Table of Contents
Barack Obama Quotes – 1/23/2009
President Barack Obama’s Inaugural Speech
Barack Obama Presents Global Model for
Grassroots Change
President Obama’s Priorities – 1/30/2009
Preparing Public Opinion and Legislating – 1/30/2009
Obama Watch: Week II – 2/6/2009
Obama Watch – Week 3 – 2/13/2009
Obama Watch – Month 1 – 2/20/2009
Obama Watch – Week 5 – 2/27/2009
Obama Watch – Week 6 – 3/6/2009
Obama Watch – Week 7 – 3/13/2009
Obama
Watch – Week 8 – 3/20/2009
President Obama’s Eisenhower Strategy – 3/20/2009
Compare Democratic and Republican Leaders – 3/20/2009
Obama Watch – Week 9 – 3/27/2009
Obama Watch – Week 10 – 4/3/2009
Major Political Battles to Come – 4/3/2009
Obama Watch – Week 11 – 4/10/2009
President Obama’s Multiple Strategies for Reducing
Global Warming – 4/10/2009
Obama Watch – Week 12 (April 7 – 14) – 4/17/2009
Obama Watch – Week 13 (April 14 – 21) – 4/24/2009
What Tea Baggers Profess, Obama Is Doing – 4/24/2009
Obama Watch – Week 14 (April 21 – 28) – 5/1/2009
President Obama’s First 100 Days – 5/1/2009
Some Obama Administration Environmental Policy Changes
– 5/1/2009
What President Obama Has Done for Working Families –
5/1/2009
Government Watch 5/8/2009
A Second Wave of Reforms – 5/8/2009
Government Watch – 5/15/2009
A Messy Week – 5/22/2009
What Should We Be Doing? – 5/22/2009
2010 Elections – 5/22/2009
Government Watch – 5/29/2009
Three Types of Economic Stimulus: Good, Bad, Ugly – 5/29/2009
Government Watch – 6/5/2009
Barack Obama Quotes
Brief quotes (slogans) remind us of larger
paradigms. We remember seminal quotes of
Franklin Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, John Kennedy and many others. Barack Obama may provide us with more
memorable quotes that any of our other leaders.
He is thus changing our mindset, which as he has noted is most basic
change that we need.
“There is not a liberal
“We have a stake in one another … what binds us together is
greater than what drives us apart, and ... if enough people believe in the
truth of that proposition and act on it, then we might not solve every problem,
but we can get something meaningful done for the people with whom we share this
Earth.”
“This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation
has shown that it can always be perfected.”
“It is that (American) promise that has always set
this country apart - that through hard work and sacrifice, each of us can
pursue our individual dreams but still come together as one American family, to
ensure that the next generation can pursue their dreams as well.”
“It's a promise that says each of us has the freedom
to make of our own lives what we will, but that we also have the obligation to
treat each other with dignity and respect.”
“It's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than
yourself that you will realize your true potential.”
“Individual
responsibility and mutual responsibility that's the essence of
“Yes, our greatness as a
nation has depended on individual initiative, on a belief in the free market.
But it has also depended on our sense of mutual regard for each other, of
mutual responsibility. The idea that everybody has a stake in the country, that
we're all in it together and everybody's got a shot at opportunity. Americans
know this. We know that government can't solve all our problems - and we don't
want it to. But we also know that there are some things we can't do on our own.
We know that there are some things we do better together.”
“That's why I stand here tonight. Because for 232
years, at each moment when that (American) promise was in jeopardy, ordinary
men and women, students and soldiers, farmers and teachers, nurses and janitors
found the courage to keep it alive.”
“
“That is the true genius of
“Hope – Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of
uncertainty. The audacity of hope! In the end, that is God’s greatest gift to
us, the bedrock of this nation. A belief in things not seen. A belief that
there are better days ahead.”
“We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics who
will only grow louder and more dissonant in the weeks to come. We've been asked
to pause for a reality check. We've been warned against offering the people of
this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is
“In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we
participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?”
“We can build a more hopeful
“They say I need to be
seasoned; they say I need to be stewed. They say, 'We need to boil all the hope
out of him -- like us -- and then he'll be ready.”
“You notice that people who've been in
“Politics has become so
bitter and partisan, so gummed up by money and influence, that we can't tackle
the big problems that demand solutions. And that's what we have to change
first. We have to change our politics, and come together around our common
interests and concerns as Americans.”
