Republican critics.
"We can’t afford to posture and bicker and resort to the same failed ideas that got us into this mess in the first place. After all, that’s what this election was about. You rejected those ideas because you know they haven’t worked. You didn’t send us to Washington because you were hoping for more of the same, you sent us there to change things, and that is exactly what I intend to do as President of the United States," he said.
And just before Obama's event, his treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, will formally unveil an overhauled bailout of the financial system, outlining how the administration plans to spend the remaining $350 billion of the $700 billion rescue package started by the Bush administration. The plan counts on encouraging private investors to buy more than $1 trillion in troubled assets from the banks, clearing their balance sheets and freeing them to offer credit to businesses and consumers.
Obama's full prepared remarks are below:
Drinking with the enemy
It could be the most watched political drink since Hillary Clinton was throwing back shots before the Pennsylvania and Indiana primaries last spring.
President Obama has accepted an invitation for a beer from conservative Fox News Channel commentator Sean Hannity, part of what passes for the loyal opposition these days.
Asked about the invite at a town hall meeting in Indiana on Monday, Obama professed ignorance, but added: "I'm always good for a beer."
This morning on Fox, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs elaborated: “We should definitely do it in a public place because nobody would believe it actually happened if we just did it here."
“Get a six pack of Budweiser and we’ll meet Hannity anywhere he wants to go,” Gibbs added.
At first primetime press conference, Obama sells stimulus
President Obama, in the first primetime press conference of his young administration, used the huge TV audience to shore up public support for his economic recovery plan.
Noting that last month, the country lost 598,000 jobs -- "nearly the equivalent of losing every single job in the state of Maine" -- he said that only government can provide an adequate response.
"It is absolutely true that we cannot depend on government alone to create jobs or economic growth," he said in opening remarks before taking questions from reporters. "That is and must be the role of the private sector. But at this particular moment, with the private sector so weakened by this recession, the federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back into life."
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He framed the stimulus bill as a jobs plan, with tax cuts targeted to those who will spend the money quickly.
But he acknowledged that the plan working its way through Congress is "not perfect."
"No plan is. I can’t tell you for sure that everything in this plan will work exactly as we hope, but I can tell you with complete confidence that a failure to act will only deepen this crisis as well as the pain felt by millions of Americans."
Asked whether his dire warnings might be hurting the economy, he noted that 3.6 million jobs have been lost since the recession began in December 2007 and the job loss is accelerating.
"This is not your ordinary, run of the mill recession," he said, calling it the worst since the Great Depression.
Asked how Americans should measure the success of the stimulus plan and other initiatives, Obama said the first step is whether jobs are created or saved -- he has set a goal of 3 to 4 million in two years. The second measure is whether credit is freed up for businesses and consumers. The third metric will be whether the housing market is stabilized -- foreclosure rates no longer increasing and housing values not plummeting.
That progress, he said, he hopes will be visible next year. "This year is going to be a difficult year," Obama said.
He directly addressed criticisms of the stimulus plan.
To those who oppose any government intervention, he repeated that only the federal government can break the cycle that is driving down demand for goods and services. He also said that these critics seem to be refighting the philosophical battle over the New Deal, which he said he believed had been resolved.
To those preaching tax cuts, he said while he will accept ideas from across the political spectrum, he resolutely will not return to the "failed theories" of the past eight years, which he blamed for precipitating the crisis.
To those who say some of the spending is unnecessary, he said that the money to make government buildings energy
efficient and to build new schools will create jobs now and pay dividends later.
To those who warn of the rising federal deficit, Obama shot back that he inherited a trillion-dollar deficit this year, plus the economic crisis.
"I didn't come into this ginned up to spend $800 billion," he said. "That is not how I envisioned my presidency beginning."
Asked about whether he is moving away from bipartisanship after only three Republicans in the Senate and none in the House have supported the stimulus bill, Obama said that a lot of bad habits have taken root in Washington and it "will take time" to change them.
On other topics, he reiterated that he wants to focus on diplomacy with Iran, particularly on its nuclear ambitions; he said Afghanistan, where he plans to send more US troops, will be "a major challenge;" and he said Alex Rodriguez's admissions of performance-enhancing drug use tarnishes baseballs and sends the wrong message to children.
And underscoring the rise of the Internet, Obama called on a reporter for the Huffington Post website, who asked whether he agreed with Senator Patrick Leahy's proposal for a "truth and reconciliation" commission to look at alleged Bush administration misdeeds in the treatment of terrorist detainees and other issues.
Obama said he did not know enough about the proposal to answer, but repeated that while "nobody is above the law," he wants to look ahead and fix policies going forward.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele responded by saying Democrats in Congress had loaded the stimulus bill with wasteful spending:
"The legislation moving its way through Congress bares little resemblance to what President Obama described at tonight's press conference. The spending bill written by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid is filled with unnecessary and wasteful programs that will saddle future generations with massive debt. With so many Americans looking for work, it's important to act quickly, but also act prudently. This bill will fail to have the necessary and direct impact it should - in part - because the Democrats rejected proposals to improve the legislation. The President has called on both parties to work together to solve this crisis; I hope Congressional Democrats will heed his call and listen to all ideas."
Obama's full introductory remarks are below:
FULL ENTRYPitched partisan battle on stimulus
It's a partisan battle for the public's hearts and minds as President Obama takes a road trip to sell an economic stimulus plan, while Republicans rail against it as another Democratic spending spree.
Today, Obama heads to Elkhart, Ind., where the unemployment rate hit 15.3 percent in December, more than twice the national average and up nearly 11 percentage points in just a year.
Tonight at 8, the new president holds his first primetime news conference, from the East Room of the White House.
Tuesday, Obama goes to Fort Myers, Fla., among the fast-growing Sunbelt cities slammed by the foreclosure crisis. Wednesday, he heads for northern Virginia.
Obama has added another stop on his tour -- the proverbial Peoria, Ill., on Thursday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters on Air Force One, according to the press pool report.
In his weekly radio and Internet address on Saturday, Obama made his case gain: "Legislation of such magnitude deserves the scrutiny that it's received over the last month, and it will receive more in the days to come. But we can't afford to make perfect the enemy of the absolutely necessary. The scale and scope of this plan is right. And the time for action is now.
"Because if we don't move swiftly to put this plan in motion, our economic crisis could become a national catastrophe," he added.
But Michael Steele, the new chairman of the Republican National Committee, responded with a message of his own to give the party line.
"Democrats have controlled both branches of government for less than a month. And you have to wonder if all that power has gone to their heads," Steele said. "For the last two weeks, they've been trying to force a massive spending bill through Congress under the guise of economic relief."
Obama heads into the week with an advantage, according to a new Gallup poll.
According to the survey conducted Friday and Saturday, 67 percent of Americans approve Obama's handling of the stimulus bill, while only 48 percent approve how Democrats in Congress have conducted themselves, and only 38 percent approve of what congressional Republicans have done.
Obama has had far higher job approval ratings in general than Congress.
Another poll released today, however, showed far less support for the stimulus bill than for Obama, himself.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey found that 54 percent support the package, but that 55 percent believe it would spend too much money; 64 percent say it would help a lot or help the economy some.
The poll also found that while 74 percent believe that Obama is doing enough to cooperate with Republicans in Congress, but only 39 percent believe that Republicans are reciprocating adequately. Obama's overall job approval rating is 76 percent.
The survey, conducted Saturday and Sunday, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
Another survey released today also found dwindling support for the stimulus plan, largely because it has become a more partisan issue.
