test
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Monday, June 24, 2013
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Former CIA bin Laden chief, Michael Scheuer writes that Obama could distract from scandals with unnecessary war in Syria
In an all out, pull no punches article on the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity (RPI) website Tuesday, former CIA bin Laden chief and author of several books including Imperial Hubris, Dr. Michael Scheuer looks into the current mess of the Obama administration and the potential to cause a distraction that would be an effort to save his skin.
The investigations into the trio of scandals, in time, could reveal either gross incompetence in the White House or possible criminal actions. Because of this, Scheuer writes that sending American troops into Syria could “distract Americans from his administration’s rampant felonies”.
Scheuer writes, “what better way to quiet the hounds of just retribution than by consigning U.S. soldiers and Marines to death in a useless intervention in Syria, a place where no genuine U.S. national interest is at stake.”
In his prediction he goes on to say, “Odds are that we are going to see the same old story: Obama will intervene militarily in Syria, get Americans worried about the safety of their soldier-children, stoke their patriotism and fierce support for the troops, and – voila – the Obama-butt-kissing media will refocus the victims of the Obama-ites’ domestic felonies on an unnecessary war in the Levant.”
And it’s just not just “ the Obama-butt-kissing media”, but also the Democrats and Republicans, Scheuer notes.
“With Democrats ever ready to leave Americans to fend for themselves, Obama’s diversionary campaign – obscure impeachable offenses by launching an unnecessary war – will be abetted by Senators McCain, Graham, Lieberman, and dozens of other U.S. Senators and Congressman intent on war with Syria.”
Scheuer also calls out the radio talking heads that would line up in support of US military in Syria like every other military intervention–Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin et al. and take up arms if they believe in the cause that much.
I remember writing something similar about 3.5 years ago on the blog, Desk of Brian. When a guy named Tim Graney challenged Dr. Paul for the House seat in the primaries and called Paul’s constitutional view of foreign policy, “His Weak, Stick-Your-Head-In-The-Sand Foreign Policy”.
I called out Graney, Hannity and the rest for not donning a uniform and fighting in these wars they love to promote so much.
Let’s hope and pray that Mr. Scheurer’s predictions don’t come to fruition and Mr. Obama doesn’t get us involved in any shenanigans in Syria.
Scheuer’s article was published on RPI the same day that the Menendez-Corker bill passed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with a wide margin.
The investigations into the trio of scandals, in time, could reveal either gross incompetence in the White House or possible criminal actions. Because of this, Scheuer writes that sending American troops into Syria could “distract Americans from his administration’s rampant felonies”.
Scheuer writes, “what better way to quiet the hounds of just retribution than by consigning U.S. soldiers and Marines to death in a useless intervention in Syria, a place where no genuine U.S. national interest is at stake.”
In his prediction he goes on to say, “Odds are that we are going to see the same old story: Obama will intervene militarily in Syria, get Americans worried about the safety of their soldier-children, stoke their patriotism and fierce support for the troops, and – voila – the Obama-butt-kissing media will refocus the victims of the Obama-ites’ domestic felonies on an unnecessary war in the Levant.”
And it’s just not just “ the Obama-butt-kissing media”, but also the Democrats and Republicans, Scheuer notes.
“With Democrats ever ready to leave Americans to fend for themselves, Obama’s diversionary campaign – obscure impeachable offenses by launching an unnecessary war – will be abetted by Senators McCain, Graham, Lieberman, and dozens of other U.S. Senators and Congressman intent on war with Syria.”
Scheuer also calls out the radio talking heads that would line up in support of US military in Syria like every other military intervention–Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin et al. and take up arms if they believe in the cause that much.
I remember writing something similar about 3.5 years ago on the blog, Desk of Brian. When a guy named Tim Graney challenged Dr. Paul for the House seat in the primaries and called Paul’s constitutional view of foreign policy, “His Weak, Stick-Your-Head-In-The-Sand Foreign Policy”.
I called out Graney, Hannity and the rest for not donning a uniform and fighting in these wars they love to promote so much.
Let’s hope and pray that Mr. Scheurer’s predictions don’t come to fruition and Mr. Obama doesn’t get us involved in any shenanigans in Syria.
Scheuer’s article was published on RPI the same day that the Menendez-Corker bill passed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with a wide margin.
Monday, May 13, 2013
Tories force David Cameron to enshrine EU vote in law
DAVID Cameron has bowed to pressure from Tory rebels by guaranteeing in law his promise to hold a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU.
In an effort to draw a line under the party's turmoil, the Conservatives will today publish a Bill ensuring an in-out vote before the end of 2017.
The Prime Minister's change of heart came 48 hours before more than 100 Conservative MPs and ministerial aides were due to vote against the Queen's Speech because it lacked such a measure. Mr Cameron's surprise move, announced while he was in the US, took senior Lib Dems by surprise and will lead to a stand-off at the top of the coalition.
Nick Clegg's office said that the Deputy Prime Minister would refuse to allow government time for the Bill, which makes it almost impossible for the measure to pass into law even if it could command a Commons majority.
But the move is as much about setting up electoral dividing lines with Labour and the Lib Dems and trying to restore order to restive Conservative ranks.
US President Barack Obama came to Mr Cameron's aid yesterday, warning mutinous Tories against a hasty exit from the EU. As the Prime Minister struggled with another day of internal rows over Europe, Mr Obama gave an unequivocal endorsement of Mr Cameron's "negotiate now, vote later" European strategy.
He warned that the special relationship would suffer if Britain cut its ties with Brussels. Britain's EU membership was "an expression of its influence", he said. But, in a change of emphasis from the White House, he acknowledged that Mr Cameron was within his rights to try to fix Britain's relationship with the EU.
"David's basic point, that you probably want to see if you can fix what's broken in a very important relationship before you break it off, makes some sense to me," Mr Obama said.
The President's endorsement, delivered alongside the Prime Minister at a White House press conference, put a spring in the step of Mr Cameron's entourage but is unlikely to cut much ice with Eurosceptic Tories.
In Westminster, cabinet ministers remained quiet after Mr Cameron chided Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, and Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, for saying they would vote to leave the EU if a referendum were held today. He also accused the likes of Lord Lawson of Blaby, who began the latest debate last week with his call in The Times for Britain to quit the EU, and Michael Portillo, who argued that any negotiation would get nowhere, of "throwing in the towel".
But Tories from either end of the party's spectrum on Europe were at loggerheads. Lord Forsyth of Drumlean became the latest former cabinet minister to write off Mr Cameron's EU strategy, saying that the task the Prime Minister had set himself was impossible and that he had no hope of persuading Brussels to reform.
"To use an analogy, I think David Cameron is thinking he can persuade the golf club to play tennis," the peer told the BBC.
The amendment, and the Tory Bill, would write into law Mr Cameron's commitment to an in-out EU referendum in 2017, on new terms that he plans to negotiate.
Mr Obama's carefully delivered riposte represented a major and rare intervention by a US President into British domestic politics.
He urged voters to wait and see the new relationship Mr Cameron could deliver. "I, at least, would be interested in seeing whether or not those are successful before rendering a final judgment," he said.
The White House had previously been opposed to any move towards a British exit, a move that it believes would make its dealings with Europe more difficult.
Another Tory row was brewing as some MPs expressed interest in standing as "Tory-UKIP" candidates in the 2015 general election.
Peter Bone and Philip Hollobone backed the idea of local arrangements, which allowed Conservative candidates to seek the endorsement of Nigel Farage.
Conservative high command is resisting the idea but Mr Bone said that harnessing the Tory and UKIP vote to one candidate would deliver Mr Cameron an overall majority.
"There's clearly a holy grail there if we can get the Prime Minister to give a bit," he said.
In an effort to draw a line under the party's turmoil, the Conservatives will today publish a Bill ensuring an in-out vote before the end of 2017.
The Prime Minister's change of heart came 48 hours before more than 100 Conservative MPs and ministerial aides were due to vote against the Queen's Speech because it lacked such a measure. Mr Cameron's surprise move, announced while he was in the US, took senior Lib Dems by surprise and will lead to a stand-off at the top of the coalition.
Nick Clegg's office said that the Deputy Prime Minister would refuse to allow government time for the Bill, which makes it almost impossible for the measure to pass into law even if it could command a Commons majority.
But the move is as much about setting up electoral dividing lines with Labour and the Lib Dems and trying to restore order to restive Conservative ranks.
US President Barack Obama came to Mr Cameron's aid yesterday, warning mutinous Tories against a hasty exit from the EU. As the Prime Minister struggled with another day of internal rows over Europe, Mr Obama gave an unequivocal endorsement of Mr Cameron's "negotiate now, vote later" European strategy.
He warned that the special relationship would suffer if Britain cut its ties with Brussels. Britain's EU membership was "an expression of its influence", he said. But, in a change of emphasis from the White House, he acknowledged that Mr Cameron was within his rights to try to fix Britain's relationship with the EU.
"David's basic point, that you probably want to see if you can fix what's broken in a very important relationship before you break it off, makes some sense to me," Mr Obama said.
The President's endorsement, delivered alongside the Prime Minister at a White House press conference, put a spring in the step of Mr Cameron's entourage but is unlikely to cut much ice with Eurosceptic Tories.
In Westminster, cabinet ministers remained quiet after Mr Cameron chided Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, and Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, for saying they would vote to leave the EU if a referendum were held today. He also accused the likes of Lord Lawson of Blaby, who began the latest debate last week with his call in The Times for Britain to quit the EU, and Michael Portillo, who argued that any negotiation would get nowhere, of "throwing in the towel".
But Tories from either end of the party's spectrum on Europe were at loggerheads. Lord Forsyth of Drumlean became the latest former cabinet minister to write off Mr Cameron's EU strategy, saying that the task the Prime Minister had set himself was impossible and that he had no hope of persuading Brussels to reform.
"To use an analogy, I think David Cameron is thinking he can persuade the golf club to play tennis," the peer told the BBC.
The amendment, and the Tory Bill, would write into law Mr Cameron's commitment to an in-out EU referendum in 2017, on new terms that he plans to negotiate.
Mr Obama's carefully delivered riposte represented a major and rare intervention by a US President into British domestic politics.
He urged voters to wait and see the new relationship Mr Cameron could deliver. "I, at least, would be interested in seeing whether or not those are successful before rendering a final judgment," he said.
The White House had previously been opposed to any move towards a British exit, a move that it believes would make its dealings with Europe more difficult.
Another Tory row was brewing as some MPs expressed interest in standing as "Tory-UKIP" candidates in the 2015 general election.
Peter Bone and Philip Hollobone backed the idea of local arrangements, which allowed Conservative candidates to seek the endorsement of Nigel Farage.
Conservative high command is resisting the idea but Mr Bone said that harnessing the Tory and UKIP vote to one candidate would deliver Mr Cameron an overall majority.
"There's clearly a holy grail there if we can get the Prime Minister to give a bit," he said.
Monday, April 29, 2013
Israel Sees U.S. Response to Syria as Gauge on Iran
As President Obama wrestles with how to respond to new assessments that Syria appears to have used chemical weapons, leaders in Israel say they will be watching for clues about how he might handle the Iranian nuclear issue in the future.
In Syria’s case, Mr. Obama has said that the use of chemical weapons would “change my calculus,” but he has not said how. Even while Israel appeared to be egging on Mr. Obama toward taking action, with officials here saying Tuesday that it appeared sarin gas had been used by the Syrian government, those officials also conceded that none of the military options were good.