While 51 percent of Americans still say the package is a good idea, that's down from 57 percent last month, and unfavorable views have risen to 34 percent from 22 percent, according to the survey conducted Wednesday through Sunday by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.
Among Republicans, 63 percent now say the bill is a bad idea – up 20 percentage points since last month. While Democrats are also more skeptical, 70 percent still view the plan positively, according to the poll.
According to the press pool report, senior strategist David Axelrod pushed back at the idea that public support is slipping for the stimulus plan.
“There is strong support for this,” he said. “I think the Gallup poll this morning reflects everything I’ve seen for the last couple of weeks.”
“One thing that we learned over two years is that there’s a whole different conversation in Washington than there is out here. If I had listened to the conversation in Washington during the campaign for president, I would have jumped off a building about a year and a half ago.”
Not a single Republican supported the $820 billion version passed by the House on Jan. 28. Only three Republicans appear lined up to back the $827 billion version the Senate is expected to approve on Tuesday.
Two of them are Maine's senators, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe. Americans United for Change, a progressive and labor advocacy group, is running a radio ad praising them.
"The clock's ticking - and our economy continues to get worse and worse," the spot says. "That's why it's critical that the Senate pass President Obama's jobs and economic recovery bill right away. Fortunately, Maine's two Senators -- Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins are providing the leadership we need to get the job done. Senators Snowe and Collins have worked with President Obama and other Senators to reach agreement on a plan that has support from a broad range of groups - including the US Chamber of Commerce and organized labor."
Even with Senate approval, the deal could fall apart when a House-Senate conference committee tries to reach a compromise that both chambers would have to pass again before the package reaches Obama's desk. It will take the legislative equivalent of a sprint to give final approval before Congress is supposed to leave for its President's Day recess on Saturday, Obama's deadline.
"This bill is not perfect," Collins said this morning on NBC's "Today" show. "We're not claiming that. But in fact I think this bill will help to create 3.5 million jobs. ... We're facing a crisis and it makes no sense to have a partisan divide."
Senate reaches tentative pact on stimulus bill
By Sasha Issenberg and Lisa Wangsness, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- Senate Democrats emerged this evening from days of negotiations to declare that they had reached a deal with at least two moderate Republicans to approve a shrunken version of the economic stimulus package that passed the House last week.
The agreement on what Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called "the Obama plan" promised to deliver the new president his most important legislative victory so far. But the bill still demanded further negotiation and would only become law only after far more wrangling than the administration anticipated and with far less Republican support than it had pledged.
Those involved in negotiations said the deal on what they billed as a $780 billion package -- approximately $40 billion less than the House edition and nearly $160 billion less than an earlier Senate draft -- came about after a working group of centrists agreed to reduce both spending programs favored by Democrats and tax cuts pushed by Republicans. The final Senate bill would likely be around $800 billion, members of both parties said.
"We're going to make sure we’re doing everything we can make sure this severe recession does not become another Great Depression," Reid said on the Senate floor. "That's why we worked all week to come up with a bill."
Reid indicated a vote on the deal by the full Senate is unlikely until at least later this weekend. With every vote potentially crucial, Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts traveled to Washington to vote for the bill, senators said last night, though he was not seen at the Capitol. Kennedy, who is battling brain cancer, has been recuperating in Florida since Inauguration Day, when he suffered a seizure at a luncheon with the new president. Aides to Kennedy did not return calls today.
If the bill were to pass the Senate, a conference committee including members of both the House and Senate would convene to reconcile differences between the two bills, which Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota, chairman of the Budget Committee, said would pose a new set of challenges.
"There are some very significant differences now between the Senate package and the House package," Conrad said. "And with every difference, there's a constituency."
The deal-making was led by Maine Republican Susan Collins and Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson, who shuttled for days between committee rooms in Senate office buildings and unmarked hideaway offices deep in the Capitol. The ranks of negotiators dwindled from as many as 20 -- at one point, deliberations revolved around a "gang of 18" -- down to four.
"This has been an extremely difficult deliberation, but I believe that we have an obligation to start solving the problems facing this country," said Collins, who is, along with fellow Maine Senator Olympia Snowe and Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter, one of three Republican votes that Democrats are counting on to reach the 60 votes necessary to break a potential GOP filibuster.
"The American people don't want to see partisan gridlock," Collins said on the Senate floor. "They don't want to see us divided and fighting. They want to see us working together to solve the most important crisis facing this country."
Tonight, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs responded to the tentative deal:
"On the day when we learned 3.6 million people have lost their jobs since this recession began, we are pleased the process is moving forward and we are closer to getting Americans a plan to create millions of jobs and get people back to work," he said in a statement.
The tentative compromise emerged after President Obama seized today on the latest round of what he called "very troubling" news on jobs to ratchet up the pressure on Congress.
The unemployment rate rose to 7.6 percent nationwide in January, the highest since September 1992. The Labor Department also reported that 598,000 jobs were lost last month, the most since 1974, and that 3.6 million jobs had been lost since the recession began in December 2007.
"These numbers demand action," said Obama, who plans to push for the plan in town hall meetings Monday in Indiana and Tuesday in Florida bracketing a primetime news conference at the White House. "It is inexcusable and irresponsible to for any of us to get bogged down in distraction and delay while millions of Americans are being put out of work."
Throughout the day, Collins said she would not herself vote for anything resembling the House version, which she described as "bloated, expensive, and ineffective." The bill -- composed largely under the direction of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and which passed without a single Republican vote -- was a "Christmas tree upon which every member, virtually, had hung his or her favorite program."
The compromise eliminated $86 billion in spending and $18 billion in tax cuts, senators said. Conrad said the spending reductions were designed to eliminate any spending that was not quick, job-creating, or temporary. He said the spending cuts came from an array of programs, but education "took a big hit."
Other programs prized by Democratic interest groups sustained damage. The compromise lowered subsidies to help the unemployed keep their health insurance by $7 billion -- so the government will pay only half of COBRA premiums rather than 65 percent as originally planned -- and reduced the $20 billion the House appropriated for health information technology.
"Did we get everything we wanted?" asked Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who operates as one of the most liberal members of the Democratic caucus. "No, we did not."
Yet most Republicans appeared unmoved by the compromise, which they said still reflected Democratic priorities and would likely emerge from the Senate at nearly the same size as the House bill.
An aide to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said that with the addition of three amendments approved earlier in the week -- to fund the National Institutes of Health, and offer new tax credits for buyers of new homes and cars -- the bill's total cost would be "north of $800 billion."
FULL ENTRYGregg won't vote on stimulus, or anything else
By Michael Kranish, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- Senator Judd Gregg, the New Hampshire Republican nominated to be Commerce Secretary, once was seen as a key ally in President Obama's effort to win bipartisan support for his economic stimulus bill.
But Gregg's spokeswoman said today that the senator would recuse himself from voting on the bill, and would not even participate in debate on it.
In fact, the spokeswoman said, Gregg will not vote on any bill or other matter, in committee or on the floor.
In recusing himself, Gregg deprived Obama of a potential key vote in support of the package, as well the influence Gregg might have had in persuading other Republicans to follow his lead.
Gregg's spokeswoman, Laena Fallon, would not speak about the senator's decision other than to say, "He thinks this is the most appropriate thing to do right now."
A White House spokesman declined comment, instead referring to the statement from Gregg's office.
When Obama introduced the senator as his Commerce nominee on Tuesday, the president did so by underscoring the importance of passing the stimulus plan in a bipartisan fashion. Gregg then left the impression that he supported Obama's policy, although he did not explicitly endorse the Democratic stimulus proposal before the Senate.