“If you bomb the sites, you could cause exactly the catastrophe you are trying to prevent,” said an Israeli military officer who has spent considerable time studying the options. “If you just go in to secure the weapons, you can get stuck” in the middle of a civil war, he added, with American troops and their allies suddenly targets, and no easy way out.
But to the Israelis, how Mr. Obama navigates the next few weeks will be viewed as a gauge for what he might do later regarding the potentially bigger confrontation in the region.
“There is a question here: when a red line is set, can we stick by it?” Zeev Elkin, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, said Friday in a radio interview. “If the Iranians will see that the red lines laid by the international community are flexible, then will they continue to progress?”
Mr. Obama, during his visit to Israel and Jordan last month, repeated that Iran would not obtain a nuclear weapon on his watch. Yet judging when it would be too late to stop Iran is an even greater intelligence challenge than determining whether chemical weapons were used in Syria near Aleppo and Damascus.
“In the case of chemical weapons, you have forensic evidence,” one former aide to Mr. Obama noted recently. “Ground samples. Tissue samples. In the Iranian nuclear program, unless they conduct a test, you are never likely to have that kind of certainty. It’s more art than science.”
Mr. Obama’s polices in the Arab uprisings have been specific to each country, making it hard to draw lessons of how action in one would predict action in the next. He pressed former President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt to step down, and led an international bombing campaign to stop Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s attacks on rebels in Libya. But he effectively supported the king of Bahrain through the uprising in that tiny nation, which is host to the largest American Navy base in the region.
White House officials clearly understand the stakes in Mr. Obama’s decision on Syria. On the one hand, they say, he is deeply mindful of the mistakes made exactly a decade ago in Iraq; for that reason, they say, he is insisting on what the White House called on Thursday “credible and corroborated facts.”
On the other hand, if the president waits for courtroom levels of proof, what has been a few dozen deaths from chemical weapons — in a war that has claimed more than 70,000 lives — could multiply. Israeli officials, in interviews, made clear that they see the limited use of sarin so far as a test by President Bashar al-Assad — and fear that a lack of international reaction would tempt him to deploy chemicals more broadly.
“If you ask me why they used it, I would say it was just to test the world,” an Israeli military official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of army rules. “If somebody would take any reaction, maybe it would deter them from using it again.”
Amos Harel, the defense correspondent for the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz, said in a column Friday that this week’s wrestling over chemical weapons might have been as much about Iran as it was Syria. He noted that a speech Tuesday by Brig. Gen. Itai Brun, Israel’s top military intelligence analyst, asserting that sarin had been used was followed by one in which Amos Yadlin, the former chief of military intelligence in Israel, declared that Iran was at or about to cross the red line set by Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
“It’s possible that mention of chemical weapons was also intended as a wake-up call to the U.S.,” Mr. Harel wrote. “Israel may have expected that the Americans would stick to their guns in the Syrian case, as well, as a way of sending a regional signal that would also be understood in Tehran.”
Iran, too, may well be watching Mr. Obama’s decision-making on Syria closely. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has huge stakes in the survival of Mr. Assad, his only real ally in the region. And United States intelligence analysts believe that Iran’s leaders have interpreted two decades of American drift on the North — during which Mr. Obama’s three immediate predecessors all said they would never tolerate the country’s obtaining nuclear arms — as a sign that Washington will not wage war to stop even a rogue nation from obtaining nuclear arms, or the ability to build them.
If the United States intervened in Syria to secure its chemical stockpiles — perhaps organizing the Arab League, the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council or NATO to share the job — Israeli officials say it would be a signal that Mr. Obama would most likely back up his warnings to Iran the same way. But the prospect of such a move also worries many in Jerusalem: one senior official said he feared that an intervention in Syria could also obfuscate “the problem of greater concern” for Israel, stopping Iran’s nuclear program.
All this is a reminder that red lines are never quite as clear as they sound at first. But failing to set limits has its own risks, as one of Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud Party allies in Israel’s Parliament, Tzahi Hanegbi, said in an interview Friday with Israel Radio.
“There is also a problem in not setting red lines,” Mr. Hanegbi said. “Because then you admit from the outset that there is no line whose crossing is considered grounds for taking action.”
Still, Mr. Hanegbi said, Israel was not trying to force Mr. Obama’s hand. “I think that we have no interest in the world getting sucked into the fighting in Syria.”
In Syria’s case, Mr. Obama has said that the use of chemical weapons would “change my calculus,” but he has not said how. Even while Israel appeared to be egging on Mr. Obama toward taking action, with officials here saying Tuesday that it appeared sarin gas had been used by the Syrian government, those officials also conceded that none of the military options were good.
“If you bomb the sites, you could cause exactly the catastrophe you are trying to prevent,” said an Israeli military officer who has spent considerable time studying the options. “If you just go in to secure the weapons, you can get stuck” in the middle of a civil war, he added, with American troops and their allies suddenly targets, and no easy way out.
But to the Israelis, how Mr. Obama navigates the next few weeks will be viewed as a gauge for what he might do later regarding the potentially bigger confrontation in the region.
“There is a question here: when a red line is set, can we stick by it?” Zeev Elkin, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, said Friday in a radio interview. “If the Iranians will see that the red lines laid by the international community are flexible, then will they continue to progress?”
Mr. Obama, during his visit to Israel and Jordan last month, repeated that Iran would not obtain a nuclear weapon on his watch. Yet judging when it would be too late to stop Iran is an even greater intelligence challenge than determining whether chemical weapons were used in Syria near Aleppo and Damascus.
“In the case of chemical weapons, you have forensic evidence,” one former aide to Mr. Obama noted recently. “Ground samples. Tissue samples. In the Iranian nuclear program, unless they conduct a test, you are never likely to have that kind of certainty. It’s more art than science.”
Mr. Obama’s polices in the Arab uprisings have been specific to each country, making it hard to draw lessons of how action in one would predict action in the next. He pressed former President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt to step down, and led an international bombing campaign to stop Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s attacks on rebels in Libya. But he effectively supported the king of Bahrain through the uprising in that tiny nation, which is host to the largest American Navy base in the region.
White House officials clearly understand the stakes in Mr. Obama’s decision on Syria. On the one hand, they say, he is deeply mindful of the mistakes made exactly a decade ago in Iraq; for that reason, they say, he is insisting on what the White House called on Thursday “credible and corroborated facts.”
On the other hand, if the president waits for courtroom levels of proof, what has been a few dozen deaths from chemical weapons — in a war that has claimed more than 70,000 lives — could multiply. Israeli officials, in interviews, made clear that they see the limited use of sarin so far as a test by President Bashar al-Assad — and fear that a lack of international reaction would tempt him to deploy chemicals more broadly.
“If you ask me why they used it, I would say it was just to test the world,” an Israeli military official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of army rules. “If somebody would take any reaction, maybe it would deter them from using it again.”
Amos Harel, the defense correspondent for the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz, said in a column Friday that this week’s wrestling over chemical weapons might have been as much about Iran as it was Syria. He noted that a speech Tuesday by Brig. Gen. Itai Brun, Israel’s top military intelligence analyst, asserting that sarin had been used was followed by one in which Amos Yadlin, the former chief of military intelligence in Israel, declared that Iran was at or about to cross the red line set by Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
“It’s possible that mention of chemical weapons was also intended as a wake-up call to the U.S.,” Mr. Harel wrote. “Israel may have expected that the Americans would stick to their guns in the Syrian case, as well, as a way of sending a regional signal that would also be understood in Tehran.”
Iran, too, may well be watching Mr. Obama’s decision-making on Syria closely. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has huge stakes in the survival of Mr. Assad, his only real ally in the region. And United States intelligence analysts believe that Iran’s leaders have interpreted two decades of American drift on the North — during which Mr. Obama’s three immediate predecessors all said they would never tolerate the country’s obtaining nuclear arms — as a sign that Washington will not wage war to stop even a rogue nation from obtaining nuclear arms, or the ability to build them.
If the United States intervened in Syria to secure its chemical stockpiles — perhaps organizing the Arab League, the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council or NATO to share the job — Israeli officials say it would be a signal that Mr. Obama would most likely back up his warnings to Iran the same way. But the prospect of such a move also worries many in Jerusalem: one senior official said he feared that an intervention in Syria could also obfuscate “the problem of greater concern” for Israel, stopping Iran’s nuclear program.
All this is a reminder that red lines are never quite as clear as they sound at first. But failing to set limits has its own risks, as one of Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud Party allies in Israel’s Parliament, Tzahi Hanegbi, said in an interview Friday with Israel Radio.
“There is also a problem in not setting red lines,” Mr. Hanegbi said. “Because then you admit from the outset that there is no line whose crossing is considered grounds for taking action.”
Still, Mr. Hanegbi said, Israel was not trying to force Mr. Obama’s hand. “I think that we have no interest in the world getting sucked into the fighting in Syria.”
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
President Obama to return $20,000 of salary to Treasury
Sharing a bit of budget pain, President Barack Obama will return 5% of his salary to the Treasury in a show of solidarity with federal workers smarting from government-wide spending cuts.
Obama's decision grew out of a desire to share in the sacrifice that government employees are making, a White House official said Wednesday. Hundreds of thousands of workers could be forced to take unpaid leave — known as furloughs — if Congress does not reach an agreement soon to undo the cuts.
The president is demonstrating that he will be paying a price, too, as the White House warns of dire economic consequences from the $85 billion in cuts — called a sequester — that started to hit federal programs last month after Congress failed to stop them. In the weeks since, the administration has faced repeated questions about how the White House itself will be affected. The cancellation of White House tours in particular has drawn mixed reactions.
A 5% cut from the president's salary of $400,000 per year amounts to $20,000.
Obama will return a full $20,000 to the Treasury even though only a few months remain in the fiscal year, which ends in September. He will cut his first check this month, said the White House official, who was not authorized to discuss the decision publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The president and first lady Michelle Obama reported almost $790,000 in adjusted gross income in 2011, the most recent year for which their tax returns have been made public. That figure was down from the $1.7 million they brought in the year before and the $5.5 million they reported in 2009. About half of the family's income in 2011 came from Obama's salary, with the rest coming from book sales. The Obamas reported more than $172,000 in charitable donations.
“The salary for the president, as with members of Congress, is set by law and cannot be changed,” Obama spokesman Jay Carney said late Wednesday. “However, the president has decided that to share in the sacrifice being made by public servants across the federal government that are affected by the sequester, he will contribute a portion of his salary back to the Treasury.”
Wednesday's notice followed a similar move a day earlier by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who committed to taking a salary cut equal to 14 days' pay — the same level of cut that other Defense Department civilians are being forced to take. As many as 700,000 civilians will have to take one unpaid day off each week for up to 14 weeks in the coming months.
Obama isn't the first president to give up part of his paycheck. Herbert Hoover put his salary in a separate account, then divvied it up, giving part to charity and part to employees he felt were underpaid, according to an interview he gave in 1937. John F. Kennedy donated his presidential salary to various charities, according to Stacey Chandler, an archivist at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.
George Washington refused pay during the latter part of his military career, according to researchers at Mount Vernon. He tried to refuse a presidential salary, but Congress required that the position pay $25,000.
Among lawmakers, Sen. Mark Begich, an Alaska Democrat, said Wednesday that he, too, would return part of his income to the Treasury, although he did not specify how much of his $174,000 salary he would give up. Begich said his office started furloughing staffers in mid-March and more than half of his staff will have their pay cut this year.
“This won't solve our spending problem on its own, but I hope it is a reminder to Alaskans that I am willing to make the tough cuts, wherever they may be, to get our spending under control,” Begich said.