"You've outlined an extraordinarily bold and aggressive, effective and comprehensive plan for how we can get this country moving," Gregg said to Obama at the nomination ceremony. "This is not a time for partisanship. This is not a time when we should stand in our ideological corners and shout at each other. This is a time to govern and govern well."
But now, Gregg's decision to recuse himself from voting is bound to raise questions about why he is remaining in office if he won't perform such an essential duty of a senator -- voting on legislation. It also may raise questions about whether he is seeking to avoid putting himself in the embarrassing position of voting against Obama's top economic priority.
Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond's School of Law, said today that he understood that Gregg wanted to avoid casting votes while his nomination is pending to avoid any appearance of impropriety, but he said it was not necessary. He said that a member of Congress usually recuses himself from voting on a matter when there is a personal or financial conflict with legislation.
"It seems that he could continue to discharge his duties as senator by participating in the debate on the stimulus and voting," Tobias said.
Every senator knows that Gregg has been picked by Obama for the Commerce job, and "they can always discount what he says accordingly."
In an interview last week, shortly before word leaked out that he was to be the Commerce nominee, Gregg said that he hoped to play a key role in helping Obama win passage of the bill. While Gregg said he could not support the bill as it was written by the House, he saw room for compromise if spending was cut and funds were provided to forestall home foreclosures.
"I've talked to the White House, given them some ideas," Gregg said last week. "I think it is good for the nation if we can do a bipartisan, substantive" piece of legislation.
Gregg's work as a deal broker, however, apparently ended as soon as it became clear Obama would make him the Commerce pick.
Gregg has said he won't resign until he is confirmed for the Commerce post. If he were to resign now, Democrats would need only 59 votes to overcome potential Republican procedural hurdles instead of the current 60. There are currently 99 senators, with a Minnesota seat still vacant and being contested in the courts. Under Senate rules, 60 votes are needed to overcome a filibuster when 99 or 100 senators are in office, but only 59 votes would be needed to overcome a filibuster if there are 98 senators, a Senate official said.
New Hampshire's Democratic governor, John Lynch, plans to appoint a Republican, Bonnie Newman, to replace Gregg.
With 56 Democrats and two Independents who caucus with the party, party leaders were searching today for several votes to get to 60 and ensure passage of the bill.
Obama meeting with terror victims' families
While he tries to sell Congress and the broader public on his economic recovery plan, President Obama sought to convince a more select group that he is right to change US terrorism policy.
He met privately this afternoon with some families of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and of the assault on the USS Cole in 2000 that claimed the lives of 17 sailors.
Some of the victims' families have been critical of Obama's decision to close the terrorist detention center at the US Naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
In one of his first major actions as president, Obama announced sweeping changes in how the US will prosecute terrorists. A senior Pentagon judge has dropped charges against an al Qaeda suspect in the Cole attack, the last active Guantanamo war crimes case.
The White House is now reviewing the legal cases of all 245 suspects held at Guantanamo, deciding whether they should be prosecuted in the civilian courts or released to other nations.
UPDATE: In the private session, Obama told the families that closing Guantanamo will make America safer and help the country fight terrorism.
Here is the White House account:
"The President met for an hour with approximately 40 family members of the victims of the attacks of September 11th and the attack on the USS Cole. The President started the meeting by thanking those in attendance for serving as the nation’s conscience and continuing to speak out about these tragic events, and he told them that he wanted today’s meeting to be just the beginning of a dialogue.
"The President made it clear that his most important responsibility is to keep the American people safe. He explained why he believes that closing Guantanamo will make our nation safer and help ensure that those who are guilty receive swift and certain justice within a legal framework that is durable, and that helps America fight terrorism more effectively around the world.
"The President then spent the majority of his time engaging the families in a dialogue, answering questions from 16 different people in attendance. He told the families that his staff would ensure that there was an ongoing forum for dialogue. The questions reflected a broad range of views, and the discussion was highly substantive, detailed, and at times emotional."
Obama sends labor another bouquet
In his latest labor-friendly move, President Obama signed an executive order this afternoon encouraging the use of union workers for big federal construction projects.
The order instructs federal agencies to have construction contractors make agreements that require contractors to negotiate with unions, recognize union wages and benefits, and follow collective bargaining agreements.
Obama's order restores a Clinton administration rule that was rescinded by President George W. Bush, the Associated Press reports.
In response, Stephen Sandherr, chief executive officer of the Associated General Contractors of America, issued a statement:
"Today's executive order has the unfortunate potential to limit contractors' ability to compete for projects at a time when the government is reporting that over one million construction workers have lost their jobs. Given that federal agencies have no demonstrated expertise in writing contracts that cover contractors and their employees, we strongly encourage officials to exercise the discretion this order provides and avoid government-mandated labor agreements," he said.
Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, was more critical, calling it a costly payoff to unions by Obama, who benefited from their support during the campaign.
"This executive order encouraging all federal agencies to adopt discriminatory, union-only project labor agreements is a shameless giveaway to Big Labor which spent over a billion dollars to get Obama and pro-forced-unionism Democrats elected last year," he said in a statement.
"The order ensures that union bosses will collect a huge slice of federal spending in the form of forced union dues paid by workers on federal contracts. With nearly a trillion dollar "stimulus" spending planned, this action not only raises the costs shouldered by the American taxpayers, but it also discriminates against the 92.5 percent of private sector employees who have chosen not to unionize."
The full text of the order is below:
FULL ENTRYJumping on jobless numbers
Advocacy groups are also jumping on the job losses, the worst in decades.
The Alliance for American Manufacturing said about one third of the jobs slashed last month were in manufacturing, about 207,000.
“The deteriorating jobs numbers show the urgent need for action on economic recovery legislation. Every day of delay means we are only compounding our nation’s economic challenges. For the sake of America’s manufacturing workers and businesses, the Senate should pass a sizable, strategic, and sustained economic recovery bill with assurances for domestic sourcing. We applaud the Senate’s action so far. Now it’s time to get this legislation to President Obama’s desk,” Scott Paul, the alliance's executive director, said in a statement.
The Laborers’ International Union of North America said that 111,000 construction jobs were lost, increasing the industry's unemployment rate to 18.2 percent and marking the 19th consecutive month with significant job loss in the construction industry. In all, 995,000 construction jobs have been lost since the start of 2007.
"Today’s jobs reports shows another disastrous month for construction jobs. Every month we see massive job loss in the construction industry and every month it gets worse. Nearly a million construction jobs have disappeared in two years, taking paychecks away from struggling families and consumers away from an ailing economy. It’s a no brainer: by building America we can put people back to work taking care of the things our country desperately needs, while turning our economy around and leaving behind a lasting legacy for generations to come," the union's general president Terry O'Sullivan said in a statement.
Americans United for Change, a coalition of progressive and labor groups, ripped Republicans, whom it said are stalling the recovery package.
“Republicans have been staging the equivalent of a filibuster on President Obama’s jobs and economic recovery plan by filling hundreds upon hundreds of frivolous amendments and by nit picking to death small items in the bill when the country is facing its biggest economic crisis in a generation," Brad Woodhouse, the group's president, said in a statement. “Nearly 600,000 Americans lost jobs last month meaning that every day that Senate Republicans stall passage of the bill 20,000 more Americans will lose their jobs. Republicans clearly want to exact a political price on the President for doing what the American people elected him to do – change the tone and policies in Washington and to get our economy moving again. Instead of playing politics – and instead of insisting on the failed trickle down policies of the past eight years that drove the economy into the ditch in the first place – Republicans should listen to the American people and the hundreds of economists from across the ideological spectrum who are calling for urgent and immediate action to stem the downward spiral the economy is in today. Obstruction is not the answer. The more feet dragging Senate Republicans engage in, the more attempts to water the bill down down, the more misguided attempts to replace stimulative spending projects with ineffective tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations – the more Americans will lose their jobs, homes and healthcare. It’s as simple as that.”
Meanwhile, labor groups are citing the jobs numbers to push for the confirmation of Hilda Solis, the California congresswoman whose nomination as labor secretary has been held up because of questions about her husband's business tax liens and her pro-union activities.
"We cannot continue to fiddle as the economy burns. It is urgent for the American people to have an aggressive, emergency economic recovery plan that will put people back to work and keep families in their homes, and a strong Department of Labor," AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said in a statement.
"Enough is enough. Senate Republicans can't just oppose a Secretary of Labor because she supports working Americans and favors curbing excessive corporate power. They need to stop obstructing and confirm Rep. Solis now."
Chris Chafe, head of the Change to Win labor coalition, added:
"A strong Department of Labor is vital to helping American families stay afloat during this severe economic crisis. As our nation hemorrhages millions of jobs -- this morning’s announcement indicates that over one million workers have lost their jobs just since Thanksgiving -- America’s workers are continuing to be denied a leader that can help restore the economy, rebuild the middle class and renew the American Dream because of the partisan politics of a few.
“The Republican obstruction of the nomination of Hilda Solis as Labor Secretary is a slap in the face to America’s hardworking men and women and to the economic recovery our nation so desperately needs. Americans voted for change in historic numbers in November, and today’s economic news speaks to the bold actions needed from our nation’s leaders. Yet, instead of working together to provide relief, Senate Republicans are offering more of the same divisive politics of the past."
Families USA, a health advocacy group, issued a report today saying that millions of workers who lost their jobs are also losing their health insurance coverage.
According to the report, only one out of five unemployed workers who have annual incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty level ($44,100 in annual income for a family of four) have private or military health coverage. These workers represent half of unemployed workers under 65 years of age, the study says.
The House version of the stimulus package includes $40 billion to subsidize health care insurance for the unemployed, and the working Senate version includes $26 billion.
“Losing a job often means losing health coverage,” Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, said in a statement. “Most laid-off workers can’t afford COBRA coverage and do not qualify for public health safety-net programs – and, as a result, millions of middle-class and lower-income workers become uninsured.”
Romney: Obama off to 'rocky start'
Mitt Romney deflects talk of being a candidate for health and human services secretary -- what would be the fourth Republican in President Obama's cabinet.
And in the Q&A with Time magazine, he probably doesn't enhance his prospects, if any, with a rather critical assessment of the new president's performance so far.
"I think President Obama is off to a rocky start. The theme 'Yes, we can' seems to have been replaced with 'Well, maybe we can't,' Romney says. "I believe that with all the challenges America faces, the simple solutions and the hope that were sold by the Obama team are inadequate to the task ahead."
While some Republicans are already talking Romney up for a second presidential run in 2012, he was typically vague when asked about his political prospects.
"I really don't know what the future holds," he said. "Like most Americans, I want to see Barack Obama adopt effective, correct principles and successfully lead our country. And so any discussion of future politics for me is, I think, premature."
UPDATE: Romney also has an opinion piece on CNN.com critiquing Obama's economic recovery plan, saying the "Obama spending bill would stimulate the government, not the economy."
Biden heads across the pond
Vice President Joe Biden departs today for his first major entrance on the world stage since taking office, the 45th Munich Conference on Security Policy in Germany.
Accompanied by President Obama's national security adviser, General James L. Jones, Biden will represent the United States at the annual conclave of government officials, specialists, and journalists on trans-Atlantic issues.
Biden knows many of the players from his years as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but his words and actions will be much more scrutinized this time.
His office says he will "discuss the need for strong partnerships to meet our common challenges" and "urge cooperation among our allies to confront the security and economic issues of a post-Cold War and post-9/11 world."
Besides his major speech, Biden plans to meet separately with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, French President Nicholas Sarkozy, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, NATO Secretary General Jakob Gijsbert de Hoop Scheffer, and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
According to a press pool report, Biden told House Democrats at their annual retreat this morning that while the security situation in Iraq has improved, the US needed to get "much more aggressive" in resolving remaining political issues. But he said the US is on the 20-yard line and moving toward the goal line.
But in Afghanistan: "I think we're closer to being on our 20-yard line, with 80 yards to go…we got a long way to go there."
Obama: faith should unite, not divide
Using the traditional National Prayer Breakfast as his bully pulpit, President Obama declared this morning that faith should be a force for unity -- not an "excuse for prejudice and intolerance" -- and pledged that his faith-based programs will not favor any religious group or religious groups over secular ones.
"We have seen faith wielded as a tool to divide us from one another – as an excuse for prejudice and intolerance," the president said. "Wars have been waged. Innocents have been slaughtered. For centuries, entire religions have been persecuted, all in the name of perceived righteousness.
"There is no doubt that the very nature of faith means that some of our beliefs will never be the same. We read from different texts. We follow different edicts. We subscribe to different accounts of how we came to be here and where we’re going next – and some subscribe to no faith at all. But no matter what we choose to believe, let us remember that there is no religion whose central tenet is hate. There is no God who condones taking the life of an innocent human being. This much we know."
Of his faith-office, Obama said, "Instead of driving us apart, our varied beliefs can bring us together to feed the hungry and comfort the afflicted; to make peace where there is strife and rebuild what has broken; to lift up those who have fallen on hard times. This is not only our call as people of faith, but our duty as citizens of America, and it will be the purpose of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships that I’m announcing later today.
"The goal of this office will not be to favor one religious group over another – or even religious groups over secular groups. It will simply be to work on behalf of those organizations that want to work on behalf of our communities, and to do so without blurring the line that our founders wisely drew between church and state. This work is important, because whether it’s a secular group advising families facing foreclosure or faith-based groups providing job-training to those who need work, few are closer to what’s happening on our streets and in our neighborhoods than these organizations. People trust them. Communities rely on them. And we will help them."
Later, he signed an executive order (to read it click here) forming the President's Advisory Council on Faith, which is to give him counsel on substantive issues from a faith perspective. Last week, Obama named Joshua Dubois, a faith outreach adviser during the campaign, as executive director of the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
The moves are designed to broaden in reach and make more ecumenical the faith-based initiatives in the Bush administration, which drew criticism from some quarters for being too explicitly religious.
UPDATE: Interfaith Alliance President Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, who was critical of the Bush faith-based initiative, issue a statement expressing optimism about Obama's version.
“President Obama’s executive order has moved faith and community outreach in a new direction that represents an improvement over what we saw during the Bush administration,” Gaddy said. “There is still work to be done, to establish anti-discrimination guarantees and protections for the boundaries between religion and government. The Justice Department is already at work on developing those protections, and I am optimistic that they will arrive at the proper conclusion. I urge our new attorney general to be thorough and expeditious in this work”
Gaddy also praised the selection of Dubois, calling him “a passionate and open-minded advocate in his work."
"While my preference would be to establish a community based office rather then a faith based office to help the weakest, poorest, and neediest people in our nation, the president has chosen to pursue a different path. I am committed to working with his administration to correct mistakes of the past to proceed with a program that both offers help to hurting people and respect the Constitution,” Gaddy added.
Obama's full prepared remarks are below:
The White House news release on the executive order establishing the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnership is also below:
FULL ENTRYKennedy, Baucus affirm commitment to health bill, urge Obama to swiftly replace Daschle
WASHINGTON -- Senators Edward M. Kennedy and Max Baucus, in a public letter to President Obama this afternoon, affirmed their commitment to passing a major health care bill this year and urged the new president to move with dispatch to find a replacement for Tom Daschle, who would have been the White House's point-person on that issue.