A number of lawmakers have from time to time taken steps to show they're not immune as the federal government looks to tighten its belt. An aide to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said McConnell returns a substantial part of his salary to the Treasury every year. The Senate this month adopted by voice vote a symbolic amendment permitting — but not requiring — senators to give 20% of their salaries to the Treasury as part of the Democrats' budget resolution. Also in March, as the spending cuts started bearing down, the GOP-controlled House imposed an 8.2% reduction on lawmakers' personal office budgets.
The White House, after declining for weeks to provide specifics for how the president's own staff had been affected, said Monday that 480 workers on the budget staff had been notified they may have to take days off without pay.
Carney wouldn't say whether notices have gone out to Obama aides outside the Office of Management and Budget, including senior staff in the West Wing. But he said pay cuts remained a possibility for additional White House employees if a budget deal to undo the cuts isn't reached.
“Everybody at the White House and the broader (executive office) is dealing with the consequences — both, in many cases, in their own personal lives, but in how we work here at the White House,” Carney said. He added that the White House also has been trying to cut costs by slowing down hiring, scaling back supply purchases, curtailing staff travel, reducing the use of air cards for mobile Internet access and reviewing contracts to look for savings.
Like lawmakers' pay, Obama's salary is set by law, so he must accept the funds and then write a check to the Treasury each month for the portion he plans to relinquish. Obama's decision, first reported by The New York Times, won't affect the other perquisites afforded the president, from a mansion staffed with servants to the limousines, helicopters and Boeing 747 jumbo jet at every U.S. president's beck and call. The White House did not say whether Vice President Joe Biden would make a similar gesture.
The 5 percent that Obama will hand back mirrors the 5% cut that domestic agencies took when the reductions went into effect. The Pentagon's budget took an 8% hit. Every federal agency is grappling with spending cuts, which the White House has warned could affect everything from commercial airline flights to classrooms and meat inspections.
The cuts were written into a 2011 deficit-reduction measure as a trigger to force future action. The idea was that lawmakers, eager to avert the consequences of bluntly slashing $1 trillion over a decade, would have no choice but to come together to find smarter ways to reduce federal spending.
But the two parties were at odds over whether more tax revenues were needed as part of the solution, and an intense campaign by Obama and his Cabinet to illustrate how the cuts could affect critical programs failed to spur an agreement by the March 1 deadline. As the cuts started taking effect, lawmakers turned to other issues, including an increase in the national debt ceiling, and there are no signs that a deal to undo the cuts retroactively will come anytime soon.
Obama's decision grew out of a desire to share in the sacrifice that government employees are making, a White House official said Wednesday. Hundreds of thousands of workers could be forced to take unpaid leave — known as furloughs — if Congress does not reach an agreement soon to undo the cuts.
The president is demonstrating that he will be paying a price, too, as the White House warns of dire economic consequences from the $85 billion in cuts — called a sequester — that started to hit federal programs last month after Congress failed to stop them. In the weeks since, the administration has faced repeated questions about how the White House itself will be affected. The cancellation of White House tours in particular has drawn mixed reactions.
A 5% cut from the president's salary of $400,000 per year amounts to $20,000.
Obama will return a full $20,000 to the Treasury even though only a few months remain in the fiscal year, which ends in September. He will cut his first check this month, said the White House official, who was not authorized to discuss the decision publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The president and first lady Michelle Obama reported almost $790,000 in adjusted gross income in 2011, the most recent year for which their tax returns have been made public. That figure was down from the $1.7 million they brought in the year before and the $5.5 million they reported in 2009. About half of the family's income in 2011 came from Obama's salary, with the rest coming from book sales. The Obamas reported more than $172,000 in charitable donations.
“The salary for the president, as with members of Congress, is set by law and cannot be changed,” Obama spokesman Jay Carney said late Wednesday. “However, the president has decided that to share in the sacrifice being made by public servants across the federal government that are affected by the sequester, he will contribute a portion of his salary back to the Treasury.”
Wednesday's notice followed a similar move a day earlier by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who committed to taking a salary cut equal to 14 days' pay — the same level of cut that other Defense Department civilians are being forced to take. As many as 700,000 civilians will have to take one unpaid day off each week for up to 14 weeks in the coming months.
Obama isn't the first president to give up part of his paycheck. Herbert Hoover put his salary in a separate account, then divvied it up, giving part to charity and part to employees he felt were underpaid, according to an interview he gave in 1937. John F. Kennedy donated his presidential salary to various charities, according to Stacey Chandler, an archivist at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.
George Washington refused pay during the latter part of his military career, according to researchers at Mount Vernon. He tried to refuse a presidential salary, but Congress required that the position pay $25,000.
Among lawmakers, Sen. Mark Begich, an Alaska Democrat, said Wednesday that he, too, would return part of his income to the Treasury, although he did not specify how much of his $174,000 salary he would give up. Begich said his office started furloughing staffers in mid-March and more than half of his staff will have their pay cut this year.
“This won't solve our spending problem on its own, but I hope it is a reminder to Alaskans that I am willing to make the tough cuts, wherever they may be, to get our spending under control,” Begich said.
A number of lawmakers have from time to time taken steps to show they're not immune as the federal government looks to tighten its belt. An aide to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said McConnell returns a substantial part of his salary to the Treasury every year. The Senate this month adopted by voice vote a symbolic amendment permitting — but not requiring — senators to give 20% of their salaries to the Treasury as part of the Democrats' budget resolution. Also in March, as the spending cuts started bearing down, the GOP-controlled House imposed an 8.2% reduction on lawmakers' personal office budgets.
The White House, after declining for weeks to provide specifics for how the president's own staff had been affected, said Monday that 480 workers on the budget staff had been notified they may have to take days off without pay.
Carney wouldn't say whether notices have gone out to Obama aides outside the Office of Management and Budget, including senior staff in the West Wing. But he said pay cuts remained a possibility for additional White House employees if a budget deal to undo the cuts isn't reached.
“Everybody at the White House and the broader (executive office) is dealing with the consequences — both, in many cases, in their own personal lives, but in how we work here at the White House,” Carney said. He added that the White House also has been trying to cut costs by slowing down hiring, scaling back supply purchases, curtailing staff travel, reducing the use of air cards for mobile Internet access and reviewing contracts to look for savings.
Like lawmakers' pay, Obama's salary is set by law, so he must accept the funds and then write a check to the Treasury each month for the portion he plans to relinquish. Obama's decision, first reported by The New York Times, won't affect the other perquisites afforded the president, from a mansion staffed with servants to the limousines, helicopters and Boeing 747 jumbo jet at every U.S. president's beck and call. The White House did not say whether Vice President Joe Biden would make a similar gesture.
The 5 percent that Obama will hand back mirrors the 5% cut that domestic agencies took when the reductions went into effect. The Pentagon's budget took an 8% hit. Every federal agency is grappling with spending cuts, which the White House has warned could affect everything from commercial airline flights to classrooms and meat inspections.
The cuts were written into a 2011 deficit-reduction measure as a trigger to force future action. The idea was that lawmakers, eager to avert the consequences of bluntly slashing $1 trillion over a decade, would have no choice but to come together to find smarter ways to reduce federal spending.
But the two parties were at odds over whether more tax revenues were needed as part of the solution, and an intense campaign by Obama and his Cabinet to illustrate how the cuts could affect critical programs failed to spur an agreement by the March 1 deadline. As the cuts started taking effect, lawmakers turned to other issues, including an increase in the national debt ceiling, and there are no signs that a deal to undo the cuts retroactively will come anytime soon.
Monday, March 18, 2013
Obama to Nominate Justice Aide for Labor Post
President Obama plans to announce Monday that he will nominate Thomas E. Perez, who heads the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department, to be the next secretary of labor, a choice that promises to provoke a debate with Republicans about voting rights and discrimination.
Mr. Perez would replace Hilda L. Solis, who stepped down in January after four years running the Labor Department. Word of his possible selection has been circulating in Washington for days, and a White House official informed reporters that the president would make it official on Monday.
The announcement comes just days after a Justice Department inspector general’s report found that the voting rights section has been torn by “deep ideological polarization” with liberal and conservative factions in sharp conflict. The divisions date back to the George W. Bush administration, and most occurred before Mr. Perez was confirmed in October 2009. He portrayed the report as largely clearing the section on his watch.
But the report also raised questions about testimony he gave, and Republicans made clear that they would take issue with his handling of some cases over the last three and a half years. His critics question, for example, whether he acted inappropriately in persuading the City of St. Paul to drop a lawsuit seeking to limit fair housing claims when there is no intentional bias.
Liberals and labor leaders have hailed Mr. Perez, calling him a strong champion for workers and those who have faced discrimination. While at the Justice Department, he has pursued a record number of discrimination or brutality claims against local police and sheriff’s departments, including that of Joe Arpaio, the outspoken sheriff in Maricopa County, Ariz., who was accused of “a pattern of unlawful discrimination” against Latinos.
Mr. Perez also challenged voter identification requirements imposed by South Carolina and Texas, and his division reached the three largest residential fair lending settlements in the history of the Fair Housing Act. Under him, the voting section participated in the most new litigation in the last fiscal year than in any previous year.
Mr. Perez, 51, who would be the only Hispanic in the cabinet if confirmed, is the son of immigrants from the Dominican Republic. His father died when he was 12, but his family pressed the value of education so much that all four of his siblings became doctors. Mr. Perez graduated from Brown University and Harvard Law School.
He has spent a career fighting discrimination cases as a federal prosecutor, then, under President Bill Clinton, as deputy chief of the civil rights division that he now heads, and finally as head of civil rights enforcement at the Health and Human Services Department. He also served as an elected council member in Montgomery County, Md., and as the state’s secretary of labor, licensing and regulation.
The timing of the inspector general’s report on the voting section seems to ensure that it will come up during Mr. Perez’s confirmation hearings. The report found a toxic environment in which conservatives and liberals fought and maligned one another through the Bush administration and into the Obama administration.
The examples it cited generally preceded Mr. Perez, and he wrote the inspector general that he had made a point of correcting the situation. “Since 2009, the Civil Rights Division and the Voting Section have undertaken a number of steps to improve the professionalism of our workplace and to ensure that we enforce the civil rights laws in an independent, evenhanded fashion,” Mr. Perez wrote.
The inspector general, however, raised questions regarding Mr. Perez’s testimony about a case that preceded his time. Mr. Perez told the Civil Rights Commission in 2010 that no senior department officials were involved in a 2009 decision not to pursue further a case of voter intimidation involving the New Black Panthers. But the report noted that in fact senior officials did participate in discussions about the case, although the final decision was made by career lawyers as Mr. Perez had testified.
Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said the report showed that Mr. Perez was “woefully unprepared to answer questions” about a matter that he expected to be asked about. “This is troubling as it suggests a failure to also prepare for hearings before Congress, including the Senate Judiciary Committee, when questioned on this same topic,” he said in a statement.
Moreover, Mr. Grassley said the report made clear that Mr. Perez had not done as much as he had said to end harassment of conservatives in the voting rights section. “The reports shows that despite claims that it’s a new era in the Civil Rights Division, they are sadly mistaken, and it’s business as usual,” Mr. Grassley said.
While conservatives have called him a radical, Mr. Perez has not backed off his aggressive approach, even as his name was up for consideration for the Labor Department job. Just last Thursday, he announced an investigation into excessive force complaints against the Cleveland Police Department.
Mr. Perez would replace Hilda L. Solis, who stepped down in January after four years running the Labor Department. Word of his possible selection has been circulating in Washington for days, and a White House official informed reporters that the president would make it official on Monday.
The announcement comes just days after a Justice Department inspector general’s report found that the voting rights section has been torn by “deep ideological polarization” with liberal and conservative factions in sharp conflict. The divisions date back to the George W. Bush administration, and most occurred before Mr. Perez was confirmed in October 2009. He portrayed the report as largely clearing the section on his watch.
But the report also raised questions about testimony he gave, and Republicans made clear that they would take issue with his handling of some cases over the last three and a half years. His critics question, for example, whether he acted inappropriately in persuading the City of St. Paul to drop a lawsuit seeking to limit fair housing claims when there is no intentional bias.
Liberals and labor leaders have hailed Mr. Perez, calling him a strong champion for workers and those who have faced discrimination. While at the Justice Department, he has pursued a record number of discrimination or brutality claims against local police and sheriff’s departments, including that of Joe Arpaio, the outspoken sheriff in Maricopa County, Ariz., who was accused of “a pattern of unlawful discrimination” against Latinos.
Mr. Perez also challenged voter identification requirements imposed by South Carolina and Texas, and his division reached the three largest residential fair lending settlements in the history of the Fair Housing Act. Under him, the voting section participated in the most new litigation in the last fiscal year than in any previous year.
Mr. Perez, 51, who would be the only Hispanic in the cabinet if confirmed, is the son of immigrants from the Dominican Republic. His father died when he was 12, but his family pressed the value of education so much that all four of his siblings became doctors. Mr. Perez graduated from Brown University and Harvard Law School.
He has spent a career fighting discrimination cases as a federal prosecutor, then, under President Bill Clinton, as deputy chief of the civil rights division that he now heads, and finally as head of civil rights enforcement at the Health and Human Services Department. He also served as an elected council member in Montgomery County, Md., and as the state’s secretary of labor, licensing and regulation.
The timing of the inspector general’s report on the voting section seems to ensure that it will come up during Mr. Perez’s confirmation hearings. The report found a toxic environment in which conservatives and liberals fought and maligned one another through the Bush administration and into the Obama administration.
The examples it cited generally preceded Mr. Perez, and he wrote the inspector general that he had made a point of correcting the situation. “Since 2009, the Civil Rights Division and the Voting Section have undertaken a number of steps to improve the professionalism of our workplace and to ensure that we enforce the civil rights laws in an independent, evenhanded fashion,” Mr. Perez wrote.
The inspector general, however, raised questions regarding Mr. Perez’s testimony about a case that preceded his time. Mr. Perez told the Civil Rights Commission in 2010 that no senior department officials were involved in a 2009 decision not to pursue further a case of voter intimidation involving the New Black Panthers. But the report noted that in fact senior officials did participate in discussions about the case, although the final decision was made by career lawyers as Mr. Perez had testified.
Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said the report showed that Mr. Perez was “woefully unprepared to answer questions” about a matter that he expected to be asked about. “This is troubling as it suggests a failure to also prepare for hearings before Congress, including the Senate Judiciary Committee, when questioned on this same topic,” he said in a statement.
Moreover, Mr. Grassley said the report made clear that Mr. Perez had not done as much as he had said to end harassment of conservatives in the voting rights section. “The reports shows that despite claims that it’s a new era in the Civil Rights Division, they are sadly mistaken, and it’s business as usual,” Mr. Grassley said.
While conservatives have called him a radical, Mr. Perez has not backed off his aggressive approach, even as his name was up for consideration for the Labor Department job. Just last Thursday, he announced an investigation into excessive force complaints against the Cleveland Police Department.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Tasks From Obama’s Big Speech: Cutting Nukes, Bringing Home Troops
President Obama will focus on two major national-security tasks in his State of the Union speech tonight. He’ll be able to pull off one of them without opposition.
The easy one will be cutting the size of the U.S. troop commitment in Afghanistan by half. Much, much harder will be reducing the U.S. nuclear stockpile, especially if Obama wants to do so unilaterally.
Start with the hard one. Obama is expected to reiterate his first-term call for a nuclear-free world — a goal that looks farther away than ever with North Korea’s newest nuclear detonation. Last week, the Center for Public Integrity reported that the administration had reached consensus that the U.S. nuclear stockpile could be reduced by as much as a third, including short-range nukes, which are outside the scope of the most recent U.S.-Russia arms-control accord.
If Obama really intends to commit to this, he’ll have to spend a lot of political capital. His 2010 arms control deal with the Russians, which represented a more modest cut than this new reported plan, barely squeaked through the Senate in late 2010. Obama had to push ratification for the accord through a lame-duck Senate to avoid larger Republican opposition. At his acrimonious confirmation hearings to be defense secretary, Chuck Hagel, an advocate for cutting the nuclear stockpile, was made to swear up and down that he opposed unilateral nuclear reductions. Republicans are not going to let Hagel forget that at the Pentagon, and they’re in an excellent position to deny the White House a follow-up nuclear treaty with the Russians.
Obama is in a much stronger position to announce, as he reportedly will, that he’ll reduce U.S. troop strength in America’s longest war by 34,000 over the course of 2013. Even if Congress wanted to stop the drawdown, it has no viable mechanism for doing so. As it happens, it doesn’t: sometime last year, the last bulwark of Republican support for sustaining the war beyond 2014 collapsed. Americans want out of Afghanistan by margins of between 71 and 79 percent, according to a new Washington Post poll. The new general running Afghanistan, Joseph Dunford, knows his task is to pull most troops out by 2014 without chaos reigning.
Halving the troop presence in Afghanistan this year, when Afghan forces are supposed to begin taking control of the war, indicates a more cautious approach than a restless public might favor. But what Obama probably won’t say is that there’s an emerging plan, as reported by Rajiv Chandrasekaran of the Post, to keep 8,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan as a residual force. Apparently post-2014 Afghanistan won’t look like Korea: rather than keeping that force there indefinitely, the administration is considering cutting it to below 1,000 troops by 2017.
That’s the closest thing Obama has come to actually following through on his rhetoric of ending the Afghanistan war — although whether he’ll actually do it before his second term ends is a massively open question. Still, Obama has leverage to do it that he can only dream of having for his anti-nuclear agenda.
The easy one will be cutting the size of the U.S. troop commitment in Afghanistan by half. Much, much harder will be reducing the U.S. nuclear stockpile, especially if Obama wants to do so unilaterally.
Start with the hard one. Obama is expected to reiterate his first-term call for a nuclear-free world — a goal that looks farther away than ever with North Korea’s newest nuclear detonation. Last week, the Center for Public Integrity reported that the administration had reached consensus that the U.S. nuclear stockpile could be reduced by as much as a third, including short-range nukes, which are outside the scope of the most recent U.S.-Russia arms-control accord.
If Obama really intends to commit to this, he’ll have to spend a lot of political capital. His 2010 arms control deal with the Russians, which represented a more modest cut than this new reported plan, barely squeaked through the Senate in late 2010. Obama had to push ratification for the accord through a lame-duck Senate to avoid larger Republican opposition. At his acrimonious confirmation hearings to be defense secretary, Chuck Hagel, an advocate for cutting the nuclear stockpile, was made to swear up and down that he opposed unilateral nuclear reductions. Republicans are not going to let Hagel forget that at the Pentagon, and they’re in an excellent position to deny the White House a follow-up nuclear treaty with the Russians.
Obama is in a much stronger position to announce, as he reportedly will, that he’ll reduce U.S. troop strength in America’s longest war by 34,000 over the course of 2013. Even if Congress wanted to stop the drawdown, it has no viable mechanism for doing so. As it happens, it doesn’t: sometime last year, the last bulwark of Republican support for sustaining the war beyond 2014 collapsed. Americans want out of Afghanistan by margins of between 71 and 79 percent, according to a new Washington Post poll. The new general running Afghanistan, Joseph Dunford, knows his task is to pull most troops out by 2014 without chaos reigning.
Halving the troop presence in Afghanistan this year, when Afghan forces are supposed to begin taking control of the war, indicates a more cautious approach than a restless public might favor. But what Obama probably won’t say is that there’s an emerging plan, as reported by Rajiv Chandrasekaran of the Post, to keep 8,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan as a residual force. Apparently post-2014 Afghanistan won’t look like Korea: rather than keeping that force there indefinitely, the administration is considering cutting it to below 1,000 troops by 2017.
That’s the closest thing Obama has come to actually following through on his rhetoric of ending the Afghanistan war — although whether he’ll actually do it before his second term ends is a massively open question. Still, Obama has leverage to do it that he can only dream of having for his anti-nuclear agenda.
Monday, February 4, 2013
Obama's day: Selling the gun-control plan
It's a day of selling for President Obama, selling his plan to battle gun violence.
The president travels to Minneapolis to visit the city's Police Department Special Operations Center and discuss "his comprehensive set of common-sense ideas to reduce gun violence," the White House schedule says.
Obama's plan includes universal background checks for all gun buyers, a renewal of the assault weapons ban and restrictions on the capacity of ammunition magazines, along with new school safety and mental health programs.
Why Minneapolis?
"Minneapolis is a city that has taken important steps to reduce gun violence and foster a conversation in the community about what further action is needed," the White House says.
That includes a youth violence initiative that has seen some success. In addition, sheriffs in Minnesota have worked to improve the state's background check system on gun purchases.
"President Obama will visit with members of the community about their experiences and discuss additional steps that can be taken at the federal level to reduce gun violence," the schedule says.
The president travels to Minneapolis to visit the city's Police Department Special Operations Center and discuss "his comprehensive set of common-sense ideas to reduce gun violence," the White House schedule says.
Obama's plan includes universal background checks for all gun buyers, a renewal of the assault weapons ban and restrictions on the capacity of ammunition magazines, along with new school safety and mental health programs.
Why Minneapolis?
"Minneapolis is a city that has taken important steps to reduce gun violence and foster a conversation in the community about what further action is needed," the White House says.
That includes a youth violence initiative that has seen some success. In addition, sheriffs in Minnesota have worked to improve the state's background check system on gun purchases.
"President Obama will visit with members of the community about their experiences and discuss additional steps that can be taken at the federal level to reduce gun violence," the schedule says.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Obama Focuses on Status Quo, Not Left, in Battle With G.O.P.
For all the talk that President Obama has shifted leftward, much of his early second-term energy seeks simply to preserve the status quo.
Mr. Obama’s Inaugural Address last week celebrated the role of “collective action” in creating conditions for a modern economy, expanding individual opportunity and assisting the poor. He rejected Republican arguments that government benefits create “a nation of takers.”
That partisan gibe was telling. He defended two programs, Medicare and Medicaid, begun nearly a half-century ago, and a third, Social Security, that dates from the Great Depression. The federal welfare commitments that Mr. Obama praised in observing that “a great nation must care for the vulnerable” also date back to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s time.
Yet all those benefits are in the cross-fire of the president’s continuing fiscal battle with Republicans in Congress. That is not because of a shift in philosophy by Mr. Obama or his party, but rather because of the looming cost of the retirements of baby boomers and of the persistent ideological boldness of partisan foes.
Mr. Obama expanded the scope of federal obligations during his first term through short-term stimulus programs and the new health care law. Encouraged by his second popular-vote majority in November and hardened by his confrontations with Republicans over the past two years, he has taken a feistier stance toward his adversaries.
None of the president’s economic initiatives, however, represent a departure for Mr. Obama himself, or for his party. If President Bill Clinton set out to build a “bridge to the 21st century,” said Simon Rosenberg, the president and founder of the New Democrat Network, Mr. Obama is walking across it.
John D. Podesta, an Obama adviser who served as chief of staff in the Clinton White House, called the president’s second-term economic agenda “consistent with where he’s been, consistent with where Clinton was.”