Daschle, Obama's nominee for Health and Human Services, withdrew his name this week after acknowledging he had failed to pay $128,000 in taxes on a private car and driver lent to him by a Democratic donor. Since he lost his reelection bid in 2004, he had also earned large speaking fees from health care interests whose activities are regulated by HHS.
"We have a moral duty to ensure that every American can get quality health care," the senators' letter said. "Incremental efforts will no longer suffice and we cannot afford to wait any longer. With your continued leadership and commitment, we remain certain that our goal of enacting comprehensive health care reform can be accomplished this year.
Daschle's departure devastated health advocates, who viewed him as uniquely qualified to guide the White House reform effort. A veteran former senator with a low-key demeanor who had won respect on both sides of the aisle, Dashle had recently authored a book on health reform and had the full confidence of the president.
Baucus, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and Kennedy, the chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, have been working steadily since last summer to prepare the way for a bill they hoped to send to the floor in the first 100 days of the new administration.
In their letter, they expressed disappointment about the Daschle situation but said the circumstances demanded immediate bold action.
"As you have emphasized we must act now," the letter said. "The ranks of the uninsured grow larger each day. The cost of health care to families, businesses and government are crippling and, although we spend more on health care than any other country, the quality of care provided by America's health care system is often uneven compared to other industrialized nations."
Health care advocates do not agree on who would the best person to replace Daschle, or whether Obama should have two people take his place -- one to head the department and one to work on the health bill.
Obama steps up stimulus pitch
With the Senate primed to vote on its version of the economic stimulus package as soon as tonight, President Obama is stepping up his sales pitch to put public pressure on lawmakers to approve it.
UPDATE: The White House announced this afternoon that Obama will hold a press conference in primetime at 8 p.m. Monday.
In two appearances on Wednesday, he warned of catastrophe if the plan isn't passed soon and hit back against critics of the plan, arguing that their solutions were rejected in November by voters who put him in office.
He fleshed out his case in an op-ed piece published today in The Washington Post.
In the opinion piece, which was also distributed today by the White House, the president writes that "each day we wait to begin the work of turning our economy around, more people lose their jobs, their savings and their homes. And if nothing is done, this recession might linger for years. Our economy will lose 5 million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse."
At an appearance at the Energy Department this afternoon, Obama said the debate over the stimulus plan is no abstract exercise. Citing new numbers out today that new unemployment claims totaled 626,000 in the last week of January, he said the numbers and the American people are demanding action.
While the bill has received the proper scrutiny over the past few weeks, "the time for talk is over," he declared. "The time for action is now."
Obama hit back again at those who are calling for tax cuts rather than government spending to stoke the economy.
"Those ideas have been tested and they have failed," he said.
And as Obama turns up the heat on Republicans, they are responding by complaining that the bipartisanship Obama promised to bring to Washington is sorely lacking in the debate on the stimulus plan.
Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a close ally and friend of GOP presidential candidate John McCain, took to the Senate floor to make his point.
"If this the solution to George Bush's problems," Graham said, the way Democrats are pushing the stimulus will make matters worse.
"If this is the change we can believe in, America's best days are behind her," he added.
Organizing for America, the new vehicle for Obama's campaign apparatus, is also trying to build public support.
It sent backers a video of Obama's television interviews on Tuesday, when he explained the need for the stimulus plan, and is organizing house parties this weekend.
"You can help make sure the American people have all the facts so they can support this crucial effort to boost our struggling economy," campaign manager David Plouffe told supporters. "The President is leading. Help is on the way."
Obama announces new energy guidelines
President Obama announced this afternoon that he is issuing a memorandum directing the Energy Department to come up with new guidelines to increase the efficiency of household appliances.
He said that over 30 years, the new guidelines would save the equivalent of the energy produced by all coal-fired plants for 2 years.
Obama called the changes "a significant down payment" on a clean energy future, and promoted the alternative energy components of his economic stimulus package.
The president hit back at critics who label as "pork" the provision to convert the federal vehicle fleet to cleaner, more efficient fuel sources. He said it will save taxpayers money, create jobs, and help the environment.
"Are these folks serious?" he asked of the skeptics.
"Washington may not be ready to get serious about energy independence, but I am," he added.
To read the memorandum, click here.
Obama's full remarks are below:
Biden highlights infrastructure spending
Vice President Joe Biden, joining in the hard sell for the economic stimulus plan, went today to a commuter rail station in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Laurel, Md., to highlight the infrastructure spending in the bill.
Biden said that President Obama's plan would create 400,000 jobs in the next two years by investing at least $100 billion in mass transit systems, highways, bridges, ports -- what the White House calls the largest increase in infrastructure spending since the creation of the national highway system in the 1950s.
But fellow Democrats in the Senate fell two votes short on Tuesday of adding $25 billion for highways, mass transit, and water projects to the package. Republicans blocked the move, insisiting that any additional infrastructure spending be offset by spending cuts elsewhere in the package.
Critics of the $819 billion version of the stimulus bill passed by the House last week say it falls far short on infrastructure spending -- which many economists say is one of the quickest ways to create jobs -- compared to the pledges the president has made. Analysts computed that only 5 percent of the House legislation would go to highway, mass transit, and rail projects.
Biden's full remarks, and a question-and-answer session -- as provided by the White House -- are below:
The White House report on the infrastructure component of the package is also below:
Cutting a stimulus deal
A bipartisan group of senators is meeting today on Capitol Hill to try to make a deal on the stimulus package -- and possibly set the stage for a vote tonight.
Senator Susan Collins of Maine is among the key negotiators as moderate Republicans like her and conservative Democrats strip out objectionable spending that could streamline the bill in shape that could draw at least 60 Senate votes and overcome procedural hurdles that Republican foes could put in the way.
Before going into the closed-door meeting, Collins told CNN that she met with Senator Ben Nelson, a conservative Democrat from Nebraska, late into the night Wednesday to find "a way to proceed" and to "more carefully focus the bill."
Critics of the bill say the current $900 billion-plus Senate version includes too many projects that would not create jobs quickly and should not be in the package. Those same critics are even more harsh in the opprobrium of the $819 billion version passed by the House last week without a single Republican voting in favor.
Obama signs healthcare bill
A day after he had to jettison the person he hoped would be the architect of a healthcare overhaul, President Obama this afternoon will get to claim a smaller victory.
He signed into law a bill, given final approval by the House today, to extend subsidized coverage to 4 million more children across the country. The bill on the State Children's Health Insurance Program costs nearly $33 billion and covers children whose parents earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, but find it expensive to buy private insurance.
"This is good, this is good," Obama began, as supporters applauded and cheered.
With the bill, "We fulfill one of the highest responsibilities that we have -- to ensure the health and well-being of the nation's children," he said, First Lady Michelle Obama by his side.
But Obama also noted the reality that 8 million children lack health insurance, among an estimated 47 million Americans without health insurance, according to the Census Bureau, about 16 percent of the population..
"This is only the first step," he said, calling it a downpayment on his commitment for universal healthcare coverage.
And, like an event during his campaign, he introduced a "real family" to illustrate the issue, vowing that he will refuse to accept" that some children do not get the basic help they need to reach their full potential.
He also noted that the legislation lifts the ban on states allowing the children of immigrants to enroll in the program, eliciting another big cheer from the invited audience.
Tom Daschle, who was nominated for health and human services secretary and for a new White House office of healthcare reform, withdrew his nomination on Tuesday over tax troubles.
Senator John F. Kerry praised the final passage of the bill, noting that the program covers nearly 100,000 children in Massachusetts.