Indeed, since World War II both parties have accepted a substantial measure of federal activism “as American as apple pie,” said Kenneth Baer, a former Obama budget aide.
Mr. Obama’s problem is that postwar America could afford more pie than a post-baby-boomer America will be able to. And in the era of the Tea Party, Republicans have proved increasingly willing to challenge once-settled assumptions about Washington’s role.
In another political moment, Mr. Obama’s attempt to preserve old governing assumptions might be labeled conservative. But Republicans, even after shifting tactics in the wake of a bracing November defeat, say he will have to fight nonstop to advance his agenda.
“His entire second term on fiscal issues is going to be essentially defensive,” said Representative Tom Cole, a veteran Republican from Oklahoma. “He’s trying to defend not just the New Deal legacy, but also Obamacare.”
Mr. Cole added, “The problem he has is, those programs can’t be defended in their current forms.”
But Republicans also have not made their case for the “structural reforms” that they say have been made urgent by trillion-dollar deficits. In fact, they have failed to do so repeatedly.
In the 1990s, Speaker Newt Gingrich’s attempt to rein in Medicare and Medicaid spending helped Mr. Clinton win a second term. President George W. Bush, after adding a prescription drug benefit to Medicare in 2003, could not persuade a Republican Congress to pass his plan for a partial privatization of Social Security.
In last year’s campaign, the Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, and his running mate, Representative Paul D. Ryan, backed a plan to overhaul Medicare through spending limits on each beneficiary. But their plan pushed such savings 10 years into the future, while they attacked Mr. Obama for having cut Medicare spending to help finance the health care law.
When it comes to Republicans pushing for structural changes in benefit programs, “the record there is not good,” said Peter Wehner, a former Bush White House aide. And the Republican argument will not soon get easier to make.
Mr. Obama acknowledges the need for some cuts in entitlement spending, but he campaigned successfully on higher taxes for affluent Americans as an alternative to the deep cuts that Republicans want. By refusing to negotiate this month over raising the nation’s borrowing limit, Mr. Obama forced Republican leaders to set that cudgel aside without accepting the spending cuts they previously insisted on.
To swing rank-and-file Republicans behind that capitulation, House leaders promised that Mr. Ryan’s new budget plan this spring would eliminate the budget deficit within 10 years. Doing so, however, will almost certainly require limiting Medicare spending much sooner than 10 years from now — a step that Mr. Wehner said “I’m not sure I’d recommend,” because it could bring more political pain.
Yet fiscal pressure on the White House will not let up even if Mr. Obama marshals public opinion against that budget. Absent a negotiated deal to reduce spending, Mr. Cole said, Republicans say they will let $1 trillion in 10-year across-the-board budget cuts take effect under the “sequestration” provision both parties agreed to in 2011. That would squeeze defense and domestic government functions alike.
A deal remains possible. In earlier, unsuccessful talks with Republicans, Mr. Obama embraced what Mr. Podesta calls “sensible reforms” to major entitlement programs, including reduced spending for affluent beneficiaries and more modest inflation adjustments.
Not even liberal advocates hold out much hope for new expansions in the government’s economic role, or crackdowns on the United States’ trading partners, or stimulus spending to reduce unemployment — notwithstanding Mr. Obama’s second-inaugural swagger.
Upon hearing Mr. Obama’s address, “I was troubled by the assumption that the economy’s in recovery, when for most Americans the recovery hasn’t started,” said Robert L. Borosage, a co-director of the liberal Campaign for America’s Future.
“He spoke to the progressive coalition,” Mr. Borosage added. But in some ways, he said, the speech “sounded like it came from the Clinton years.”
Mr. Obama’s Inaugural Address last week celebrated the role of “collective action” in creating conditions for a modern economy, expanding individual opportunity and assisting the poor. He rejected Republican arguments that government benefits create “a nation of takers.”
That partisan gibe was telling. He defended two programs, Medicare and Medicaid, begun nearly a half-century ago, and a third, Social Security, that dates from the Great Depression. The federal welfare commitments that Mr. Obama praised in observing that “a great nation must care for the vulnerable” also date back to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s time.
Yet all those benefits are in the cross-fire of the president’s continuing fiscal battle with Republicans in Congress. That is not because of a shift in philosophy by Mr. Obama or his party, but rather because of the looming cost of the retirements of baby boomers and of the persistent ideological boldness of partisan foes.
Mr. Obama expanded the scope of federal obligations during his first term through short-term stimulus programs and the new health care law. Encouraged by his second popular-vote majority in November and hardened by his confrontations with Republicans over the past two years, he has taken a feistier stance toward his adversaries.
None of the president’s economic initiatives, however, represent a departure for Mr. Obama himself, or for his party. If President Bill Clinton set out to build a “bridge to the 21st century,” said Simon Rosenberg, the president and founder of the New Democrat Network, Mr. Obama is walking across it.
John D. Podesta, an Obama adviser who served as chief of staff in the Clinton White House, called the president’s second-term economic agenda “consistent with where he’s been, consistent with where Clinton was.”
Indeed, since World War II both parties have accepted a substantial measure of federal activism “as American as apple pie,” said Kenneth Baer, a former Obama budget aide.
Mr. Obama’s problem is that postwar America could afford more pie than a post-baby-boomer America will be able to. And in the era of the Tea Party, Republicans have proved increasingly willing to challenge once-settled assumptions about Washington’s role.
In another political moment, Mr. Obama’s attempt to preserve old governing assumptions might be labeled conservative. But Republicans, even after shifting tactics in the wake of a bracing November defeat, say he will have to fight nonstop to advance his agenda.
“His entire second term on fiscal issues is going to be essentially defensive,” said Representative Tom Cole, a veteran Republican from Oklahoma. “He’s trying to defend not just the New Deal legacy, but also Obamacare.”
Mr. Cole added, “The problem he has is, those programs can’t be defended in their current forms.”
But Republicans also have not made their case for the “structural reforms” that they say have been made urgent by trillion-dollar deficits. In fact, they have failed to do so repeatedly.
In the 1990s, Speaker Newt Gingrich’s attempt to rein in Medicare and Medicaid spending helped Mr. Clinton win a second term. President George W. Bush, after adding a prescription drug benefit to Medicare in 2003, could not persuade a Republican Congress to pass his plan for a partial privatization of Social Security.
In last year’s campaign, the Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, and his running mate, Representative Paul D. Ryan, backed a plan to overhaul Medicare through spending limits on each beneficiary. But their plan pushed such savings 10 years into the future, while they attacked Mr. Obama for having cut Medicare spending to help finance the health care law.
When it comes to Republicans pushing for structural changes in benefit programs, “the record there is not good,” said Peter Wehner, a former Bush White House aide. And the Republican argument will not soon get easier to make.
Mr. Obama acknowledges the need for some cuts in entitlement spending, but he campaigned successfully on higher taxes for affluent Americans as an alternative to the deep cuts that Republicans want. By refusing to negotiate this month over raising the nation’s borrowing limit, Mr. Obama forced Republican leaders to set that cudgel aside without accepting the spending cuts they previously insisted on.
To swing rank-and-file Republicans behind that capitulation, House leaders promised that Mr. Ryan’s new budget plan this spring would eliminate the budget deficit within 10 years. Doing so, however, will almost certainly require limiting Medicare spending much sooner than 10 years from now — a step that Mr. Wehner said “I’m not sure I’d recommend,” because it could bring more political pain.
Yet fiscal pressure on the White House will not let up even if Mr. Obama marshals public opinion against that budget. Absent a negotiated deal to reduce spending, Mr. Cole said, Republicans say they will let $1 trillion in 10-year across-the-board budget cuts take effect under the “sequestration” provision both parties agreed to in 2011. That would squeeze defense and domestic government functions alike.
A deal remains possible. In earlier, unsuccessful talks with Republicans, Mr. Obama embraced what Mr. Podesta calls “sensible reforms” to major entitlement programs, including reduced spending for affluent beneficiaries and more modest inflation adjustments.
Not even liberal advocates hold out much hope for new expansions in the government’s economic role, or crackdowns on the United States’ trading partners, or stimulus spending to reduce unemployment — notwithstanding Mr. Obama’s second-inaugural swagger.
Upon hearing Mr. Obama’s address, “I was troubled by the assumption that the economy’s in recovery, when for most Americans the recovery hasn’t started,” said Robert L. Borosage, a co-director of the liberal Campaign for America’s Future.
“He spoke to the progressive coalition,” Mr. Borosage added. But in some ways, he said, the speech “sounded like it came from the Clinton years.”
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Obama expected to nominate chief of staff Lew for Treasury secretary
White House chief of staff Jack Lew is expected to be nominated to replace Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, likely by the end of this week, two sources close to the process told Fox News.
"It is all but a done deal," one of the sources said, adding that it would take something "extraordinary" to pop up in the next couple of days to derail that decision.
Geithner has said for well over a year that he would like to leave the administration and spend more time with his family after a grueling time playing key roles throughout the economic and fiscal unease of recent years. His tenure at the Treasury followed previous service as head of the New York branch of the Federal Reserve.
Lew has become an Obama favorite through several top posts because of his sharp knowledge of the federal budget and no-drama style.
Picking Lew is a sign the president knows his next Treasury secretary will be smack in the middle of a series of budget battles, starting with the debt ceiling fight that will be brewing during the expected confirmation process.
A red flag is that during the last debt ceiling fight, in the summer of 2011, Lew served as White House budget director and clashed repeatedly with Republicans, who may want to get a pound of flesh in confirmation hearings.
In fact, advisers to the president say Lew deliberately kept a low profile during the recent fiscal cliff talks so as not to enflame those tensions on the eve of the expected announcement of his nomination for Treasury.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/01/07/obama-expected-to-nominate-chief-staff-lew-for-treasury-secretary/#ixzz2HNPcCYAP
"It is all but a done deal," one of the sources said, adding that it would take something "extraordinary" to pop up in the next couple of days to derail that decision.
Geithner has said for well over a year that he would like to leave the administration and spend more time with his family after a grueling time playing key roles throughout the economic and fiscal unease of recent years. His tenure at the Treasury followed previous service as head of the New York branch of the Federal Reserve.
Lew has become an Obama favorite through several top posts because of his sharp knowledge of the federal budget and no-drama style.
Picking Lew is a sign the president knows his next Treasury secretary will be smack in the middle of a series of budget battles, starting with the debt ceiling fight that will be brewing during the expected confirmation process.
A red flag is that during the last debt ceiling fight, in the summer of 2011, Lew served as White House budget director and clashed repeatedly with Republicans, who may want to get a pound of flesh in confirmation hearings.
In fact, advisers to the president say Lew deliberately kept a low profile during the recent fiscal cliff talks so as not to enflame those tensions on the eve of the expected announcement of his nomination for Treasury.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/01/07/obama-expected-to-nominate-chief-staff-lew-for-treasury-secretary/#ixzz2HNPcCYAP
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Obama's Bad Deal and Worse Negotiating
I hate to burst the balloon of a New Year's celebration for an
apparently bipartisan deal to avoid the badly misnamed "fiscal cliff,"
but far from affirming a progressive victory in the 2012 elections,
which should have protected the legacy of the New Deal for future
generations, the deal permanently bakes in Republican "starve the beast"
tax levels that enshrine massive economic inequality and will quickly
force President Obama and Congressional Democrats to agree to cuts in
benefits for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, student loans,
veterans benefits and other social programs that protect the middle
class.
Flush with his election victory, President Obama started the
negotiations asking for $1.6 trillion in tax increases over the next
decade and promising he would never negotiate over threats to hold the
global economy hostage to increasing the debt ceiling. He quickly caved
and agreed to $600 billion in tax increases while enshrining a large
part of George W. Bush's tax and estate tax cuts permanently into law.
At the same time, he agreed that the sequester of $1 trillion in
spending cuts would be postponed to coincide with the deadline for
raising the debt ceiling, transferring his negotiating leverage to
Republicans who, despite Obama's protestations to the contrary, will use
it to force significant cuts to "entitlements" and social programs for
the poor and middle class while protecting the wealth of the top 0.5
percent.
Obama either proved that he the world's worst poker player, or just
as likely, that his campaign promises to protect the poor and middle
class were not very serious and he really wants his legacy to be a not
very grand bargain that exchanges small increases in taxes on the
richest Americans for large cuts to social programs for the poor and
middle class.
This deal to make George W. Bush's "temporary" tax cuts permanent for
everyone making less than $450,000 and protecting low taxes on
inherited wealth just wasn't necessary. Obama had all the negotiating
leverage and he gave it away. If there were no deal now and all the
Bush Tax cut automatically expired on all Americans, financial markets
would have tanked, and within a week or two, Obama would have forced
Congress to fulfill his campaign pledge to raise taxes to Clinton-era
levels on everyone making over $250,000 a year.
By agreeing to move the tax increases only to those making over
$250,000 Obama gave away about $200 billion in revenues that could have
helped to pay for social programs. In a political vacuum, an argument
can be made that's a viable political compromise, particularly since he
got temporary extensions to unemployment benefits and tax breaks for the
poor in exchange for permanent tax breaks for the rich.
But by easily compromising on his central campaign promise that he
claimed was a line in the sand, Obama signaled to Republicans that
there's nothing he won't compromise on. He may say now that he won't
negotiate cuts in entitlements and social programs for an increase in
the debt ceiling, but there's not a single Republican who will believe
him. This January 1 fiscal cliff never posed a long-term danger. But
when Republicans took it hostage, Obama caved in on taxes with barely a
fight.
Failing to raise the debt ceiling does pose a long-term danger to the global economy.
Republicans learned again that when dealing with President Obama,
hostage taking works. It will only embolden them to take the debt
ceiling hostage again, knowing full well that Obama will cave on his
promises to defend Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other social
programs that protect the middle class and the poor.
Monday, December 24, 2012
Obama’s impact on federal judiciary
It takes a calculator and perhaps the rigor of Sherlock Holmes to cut
through the partisan rhetoric about President Obama’s first-term record
on judicial nominations. But the bottom line is clear enough.
There are more vacancies on the federal courts now than when
Obama took office nearly four years ago. And he is the first president
in generations to fail to put a nominee on the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the D.C. Circuit, the second most influential court in the land and
traditionally a training ground for Supreme Court justices.
But, depending on what the Senate does in these final days,Obama’s record on the rest of the federal judiciary will show one more opening on the nation’s powerful 13 courts of appeal than when he took office, and more than a dozen additional vacant district court judgeships.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) blames Senate Republicans for foot-dragging on nominees that he says are utterly uncontroversial.
“These delays mean that the Senate will, again, be needlessly forced to devote the first several months of next year confirming judges who could and should have been confirmed the previous year,” Leahy said earlier this month.
He added that the increase in vacancies “is bad for our federal courts and for the American people who depend on them for justice.”
Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the committee’s ranking Republican, responds that the Senate has confirmed at least as many as were approved during President George W. Bush’s first term. “The continued complaints we hear about how unfairly this president has been treated are unfounded,” he said.
Russell Wheeler, a judicial scholar at the Brookings Institution, has taken a more detached look at the process. “There is so much propaganda out there,” Wheeler says. “It’s almost as if they are speaking different languages.”
Wheeler’s conclusion: “The contentiousness that affected President William Clinton’s and President George W. Bush’s efforts to appoint judges to the courts of appeals did not appear to worsen during Obama’s first term, but battles have heated up over district nominations.”
Drastically increased delays in confirming district court judges are part of the reason for the higher vacancy rates, Wheeler said, but the Obama administration is responsible for sending up fewer nominees and taking longer to do it.
District judges are at the first tier of the federal judiciary; they decide individual cases and their decisions do not create precedent for other judges. In the past, confirmation of district judges was seen as somewhat routine.
But that has changed, Wheeler said, with longer wait times and more contested votes. The average time from nomination to confirmation for a Clinton district judge was about three months. That grew to 154 days for a Bush nominee, Wheeler said, compared to 223 days for Obama’s choices.
Nominations to the appeals courts are always more controversial.
Those judges hear tens of thousands of appeals each year — by
comparison, the Supreme Court hears arguments in about 80 — and their
judgments become precedent in the states within those circuits.
Despite some high-profile fights, however, Wheeler found that
Obama’s circuit court nominees have fared about as well as those of his
predecessors. Or as he put it, “That the Senate has since 1993 denied
confirmation to three of every 10 circuit nominees reflects a new (and
unfortunate) normal, but at least so far it has not worsened under
Obama.”
Obama’s nominees, in fact, have had a shorter path from nomination to confirmation than did Bush’s — 240 days compared to 283 days, according to Wheeler’s calculations.
No court is more contested by either side than the D.C. circuit, for obvious reasons. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Ruth Bader Ginsburg all put in time on the court before being picked for the Supreme Court; Kagan was nominated for the D.C. circuit but was blocked by Senate Republicans.
Even though there are three vacancies on the court — there will be a fourth next year — Obama did not submit a nominee until September 2010. Then, Republicans blocked nominee Caitlin Halligan, general counsel for the New York district attorney’s office, and an additional choice, California law professor Goodwin Liu. Liu has since been appointed to the California Supreme Court, and Obama will try again on Halligan.
Last June, he picked Sri Srinivasan, deputy U.S. solicitor general and a former clerk to retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, for another seat on the court. Srinivasan has not had a Judiciary Committee hearing. (Lest one think it is only Republicans who do the blocking, Senate Democrats ran out the clock the first time Roberts was nominated for the court.)
While liberal groups complain about Republican obstruction, they have also been critical of the White House. The American Prospect recently featured a long piece called “The Courts: How Obama Dropped the Ball.”
But as Wheeler points out, a two-term president almost always has a major impact on the makeup of the federal judiciary.
“Democratic appointees, who in 2009 constituted about a third of active circuit judges, might constitute about two-thirds in 2017,” Wheeler wrote.
Source http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obamas-impact-on-federal-judiciary/2012/12/23/68a36518-4b79-11e2-a6a6-aabac85e8036_story_1.html
Obama’s nominees, in fact, have had a shorter path from nomination to confirmation than did Bush’s — 240 days compared to 283 days, according to Wheeler’s calculations.
No court is more contested by either side than the D.C. circuit, for obvious reasons. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Ruth Bader Ginsburg all put in time on the court before being picked for the Supreme Court; Kagan was nominated for the D.C. circuit but was blocked by Senate Republicans.
Even though there are three vacancies on the court — there will be a fourth next year — Obama did not submit a nominee until September 2010. Then, Republicans blocked nominee Caitlin Halligan, general counsel for the New York district attorney’s office, and an additional choice, California law professor Goodwin Liu. Liu has since been appointed to the California Supreme Court, and Obama will try again on Halligan.
Last June, he picked Sri Srinivasan, deputy U.S. solicitor general and a former clerk to retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, for another seat on the court. Srinivasan has not had a Judiciary Committee hearing. (Lest one think it is only Republicans who do the blocking, Senate Democrats ran out the clock the first time Roberts was nominated for the court.)
While liberal groups complain about Republican obstruction, they have also been critical of the White House. The American Prospect recently featured a long piece called “The Courts: How Obama Dropped the Ball.”
But as Wheeler points out, a two-term president almost always has a major impact on the makeup of the federal judiciary.
“Democratic appointees, who in 2009 constituted about a third of active circuit judges, might constitute about two-thirds in 2017,” Wheeler wrote.
Source http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obamas-impact-on-federal-judiciary/2012/12/23/68a36518-4b79-11e2-a6a6-aabac85e8036_story_1.html
Monday, December 17, 2012
Obama offers 'love and prayers' to Newtown, says these tragedies must end
President Obama came to Connecticut on Sunday to express his sorrow
for those suffering after the fatal mass shooting of 26 people and to
call for an end to such incidents -- offering “the love and hope of a
nation” and saying “these tragedies have got to end.”
The president spoke at the Newtown High School after meeting
privately with families of the victims and emergency personnel who
responded to the deadly shootings Friday inside the Sandy Hook
Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
“I am very mindful that words cannot match the depths of your
sorrow,” the president said. “But whatever measure of comfort we can
provide, we will provide. … Newtown, you are not alone.”
The president spoke at a lectern, in front of which was table set
with 26 glass-covered candles, one for each of the 6- and 7-year-olds
fatally shot.
“Surely, we can do better than this,” said Obama in what was his
fourth trip as president to a grieving city after a mass shooting. "We
must change."
The president vowed during his roughly 18-minute speech that in the
coming weeks he will use whatever powers possible to “prevent another
tragedy like this” -- including calling upon law enforcement and
mental-health experts to help.
A White House official said Obama was the primary author of his
speech and edited his remarks on the flight to Connecticut with White
House speechwriter Cody Keenan.
The president was introduced by Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy, who said
Obama told him Friday was the hardest day of his presidency.
“We need this … to begin our long journey through grief and loss,”
said the Rev. Matt Crebbin, of the Newtown Congressional Church, who
began the prayer vigil. “We are all in this together.”
Meanwhile, the grieving town braced itself Monday to bury the first
two of the victims and debated when classes could resume -- and where,
given the carnage in the building and the children's associations with
it.
"We're just now getting ready to talk to our son about who was
killed," said Robert Licata, the father of a student who escaped harm
during the shooting. "He's not even there yet."
Newtown officials couldn't say whether Sandy Hook Elementary would
ever reopen. Monday classes were canceled, and the district was
considering eventually sending surviving Sandy Hook students to a former
school building in a neighboring town.
Authorities identified the shooter Friday as 20-year-old Adam Lanza.
He fatally shot his mother before going to the school and killed
himself.
Authorities said Lanza was carrying an arsenal of hundreds of rounds
of deadly ammunition -- enough to kill nearly every student in the
school if given enough time, raising the chilling notion that the
bloodbath could have been even worse. Lanza shot himself in the head
when he heard police approaching the classroom where he was gunning down
helpless children.
Lanza was described as a bright but painfully awkward student who seemed to have no close friends.
In high school, he was active in the technology club. The club
adviser remembered that he had "some disabilities" and seemed not to
feel pain like the other students. That meant Lanza required special
supervision when using soldering tools, for instance.
He also had an occasional "episode" in which he seemed to withdraw
completely from his surroundings, the adviser said. Authorities said
Lanza had no criminal history, and it was unclear whether he had a job.
Last summer, Obama went to Aurora, Colo., to visit victims and
families after a shooting spree at a movie theater in the Denver suburb
left 12 dead.
He went to Tucson, Ariz., in January of last year after six people
were killed and 13 were wounded, including then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords,
outside a grocery store. Keenan also helped Obama write that speech.
In November 2009, Obama traveled to Fort Hood, Texas, to speak at the
memorial service for 13 service members who were killed on the post by
another soldier.
After the Colorado shooting in July, the White House made clear that
Obama would not propose new gun restrictions in an election year and
said he favored better enforcement of existing laws.