“It’s about time we take care of our most vulnerable children. We’ve waited far too long for this day,” Kerry said in a statement. “America’s kids should be guaranteed comprehensive care whether they need dental care, mental health, medical or surgical treatment.”
The legislation also includes parity for mental health services under the program. “It’s about time we take care of our most vulnerable children. We’ve waited far too long for this day,” Kerry added. “America’s kids should be guaranteed comprehensive care whether they need dental care, mental health, medical or surgical treatment.”
An anti-tax group, however, argued that by signing the bill, Obama had violated a core campaign promise -- not to raise taxes on those earning less than $250,000 a year.
Americans for Tax Reform said that the tobacco tax hike that funds the expansion -- "a 156 percent increase in the federal excise tax on tobacco, a hike of 61 cents per pack" -- disproportionately hits lower income people.
Obama's full prepared remarks are below:
Lynn offers more concessions
By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- If he gains Senate approval to be the second-ranking Pentagon official, Raytheon executive and former lobbyist William J. Lynn III promises not to participate in any decisions for up to a year that involve the weapons programs that he lobbied for on behalf of the Waltham-based defense giant, according to a series of letters the White House and Lynn sent to Capitol Hill this afternoon.
Lynn has come under scrutiny after requiring a special ethics waiver to be President Obama's nominee for deputy secretary of defense, who is responsible for managing the day-to-day operations of the Department of Defense. The administration's new ethics guidelines bar former lobbyists from having jurisdiction over industries they represented in the previous two years.
Lawmakers have questioned Lynn's ability to remain impartial in decisions affecting Raytheon, which receives billions of dollars in Pentagon contracts each year. To address those concerns, Lynn previously said he will seek special authorization from Pentagon lawyers before involving himself in decisions that directly effect Raytheon's bottom line and also agreed to sell all his company stock within 90 days.
But today he went a step further, saying he would not involve himself for at least a year with decisions involving the specific weapon systems -- including a new warship, missiles, and satellites -- that he advocated for during his stint as a top Raytheon lobbyist from 2002 to 2008.
To see the documents, click here.
Lynn is especially trying to satisfy Senator Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican who remains the most vocal critic of his nomination. Lynn's new effort to address the ethics concerns was included in a written response to questions posed by Grassley last week.
Lynn has won wide backing from many in the defense community who believe the 54-year-old, who previously served in high Pentagon positions and on Capitol Hill, is uniquely suited to address the Pentagon's myriad management challenges.
But Grassley still appears to have concerns -- both with Lynn's ties to Raytheon and his past performance as the Pentagon top budget official in the 1990s. Grassley has maintained that Lynn presided over a series of financial decisions in his last Pentagon tour that contributed to wasteful spending and shoddy accounting procedures.
Grassley's office indicated this afternoon that he will continue to raise questions as the Senate takes up the nomination. Senators have the perogative to place a hold on a nomination, delaying it indefinitely.
"Mr. Lynn’s past performance at the Department of Defense raises many concerns for Senator Grassley, let alone the possible conflicts of interest with a big time defense contractor," his office said in a statement. "Senator Grassley will be detailing all of this prior to Senate consideration of Mr. Lynn’s nomination."
Obama reining in CEO pay
President Obama is backing up his outrage over Wall Street pay with action today, announcing plans to put a $500,000-a-year limit on the salaries of CEOs whose companies dip into the government's financial rescue fund.
Firms that want to pay executives more than $500,000 would have to use stock that could not be sold until the firms pay back the government.
"In order to restore trust, we’ve got to make certain that taxpayer funds are not subsidizing excessive compensation packages on Wall Street," Obama said.
"We all need to take responsibility. This includes executives at major financial firms who turned to the American people, hat in hand, when they were in trouble, even as they paid themselves their customary lavish bonuses. As I said last week, that’s the height of irresponsibility. That’s shameful. And that’s exactly the kind of disregard of the costs and consequences of their actions that brought about this crisis: a culture of narrow self-interest and short-term gain at the expense of everything else.
"This is America. We don’t disparage wealth. We don’t begrudge anybody for achieving success. And we certainly believe that success should be rewarded. But what gets people upset – and rightfully so – are executives being rewarded for failure. Especially when those rewards are subsidized by US taxpayers...
"For top executives to award themselves these kinds of compensation packages in the midst of this economic crisis isn't just bad taste, it’s a bad strategy and I will not tolerate it as president. We’re going to be demanding some restraint in exchange for federal aid – so that when firms seek new federal dollars, we won’t find them up to the same old tricks."
Obama's full prepared remarks are below. The new pay regulations, as outlined by the White House, are also below.
Obama last week lambasted as the "height of irresponsibility" and "shameful" the $18 billion-plus in bonuses that Wall Street firms paid last year, one of their worst in history that forced them to seek government help.
Obama, back when he was a US senator running for the nation's highest office, voted for the $700 billion financial bailout. But now, he agrees with many that the first $350 billion spent -- mostly by investing to prop up banks -- has not done the job to free up credit.
Geithner plans to unveil next week a new framework for spending the remaining money.
As the Obama administration retools the plan, a watchdog group reported today that firms receiving the bailout money have reaped a huge return on investment.
The Center for Responsive Politics said that the finance and auto companies spent a total of $114.2 million on lobbying in the last year and in campaign contributions for the 2008 election. The companies received have received $295.2 billion so far from the rescue plan, "an extraordinary return of 258,449 percent."
"Even in the best economic times, you won't find an investment with a greater payoff than what these companies have been getting," Sheila Krumholz, the center's executive director, said in a statement. "Some of the companies and industries that have received payments may now consider their contributions and lobbying to be the smartest investments they've made in years."
Collins having say on stimulus
The predictions that Susan Collins of Maine, a moderate Republican, would play a key role in the Senate bridging the two parties is coming to pass.
Collins has been summoned to meet this afternoon at the White House with President Obama about the stimulus plan, a Collins aide told the Associated Press.
With the blessing of Democratic leaders, Collins is working with other moderate senators including Ben Nelson, a Nebraska Democrat, to cut spending in the plan to get it in a form that would draw broad, bipartisan support.
Republicans oppose much of the spending included in the $819 billion version approved by the House last week without a single Republican vote. Obama is hoping to get some GOP backing in the Senate.
The president used an announcement of new limits on executive pay at firms receiving federal aid to press again today for quick action on the stimulus plan.
"A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe and guarantee a longer recession, a less robust recovery, and a more uncertain future. Millions more jobs will be lost. More businesses will be shuttered. More dreams will be deferred."
He hit back at criticisms of the plan from Republicans, which he said "echo the very same failed economic theories that led us into this crisis in the first place – the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems; that we can ignore fundamental challenges like energy independence and the high cost of healthcare."
"I reject those theories," he added, "and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change. So I urge members of Congress to act without delay. No plan is perfect, and we should work to make it stronger....Let’s not make the perfect the enemy of the essential. Let’s show people all over our country who are looking for leadership in this difficult time that we are equal to the task."
Providence mayor at White House on stimulus
As the White House continues trying to build support for its economic recovery plan, about 20 mayors from across the country will be making a cameo appearance today.
Miami Mayor Manny Diaz is leading the delegation from the US Conference of Mayors, which also includes Providence Mayor David Cicilline.
He leads the capital of a state among the hardest hit by the deepening recession. Rhode Island's unemployment rate hit 10 percent in December, the highest in 30 years. The state is suffering with the same housing and retail downturn as elsewhere, but also failed to replace its manufacturing base like some other states did.
The mayors urged Congress to get past policy and partisan differences and pass a plan.