However, the Connecticut shootings may have changed the political
dynamic in Washington, although public opinion in favor of gun control
has declined over the years. While the White House has said Obama stands
by his desire to reinstate a ban on military-style assault weapons, he
has not pushed Congress to act.
Several Democratic lawmakers, during appearances on the Sunday talk
shows, said the gruesome killings at the school were the final straw in a
debate on gun laws that has fallen to the wayside in recent years.
"This conversation has been dominated in Washington by -- you know
and I know -- gun lobbies that have an agenda" said Illinois Sen. Dick
Durbin, the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate. "We need people, just
ordinary Americans, to come together, and speak out, and to sit down
and calmly reflect on how far we go."
Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent who is retiring,
suggested a national commission on mass violence that would examine gun
laws and what critics see as loopholes, as well as the mental health
system and violence in movies and video games. Durbin said he supports
the idea, and would add school safety to the list of topics to examine.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said she would push legislation next
year to ban future sales of military-assault weapons like those used in
the elementary school shooting. The bill will ban big clips, drums and
strips of more than 10 bullets.
Gun rights activists remained largely quiet on the issue, all but one
declining to appear on the talk shows. However, Rep. Louie Gohmert,
R-Texas, defended the sale of assault weapons and said that the
principal at Sandy Hook Elementary School, who authorities say died
trying to overtake the shooter, should herself have been armed.
Monday, December 3, 2012
Obama Bets Re-Election Gave Him Power to Win Fiscal Cliff
President Barack Obama’s hard stance
on the “fiscal cliff” talks is a bet that his re-election gave
him the political clout to force Republicans to accept higher
taxes on upper income Americans as a first step toward reducing
the federal deficit.
“You could see the shock in the Republicans -- this is not what they were expecting from the White House,” said Stan Collender, managing director of Qorvis Communications LLC in Washington and a former staff member for the House and Senate budget committees. “There was almost euphoria among Democrats that the president was playing hardball.”
The two parties are in stalemate over what spending cuts and revenue increases should be approved to cut a budget deficit that’s exceeded $1 trillion for each of the four years Obama’s been in office. The administration says no agreement is possible unless Republicans agree to increase tax rates for the highest earning Americans, a stance underscored by Geithner in a sweep of the Sunday talk shows. Republicans oppose any tax rate increase and demand deeper cuts than Obama has offered, a line that House Speaker John Boehner drew on one show yesterday.
No Compromises
Both administration officials and congressional Republicans say they want a deal before year’s end -- without either side publicly offering any compromises.“There’s not going to be an agreement without rates going up,” Geithner said in a taped interview that aired yesterday on CNN’s “State of the Union” program. Republicans will “own the responsibility for the damage” if they “force higher rates on virtually all Americans because they’re unwilling to let tax rates go up on 2 percent of Americans.”
Obama wants to boost top income-tax rates back to the levels they were when President Bill Clinton left office. The top rate then was 39.6 percent, compared with 35 percent today.
Boehner said Republicans aren’t ready to give in, and the president should take the lead by offering concessions.
House Majority
“They must have forgotten that Republicans continue to hold a majority in the House,” Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said on “Fox News Sunday.” “The president’s idea of a negotiation is ‘roll over and do what I ask.’ We need to find common ground, and we need to find it quickly.”Collender puts the odds of failure at 60 percent, as both sides need to prove their mettle to core supporters.
The risk for Obama is that Republicans will match his brinkmanship and no deal will be reached. The result would be the “fiscal cliff,” the more than $600 billion in automatic spending cuts and tax increases that start kicking in automatically at the beginning of the new year.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in an August report said the tax increases and spending cuts would shrink economic output next year by 0.5 percent and push the unemployment rate to about 9 percent.
Moody’s Investors Service said in September it may join Standard & Poor’s in downgrading the U.S.’s credit rating unless the president and Congress reduce the percentage of debt to gross domestic product.
Markets React
Stocks have been whipsawed since the election as Obama and Boehner dueled in public.The benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (SPX) increased 0.5 percent to 1,416.18 last week and it extended its rally since Nov. 16 to 4.1 percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 15.90 points, or 0.1 percent, to 13,025.58.
The bond market hasn’t demonstrated the same level of concern. While total national debt has soared to more than $16 trillion from less than $9 trillion in 2007, U.S. borrowing costs have tumbled. The yield on the 10-year note touched a record low 1.379 percent July 25, down from more than 5 percent in mid-2007.
Obama’s strategy is borne, in part, out of lessons Obama and his advisers take from the failed 2011 attempt to reach a grand bargain on long-term debt reduction.
Obama and Boehner tried to forge a compromise in private talks. Instead of clearing the path, their effort collapsed and served to increase resistance among members of both parties in Congress.
Source http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-12-03/obama-bets-re-election-gave-him-power-to-win-fiscal-cliff
Monday, November 19, 2012
On a Trip to Asia, Obama Can’t Escape Mideast
President Obama flew around the world to visit a giant reclining Buddha and pay a courtesy call on a hospitalized king — all to make a point.
After too many years of being obsessed with the Middle East, Mr. Obama
argues, it is time for the United States to focus on the rise of Asia.
The only problem? The Middle East is not cooperating.
Mr. Obama had not even landed here in Thailand
on Sunday before finding his four-day, three-country Asia tour shadowed
by the new crisis in Israel and Gaza. Aides have been briefing him on
the latest in the conflict, and he has been working the phones with the
leaders of Israel, Egypt and Turkey. Even his joint appearance with
Thailand’s prime minister was partly consumed by the Gaza question.
The confluence of events serve as a vivid reminder that the presidency
is an exercise in juggling priorities. But the peculiar timing also
underscores why Asia has often taken a back seat in American policy to
the more volatile areas of the world, not just under this president, but
under the past six.
The logic behind Mr. Obama’s so-called Asia pivot
draws little dispute: By many measures, it is the region of the future,
the area that will see nearly 50 percent of the world’s economic growth
outside the United States over the next five years. To compete
globally, the thinking goes, the United States will need to assert
itself as an economic and strategic power in the Pacific.
Inside the Situation Room, though, long-term logic invariably falls
victim to short-term crises, which are the specialty of places like the
Middle East.
“One of the great challenges in the implementation and execution of
foreign policy is to prevent the daily challenges, cascading crises,
from crowding out the development of broader strategies in pursuit of
the United States’ long-term interests,” Tom Donilon, the president’s
national security adviser, said in a speech before leaving Washington.
It was in service of that goal that Mr. Obama scheduled his Asia trip.
As his first overseas journey after re-election, it was meant to send a
signal that his second term would focus on moving beyond the past,
particularly the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He visited the region
several times in his first term, but twice canceled Asia trips because
domestic issues took priority.
After a day in Thailand, Mr. Obama was to head early Monday to Myanmar
for a historic visit highlighting the emergence of that isolated
country, long known as Burma, from decades of repressive military rule.
He was to land in Yangon to meet with President Thein Sein, who has orchestrated the change, and the opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.
Along the way, the president planned to announce on Monday that he would
send a new mission from the United States Agency for International
Development to Myanmar and devote $170 million to aid projects over the
next two years, according to aides.
“One of the things that we can do as an international community is make
sure that the people of Burma know we’re paying attention to them, we’re
listening to them, we care about them,” Mr. Obama said in Bangkok. “And
this visit allows me to do that in a fairly dramatic fashion.”
Yet not as dramatic as Hamas lobbing rockets into Israel or Israel responding with punishing airstrikes and the threat of invasion.
Asia is not the only other region that finds it tough to compete for
attention. Mr. Obama was in Latin America when he launched the air and
naval campaign that helped topple Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi in Libya.
“There is now war between Israel and Hamas in addition to a proxy war
with Iran in Syria; there are huge demonstrations against the king in
Jordan; and the I.A.E.A. last week said Iran had doubled its capacity to
enrich uranium,” said Elliott Abrams, who was President George W.
Bush’s Middle East adviser and is now at the Council on Foreign Relations. “The only way to pivot away from all that is to move to Mars — Myanmar isn’t far enough.”
Moreover, even Asia is inextricably linked to events in the Middle East, said Jon B. Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“The reality is this — the more you pivot toward Asia, the more you have
to care about the Middle East, because Asia gets so much of its energy
from the Middle East,” he said. “Our Asia pivot doesn’t get us out of
the Middle East. It just gets us into the Middle East from the other
side.”
Mr. Obama’s advisers say they understand that. Rather than a zero-sum
game, they said, Mr. Obama must find ways to focus on Asia even as older
conflicts demand his attention. “The rebalancing doesn’t mean our
short-term military requirements in the Middle East will diminish,” said
Jeffrey A. Bader, the president’s former Asia adviser, who is now at the Brookings Institution.
Mr. Obama began his trip on Sunday with a stop in Thailand, America’s
oldest ally in Asia. Joined by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
for their final foreign trip together before she steps down, Mr. Obama
visited the Wat Pho Royal Monastery, one of the country’s most revered
cultural outposts, where both Americans took off their shoes and
inspected the famed giant reclining Buddha.
Even domestic issues followed the president, as he found himself talking about the so-called fiscal cliff back home
with a monk before asking him to pray for his success in resolving the
problem. “If a Buddhist monk is wishing me well, I’m going to take
whatever good vibes he can give me to try to deal with some challenges
back home,” Mr. Obama said lightly.
The president and Mrs. Clinton then headed to Siriraj Hospital to pay respects to King Bhumibol Adulyadej,
the 84-year-old monarch, who has been ailing. From there, they went to
the Government House for meetings and dinner with Prime Minister
Yingluck Shinawatra, who came to office in 2011, five years after her brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, was deposed in a military coup.
“We have historically been an Asia-Pacific power, and I wanted to make
sure that all our friends and partners throughout the region understood
that we see this as a central region for our growth and our prosperity,”
Mr. Obama said. “It’s not one that we can neglect.”
Even if he has to keep one eye on the Middle East at the same time.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Health and safety tips
A radical revamp of the way small businesses in Yorkshire and the
Humber can access advice about health and safety online has been
launched.
The new Health And Safety Toolbox is the latest in a package of
online guidance, bringing together in one place everything a small,
low-risk business could need to manage health and safety.
Written with busy firms in mind, it makes it easy to find relevant guidance on specific risks with a few clicks of the mouse.
The package of guidance, developed by the Health And Safety
Executive (HSE) with the support of businesses, will help small business
owners and employers avoid wasting precious time reading what they
don't need to, spending money on unnecessary bureaucracy or hiring
costly consultants.
David Snowball, of HSE, said: "Employers in smaller, lower-risk
businesses can feel daunted by what health and safety law requires.
"It doesn't have to be an onerous task and we will be pointing them to the Toolkit for all the advice they need."
Visit www.hse.gov.uk
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Medicare Open Enrollment Tips for 2013
The open enrollment period for 2013 Medicare plans begins October 15
and extends through December 7. This annual ritual asks more than 50
million people, mostly seniors, to venture forth once again into the
arcane and complex world of Medicare health insurance—Parts A, B, C, and
D, drug formularies, shifting co-pay, coinsurance, and deductible
rules, and now, a growing assortment of health reform changes.
Is it any wonder that many seniors shudder at the prospect of
actively shopping for new Medicare insurance providers? Instead, they
tend to stick with their current insurance plans, while experts and
pundits (like me) lament how much money they could be saving if only
they shopped around like they do for most other consumer purchases.
"Not a lot of people are switching plans," observes Mary Dale
Walters, senior vice president for Allsup Medicare Advisor. Allsup
provides fee-based Medicare coverage advice to consumers, and does a
lot of its business with disabled people. The bad news about Medicare's
complexity has been good news for Allsup, which reports that its
advice business has been growing steadily.