"We need action now," Akron Mayor Donald L. Plusquellic said.
A bipartisan group of 19 governors, including Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, issued a letter in support of the stimulus plan that the White House released on Tuesday. The Senate is busily drafting its own version that will be significantly different than the $819 billion version passed by the House last week.
Public support for the stimulus package, meanwhile, appears to be dropping as criticism grows louder.
A Rasmussen Reports poll says that 37 percent favor the legislation, 43 percent are opposed, and 20 percent are not sure.
Earlier surveys showed a plurality in favor, 45 percent two weeks ago and 42 percent last week. Opposition has grown from 34 percent two weeks ago to 39 percent last week, Rasmussen says.
White House estimates jobs from stimulus
As part of its hard sell, the White House this afternoon released job-creation estimates for Eastern states from the economic recovery package.
It said that of the 3 million to 4 million jobs the plan would save or create, 800,000 of them would be in 10 Eastern states.
The estimates include 83,000 jobs in Massachusetts, 44,000 in Connecticut, 17,000 in New Hampshire, 16,000 in Maine, 13,000 in Rhode Island, and 8,000 in Vermont.
Obama names Gregg, both call for bipartisanship
President Obama introduced GOP Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire as his choice for commerce secretary this morning, saying that Gregg is the right person to help create jobs during and after the economic recovery.
Obama said Gregg has "seen from all angles" how the economy works best, starting from when he saw his father Hugh, like him a former governor, run a small business in Nashua, N.H. Gregg is also "famous or infamous" on Capitol Hill for his fiscal discipline, the president said.
While he and Gregg don't agree on everything -- including who should have won the November election -- they agree on the need to lift people out of the recession, Obama said.
"With the stakes this high, we cannot afford to get trapped in the same partisan gridlock," said Obama, who used the opportunity to again make a sales pitch for his stimulus package.
After thanking Obama for what he called a "rather extraordinary step," Gregg praised Obama's "bold" stimulus plan.
"This is not a time for partisanship," Gregg said. "This is a time to govern, and govern well."
Gregg also thanked New Hampshire Governor John Lynch, a Democrat, who is expected to name a Republican to serve out the remaining two years in Gregg's term. The most-mentioned possibility is J. Bonnie Newman, a former Reagan administration official.
Lynch has scheduled a news conference for 4:30 p.m. today to announce his pick to replace Gregg.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs acknowledged that New Hampshire Governor John Lynch talked to the Obama team about the Gregg nomination.
But Gibbs denied that the White House had any role in Lynch's decision of who should replace Gregg.
Meanwhile, Representative Carol Shea-Porter addressed early speculation that she would run for Gregg's seat in 2010.
"It is still very early and I am focused on my work for New Hampshire and the country," Shea-Porter said in a statement.
Obama's first choice for the job, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, a Democrat, withdrew amid an investigation of state contracts and political donations.
If confirmed, Gregg would be the third Republican in Obama's cabinet, following Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who stayed on from the Bush administration, and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a former Illinois congressman.
Even before his name was bandied about for commerce secretary, Gregg had emerged as a key ally for Obama on economic policy. While many congressional Republicans had slammed Obama's stimulus plan in particular, Gregg had called for a bipartisan approach to the nation's economic crisis.
Gregg, 61, has been in elected office since 1979, the last 16 in the Senate.
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney praised Obama's selection of Gregg.
"Senator Judd Gregg is an excellent choice for Commerce Secretary. He will bring a much-needed sense of fiscal discipline to the affairs of the executive branch, and an appreciation of the need to adopt policies that encourage job growth and creation. Having distinguished himself through a long career of service to the people of New Hampshire, Senator Gregg now has a chance to put that service to work for a grateful nation."
The full remarks of Obama and Gregg, as released by the White House, are below:
Daschle withdraws nomination
Tom Daschle has withdrawn as President Obama's nominee for health and human services secretary because of his failure to pay his taxes on time.
Daschle, the former top Democrat in the Senate, apologized publicly and privately on Monday. Senators and Obama had stood by him, but Daschle withdrew today, saying he did not want to be a distraction.
Obama said he accepted the decision with sadness and regret, the White House said.
"Now we must move forward," added Obama, who on Monday said he "absolutely" stood behind Daschle.
Besides overseeing a huge agency, Daschle was also supposed to be the point person for Obama on healthcare reform.
In his withdrawal letter, Daschle said he would have not been able to operate "with the full faith of Congress and the American people."
Asked about the stunning reversal, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Daschle made the decision because he did not want to be a distraction to Obama's agenda.
"We're at a critical juncture in our nation's history... and the president has a robust agenda to deal with those problems," Gibbs said.
Gibbs also told reporters at his daily briefing that Daschle, and deputy budget director-designate Nancy Killefer, who also withdrew over tax problems today, recognized that they could not follow a different standard of ethics and accountability than Obama is calling for.
"That agenda and the president's call for change was more important," he said.
Asked whether Daschle's withdrawal will delay the healthcare reform effort, Gibbs said others in the administration will carry the ball.
"I don't think the effort for healthcare slows down," he said. "This is bigger than any one group or individual."
Senator Max Baucus of Montana, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, had backed Daschle's nomination on Monday and is helping lead the charge for healthcare reform, along with Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts.
“It was with regret but with respect for his decision that I learned of Senator Daschle’s request to withdraw his name from consideration for Secretary of Health and Human Services," Baucus said in a statement. "Tom would have been, as I said, a terrific partner at HHS on health reform, and I hope and fully expect that he will continue to play a leading and valuable role in health policy for this country.”
Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, who had already been working with Daschle on healthcare, issued this statement:
“Tom Daschle is a public servant of high character and deep devotion to this country. He is strongly committed to health care reform and would have been an outstanding Secretary of Health and Human Services. Even though he has withdrawn his name, I know that Tom remains dedicated, as am I, to achieving quality, affordable health care for all Americans. Tom will remain a respected voice in this important debate, and I look forward to continuing to work with him.”
Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts added his statement:
“I wish Tom Daschle had not decided to withdraw his nomination for Secretary of Health and Human Services. While Tom’s decision is a reminder of his loyalty to President Obama and his determination not to be a distraction, this was no ordinary appointment and today is not a good day for the cause of health care reform. Tom brought a unique level of legislative skill and experience to this position in addition to his passion to achieve affordable health care for every American. Tom made it very clear he’d made a mistake and he took responsibility for it. I believe that when the smoke clears and the frenzy has ended, no one will believe that this unwitting mistake should have erased thirty years of selfless public service and remarkable legislative skill and expertise on health care. I know Tom Daschle well. I know his integrity and I respect his heart for this cause, and I know Tom will find other ways to contribute to this central mission.”
Harry Reid, the top Democrat in the Senate, said while Daschle was "ideally suited" for the job, the healthcare reform effort can move forward.
Reid told reporters on Capitol Hill that he was "terribly disappointed" by what happened to Daschle, whom he called "like a brother to me."
"I support his decision," Reid added.
Daschle was being criticized for not paying until last month $128,203 in back taxes and $11,964 in interest, mostly for the use of a private car and driver. He was also being questioned about speaking fees he accepted from healthcare interests.
Senator John Ensign of Nevada told reporters on Capitol Hill that there were "serious problems" with Daschle's activities.
While Daschle wasn't a registered lobbyist, he seemed to be in conflict with Obama's pledge to end the revolving door between lobbyists and government, Ensign said.
Daschle would have been grilled before the Senate Finance Committee next week, Ensign said. "He saved the president from being embarrassed next week in a public hearing," he said.