Medicare consumers "ride out the price increases," Walters adds.
"They don't do the math. They are worried that their doctors won't be
covered under a new plan ... People bog down in indecision because
they're scared they are going to make a mistake." While many things
change about Medicare each year, Walters says, "the only thing that
doesn't change under Medicare is that it continues to be complicated."
Avalere Health, a Washington D.C., healthcare research firm and
consultancy, has looked at 2013 Medicare plans and found that seven of
the 10 most popular plans were raising their drug prices by more than
10 percent. Dan Mendelson, president of Avalere, says it's particularly
important for consumers to look at the prices of their prescription
drugs, including co-pays, and see if it makes sense to switch plans.
In addition, he adds, more health plans are developing partnerships
with preferred pharmacies. "You get your drugs more inexpensively if
you purchase them from a preferred provider," Mendelson says. This is
yet another reason consumers should look at the drugs they take and
compare prices from other health plans.
Health reform changes will reduce the price of drugs for seniors
with big drug bills who fall into what's called the doughnut hole. Once
drug expenses hit $2.970 in 2013, insurance coverage ceases until a
person's out-of-pocket expenses reach $4,750. The health reform law has
been lowering the cost of drugs inside the doughnut hole. For 2013,
consumers must pay 52.5 percent of the cost of branded drugs and 79
percent of the cost of generic drugs. These percentages will decline in
future years under the law.
While the open enrollment period ends in December, Walters notes
that this restriction does not apply to plans that have received top
marks under the government's relatively new rating system. Plans with a
5-star rating may enroll consumers at any time during the year.
Because of the newness of the program, there were few 5-star plans for
2012 enrollments. But the number is expected to increase.
Overall, Mendelson and Walters agree, premiums for fee-for-service
Medicare (parts A and B) should not rise much in 2013, and premiums for
managed care Medicare Advantage plans (part C) should change very
little.
"The general feeling is that there is not going to be major
increases in premiums," Walters says. "If your premiums aren't changing
much, make sure your co-pays aren't changing much, either."
"It's reasonable to expect that the part B premiums (for physician
and outpatient services) will be going up in the range of 5 to 10
percent next year," Mendelson says. Medicare is expected to announce
part B costs for 2013 soon, but a spokeswoman declined to specify a
date.
Both experts advised consumers with traditional fee-for-service
Medicare plans to take a careful look at Medicare Advantage (MA) plans.
"The care coordination is often better and the prices are often much
more stable," Mendelson says. "People don't have to worry as much about
out-of-pocket costs. MA plans structure their premiums differently and
you're generally not paying a 20 percent co-pay on physician
services." Accepting restrictions on the choice of physicians may be
unacceptable for some traditional Medicare users, he notes.
Walters advises people to have their own plan for healthcare
services before they begin looking at the plans for the 2013 enrollment
process. "You really need to begin with a needs assessment," she says.
"Focus on those things that you have already identified as being
important to you."
This list usually contains specific prescription drugs but should
also include expected medical visits for routine care as well as care
for any ongoing illnesses or health needs. Do you need regular blood
work and other laboratory services? Are there predictable surgeries?
Have you factored in the expanding range of free preventive health
services under the health reform law?
Once you've developed your needs list, Walters says, it's much
easier to use the Medicare website or specific insurer sites "without
being overwhelmed by all the options" that are available.
Source http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/the-best-life/2012/10/09/medicare-open-enrollment-tips-for-2013
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Michelle Obama to speak at Lawrence University
First lady Michelle Obama plans to drum up support among Democratic voters when she speaks Friday at Lawrence University.
Mrs.
Obama’s visit to Appleton will be an attempt energize the base, grow
the grassroots effort and promote voter registration, according to a
campaign release.
The free event will be held in Alexander Gymnasium on the Lawrence University campus. Doors will open at 1 p.m.
Because
space is limited, tickets are being issued on a first-come, first-serve
basis at three Organizing for America field offices in Appleton, Green
Bay and Oshkosh.
Friday’s
stop in Appleton will mark Mrs. Obama’s first trip to Wisconsin since
August when she visited the families of the Sikh temple shooting near
Milwaukee. The trip will also come less than a week after her husband,
President Barack Obama, made a campaign stop in Milwaukee on Saturday.
Kenneth
Mayer, a political science professor at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison, said as long as the President Obama and Mitt Romney
campaigns continue to invest in Wisconsin, it means both sides think the
state is still up for grabs.
USA Today identifies Wisconsin as one of at least 12 swing states that are key to the election’s outcome.
In a Gallup poll released last week, Obama edged the Republican candidate 48 to 46 percent among registered swing-state voters.
Mayer called the first lady an “asset” to the Obama campaign — a person who can reach out to Democratic supporters.
“She’s an important symbol for women,” Mayer said. “She’s a very, very good campaigner.”
Kaukauna
resident Cindy Fallona, an Obama campaign volunteer, thinks Mrs. Obama
will energize local supporters during her Appleton visit.
“I cannot tell you how thrilled I am to have a woman of her stature coming to Appleton,” Fallona said.
The
60-year-old Obama supporter said she had a chance to shake the first
lady’s hand during a luncheon for former U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold in 2010
— a moment she “will always treasure.”
Whenever she sees Mrs. Obama speak, the first lady always carries her message forcefully and in a positive manner, Fallona said.
The
Kaukauna resident will not be attending Mrs. Obama’s visit on Friday
due to a family wedding in Maine, but she has no doubt the first lady
will bring words of wisdom to all voters.
“I know that Appleton will give her a warm welcome,” she said.
Sunday, September 9, 2012
10 Tips For Keeping Your PC Healthy Online
Here’s Some Tips To Help Keep Your PC Healthy!
Tip #1:
You’re already doing one of the first “right things right”. You’ve
ditched Norton, McAfee and Microsoft Security Essentials in favor of a
respected antivirus solution. Generally I recommend something like Avast
Pro, Kasperski, or AVG Pro… but Trend Micro doesn’t generally have a
bad reputation.
Trend however was one of almost half of all antivirus companies that has been slow in responding to, and protecting you from, the recent Java based exploit.
Tip #2: Your tech is actually right (though it goes against popular belief) about the fact that in the very early days of a particular virus it often evades every virus scanner out there. We routinely deal with ones that go around before the antivirus companies are able to write a corrective file.
It’s
kinda like vaccinating for the flu. Someone has to get sick, a sample
has to go to the lab, the lab has to analyze it, and a vaccine has to be
prepared which unfortunately all takes time! (And in the meantime, more
people are catching the darn thing!)
Tip #3:
Regarding the ”162″ thing… don’t let that scare you. Viruses are like
teenage kids throwing a drunken party… if one can get in, and you’re not
home… they invite ALL of their friends. It could have been 1, 7, 83,
162 or 561 just as easy. I’ve cleaned up systems in every realm.
Majority of the time, this is made worst by the fact that the first one in deactivates the antivirus!
Tip #4:
I know some others have given you advice about possibly switching to
the antivirus known as AVG Pro. Lately, I prefer AVAST Free and Pro over
AVG. Trend usually is a pretty decent company and I wouldn’t be fast to
fault them as guilty in this situation.
We’ve used both-all in
client systems in both retail and enterprise. Everyone has their
favorites but the differences are splitting hairs. (Generally though,
pro trumps often free for a number of valid reasons in terms of added
security.) Currently, I personally use Avast Pro and I put it into
“gaming mode” aka silent mode to minimize it’s resources when I’m
hosting a webinar event.
Bitdefender, Kaspersky, etc… all of these big name antivirus companies are “generally” good and “good enough”.
Tip #5:
One thing is important to note… never try running 2 antivirus programs
at the same time. One will stop the other from working and visa versa…
but it happens silently. Unfortunately, this is happening a lot lately
with people that have enabled Microsoft Security Essentials (which
sucks) and then have a real antivirus. The two conflict and you get
negative protection.
In this case, unfortunately, the two guard
dogs simply end up fighting on the front porch while the burger sneaks
in the back door.
Tip #6: Be sure your using a
router at home. If your computer is plugged straight into your cable/dsl
modem… you’re sitting duck. Go to Walmart/BestBuy, etc and get a
router. It goes between your PC and your main internet connection.
(Either by a cord from the router to the system or by a wireless
connection from the router to the system.)
While yes, it can add
wireless, extra ports etc, one of the most important thing it does is
make it substantially harder for critters that are literally just
roaming around the web to get right up to your PC’s doorstep. Its a
rather foolproof layer of easy-to-add security. Most people today are
using a router already but if you’re not, thought I’d note it. For this
particular use, a midrange router is just as good as a high end router.
No need to spend a ton.
Tip #7: A good MALWARE
scanner… is different than a virus scanner and may or may not be built
into a “pro” version of a virus scanner is something you also want.
Malware scanners do not generally in-fight like antivirus scanners do.
Three examples are Ad-Aware (they have a free version), Spybot Search & Destroy (free), and Malwarebytes.
These
don’t necessarily need to be left running if your system is slow but a
good once a month run will head off trouble. (AA and MB both have a real
time scanner though I believe that would make you even more safe if
your pc is fast enough to not be bogged down by adding it.)
Effective
handling of MOST types of malware however has been one of the things
I’ve found that Avast Pro is doing a great job at currently. (Check your
version of Trend and see if they have a malware scanner built in. If
not, get one, if so, then your likely set.)
Tip #8:
Several people that responded mentioned a Mac… well… that’s an idea.
However, the problem is that while, yes “not virus proof” many of the
viruses that DO affect them are “rootkit” and require a complete wipe of
the system often including data lose if you don’t have a remote backup
(and a remote backup can harbor the nasty buggers).
Rootkits exist
in PCs as well but given that you had a “clean up” rather than a full
reformat, I’d say you didn’t face one. (I honestly MUCH PREFER a clean
reformat, every time possible for a whole list of reasons, but that’s a
planned attack.) Now that macs can be affected by “drive by” infections
where no user interaction is required, their rate of infection is
escalating rapidly. There are plenty of perfectly good reasons that some
prefer mac, but you have to consider that option with open eyes and a
wide grasp of the bigger picture. All Mac users still require a good antivirus and a healthy dose of common sense.
Tip #9:
Regardless of whether you’re on Mac or PC, be sure you have a
dual-backup system. (Yup, dual!) As a business owner, you have a lot
riding on the data on your system (including tax prep).
Generally,
the advice is to have a primary backup “in the cloud” or to an external
drive that is not physically in the same geographical region as you
are. (Literally, out of state) The reason for this is that you want your
primary full backup to be immune to the risks of flooding, tornadoes
and other natural disasters. That’s one of the reasons the cloud is
convenient.
Two cloud based tools that are industry-grade and worthy of your time to look at include Mozy Backup and Carbonite Backup.
Then
as a secondary backup, take your most precious files, including your
business documentation, and your kids photos, onto a disk or two… and
take them to a family members and get them into a fire proof box there.
Offer to do the same for them. (We are not counting on the media to
survive in the safe in a fire, most people do not have safe rated high
enough for the media to survive.) This gives you a local copy of key
critical files.
Today, no mother has to go through the horror that
mine did of losing ALL of our baby pictures in a house fire… and having
to piecemeal through friends and family to try to re-build the two
small albums I have today.
Tip #10: One final
tip, if your computer (or more often a laptop) is regularly turned off,
it is possible that the antivirus has not been updated and ran in weeks
or months due to the system never being on and online at the scheduled
time. Particularly with laptops (and desktops that are turned off) you
should check that the scanner has been run recently.
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