The statements from Daschle and the president are below:
Anti-immigration group jumps on Obama's aunt case
Illegal immigration didn't factor much in the presidential election, since Barack Obama and John McCain agreed on the broad outlines of policy to reform the system and provide a path to citizenship.
But now an anti-immigration advocacy group is trying to use the case of Obama's aunt, who was discovered living in Boston illegally just before the election, to pump up the subject again.
Zeituni Onyango, Obama's late father's half sister, faces an April 1 hearing on her immigration status and is believed to be living in Cleveland. Obama has said he wasn't aware of her case and has said the law should be followed.
Americans for Legal Immigration PAC said this week it is filing an arrest request with Immigration and Customs Enforcement day and issuing a public demand for Obama to deport his aunt.
First reported on the Washington Post's political blog, the group said, "Onyango is an illegal immigrant, who is currently under a court's order to leave the country or be deported, and has been living in taxpayer subsidized housing in Boston for five years. She is currently a fugitive from justice and is staying with friends in Cleveland vowing to fight against being deported now that her nephew is President.
"President Obama has promised the American public that his administration will honor the principles of open government, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law," William Gheen of ALIPAC said in a statement. "Obama must either deport his aunt or destroy his own credibility by showing her favoritism."
McCain goes off on stimulus package
The glad tidings between President Obama and presidential rival John McCain seem to be over.
McCain was very gracious in defeat, they made very nice in the weeks after the election, and McCain publicly praised many of Obama's cabinet picks and initial decisions.
But now McCain is sounding off on the economic recovery plan.
Through his Country First political action committee, the Arizona senator urged supporters today to sign an online petition against the current package. He also had some harsh words about the lack of bipartisan cooperation.
The message to supporters follows:
"Yesterday, the Senate began debate on an economic stimulus package that is intended to get our economy back on track and help Americans who are suffering through these difficult times. Unfortunately, the proposal on the table is big on the giveaways for the special interests and corporate high rollers, yet short on help for ordinary working Americans. I cannot and do not support the package on the table from the Democrats and the Obama Administration. Our country does not need just another spending bill, particularly not one that will load future generations with the burden of massive debt. We need a short term stimulus bill that will directly help people, create jobs, and provide a jolt to our economy.
"I believe we need to evaluate every bit of spending in this stimulus proposal with one important criteria - does it really stimulate the economy and help create jobs - if the answer is no, it does not belong in a so-called stimulus package. Furthermore, the stimulus must include significant direct relief to American workers in the form of payroll tax cuts and programs to help homeowners keep their homes. Finally, we need an end game to this stimulus so that when our economy recovers, these spending programs do not remain permanent and saddle our children with a skyrocketing national debt.
"I appreciate the discussions President Obama is having with my Republican colleagues, but the time for talking has come to an end and we must now begin some serious negotiation. But as of yet, Republicans have not been given the opportunity to be involved. The House of Representatives passed a stimulus bill without a single Republican supporting it. In the Senate, the Democrat leadership is trying to jam the existing proposal through regardless of reservations from a number of members. With so much at stake, the last thing we need is partisanship driving our attempts to turn the economy around.
"I have long been a fighter against wasteful spending in Washington and long an advocate for a balanced budget -- that will never change. I realize we face extraordinary challenges with our economy today, but that is not an excuse for more irresponsibly from Washington. I hope you will join me in saying no to this stimulus package as it currently exists by signing this petition."
Deputy budget director pick withdraws
Tax trouble didn't stop Timothy Geithner from becoming treasury secretary, and apparently won't prevent Tom Daschle from taking the helm at health and human services.
But it appears to have helped doom Nancy Killefer, President Obama's pick for deputy budget director with responsibility for rooting out government waste.
The White House said today that Killefer, a 55-year-old executive with consulting giant McKinsey & Co., has withdrawn and would explain her reasons for pulling out later today.
The Associated Press reported that she failed for a year and a half to pay employment taxes on household help. In 2005 the District of Columbia government had filed a $946.69 tax lien on her home for failure to pay unemployment compensation taxes, the AP said.
UPDATE: The White House just released the letter from Killefer:
Dear Mr. President,
I recognize that your agenda and the duties facing your Chief Performance Officer are urgent. I have also come to realize in the current environment that my personal tax issue of D.C. Unemployment tax could be used to create exactly the kind of distraction and delay those duties must avoid. Because of this I must reluctantly ask you to withdraw my name from consideration.
I am deeply honored to have been selected by you and you have my deep appreciation for your confidence in me. You have my heartfelt support and best wishes for success in all your endeavors.
Respectfully yours,
Nancy Killefer
Holder pledges no politics at Justice
Vice President Joe Biden, swearing in Eric Holder as the nation's first African-American attorney general this morning, gave voice again to criticisms of the Bush administration's Justice Department.
Biden and other critics say that Alberto Gonzales, in particular, politicized the department and represented the White House's interests over the interests of justice.
"No politics and no ideology," Biden vowed, promising that Holder will be "the people's lawyer."
"Americans need a great Department of Justice," Biden added.
Holder, who was confirmed by the Senate Monday evening on a 75-21 vote, said he would bring a "new day" and there would be "no place for political favoritism."
Holder also recognized the history of his appointment, saying that his journey shows the promise in America.
Duckworth joins Obama's VA
One of the highest-profile veterans of the Iraq war is joining the Obama administration.
Tammy Duckworth, who lost both her legs and partial use of one arm when her helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade in 2004, will be assistant secretary of public and intergovernmental affairs for the Department of Veterans Affairs, the White House announced this morning.
In the job, Duckworth will also oversee programs for homeless Veterans, consumer affairs and special rehabilitative events.
“Effective communications with Veterans and VA’s stakeholders is key to improving our services and ensuring Veterans receive the benefits they deserve,” Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki said in a statement. “Tammy Duckworth brings significant talent, leadership and personal experience to this important work.”
Duckworth, a visible supporter of Obama's during the campaign, has been director of the state Veterans office in Illinois since 2006.
Selling the stimulus
As is often the case in Washington, the presentation is just as important as the policy, and so it is with the economic stimulus plan.
President Obama, while his team tries to quietly jettison the most objectionable parts of the version approved by the House last week, is going on the PR offensive today. He is doing a series of interviews in the Oval Office with the major broadcast and cable networks: ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and Fox News Channel.
A new Gallup poll suggests why he's pitching the plan anew to the public -- the survey shows that the recovery package that is the signature effort of his early days in office is far less popular than Obama, himself.
According to the poll, 38 percent of Americans want the recovery package passed as is, 37 percent want major changes, and 17 percent want Congress to reject it entirely.
Among those supporting the president are many of the nation's governors. The White House released a letter today from 19 of them, including Democrats Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, Jon Corzine of New Jersey, and Tim Kaine of Virginia and Republicans Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and Charlie Crist of Florida.
"We urge the Congress to reach prompt resolution of all outstanding differences and you to sign the bill when it reaches your desk,” the letter says. “While we all believe in the importance of free markets, we believe that the markets today need stimulating.”
Meanwhile, a major union today launched an effort behind an amendment proposed by Senators Dianne Feinstein of California and Patty Murray of Washington to boost the infrastructure spending in the package by $25 billion. Spending on roads, bridges, and other public works projects is one of the most effective ways to quickly create jobs, many economists say.
The Laborers’ International Union of North America said it is marshaling its members to lobby the Senate for the amendment, which it says would create 655,000 additional jobs.
About Political Intelligence
Glen Johnson is Politics Editor at boston.com and lead blogger for "Political Intelligence." He moved to Massachusetts in the fourth grade, and has covered local, state, and national politics for over 25 years. E-mail him at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen. |