“One of the things that we have to change in our
politics is the idea that people cannot disagree without challenging each
other's character and patriotism.”
“It's not just enough to change the players. We've gotta change
the game.”
“Faith doesn't mean that
you don't have doubts.”
“Faith is not just something you have, it's something you do.”
“The true test of the American ideal is whether we’re able to
recognize our failings and then rise together to meet the challenges of our
time. Whether we allow ourselves to be shaped by events and history, or whether
we act to shape them.”
“If we aren't willing to pay a price for our values, then we
should ask ourselves whether we truly believe in them at all.”
“Making your mark on the world is hard. If it were easy, everybody
would do it. But it's not. It takes patience, it takes commitment, and it comes
with plenty of failure along the way. The real test is not whether you avoid
this failure, because you won't. It’s whether you let it harden or shame you
into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere.”
“I am running in this race because of what Dr. King called
"the fierce urgency of now." Because I believe that there's such a
thing as being too late. And that hour is almost upon us.”
“People of
“
"We remain a young nation,
but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things.
The time has come to . . . choose our better history; to carry forward that
precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the
God-given promise that all are equal, all are free and all deserve a chance to
pursue their full measure of happiness."
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person
or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change
that we seek.”
“Yes, we can.”
Notice how these quotes combine to present a
comprehensive understanding, taught through a series of repeated little
lessons. Not also how seldom, Barack
Obama uses clichés. Instead, he changes
them slightly, so that the discrepancy entices our reflection. For example, he doesn’t talk about our
American Dream. Instead he speaks of the
dreams of our nation’s founders. And of
President Barack Obama’s Inaugural Speech
President
Barack Obama’s inaugural speech was very different from his campaign
speeches. His campaign speeches
emphasized that through unity, we can successfully overcome the challenges we
face. He sometimes referred to the
difficulty of our struggle, but did not emphasize the sacrifices we must make.
His
inaugural speech was a ‘No Free Lunch’
speech. He emphasized that our struggle
would be difficult and prolonged. That
we would all have to do our part. It was
the answer to those who said expectations should be lowered. He raised the expectations that we will
prevail; but lowered any expectations that our struggle would be easy and that
we could simply wait for our government to act.
Individually and collectively, we will be responsible for our successes
and failures. Even Conservative
commentator Patrick Buchanan approved the message that government could not do
it all for us. That our individual and
collective initiative outside of government is also required. How about a citizen’s
oath of office? For more. For more. Notice that Obama has revitalized
American patriotism.
President
Obama’s speech also demonstrated that he will extensively use his bully
pulpit. He will place as much emphasis
upon educating us and he does upon legislating.
Two million people attended the Inauguration. That is one for every 150 Americans. (And assuming 1 third attended as couples,
participants from perhaps one of every 80 American families,) If people came proportionately from different
origins, 43,000 came from
All
around the world, people watched and listened to our inauguration, more people
and a greater proportion of the world’s population than watched and listed to
lunar landing. Partly because more
people have access to radio and television.
President Obama is not only teaching Americans. He is teaching people almost everywhere. For more.
Barack Obama Presents Global Model for Grassroots Change
During
our last 8 years,
Wow! What a surprise! See what a positive response, Barack Obama
was drawing from Germans and people around the world, even before he was
elected. See how many people have been
impressed by our election and now our inauguration of Obama. People are already according us much greater
respect. For more.
By
word and deed, President Obama is teaching people about our American
Constitutional Democracy, made powerful through people’s trust, resulting from
the limits we place on the powers of our various institutions. By using his bully pulpit and being a role
model, he will do far more to spread democracy based freedom than President
Bush could do by using our military might.
In fact Obama’s approach will work; while Bush’s approach won’t. For more.
Perhaps
more important, Obama’s political campaign provided a role model for internet
facilitated grassroots organization for change.
(Maybe we should term this approach ‘grassnet organization’.) I imagine that all around the world, people
who desire change have been watching Obama’s campaign and asking how can we
adapt his approach to our situation. We
may see people power which goes far beyond that of the
As
our leader, President Obama is becoming a world leader. If we had an international election today for
world leader, I suspect Obama would be a serious contender. Even more in a few years, if he is able to
lead us to solving major challenges, both domestic and international. I can even envision that 20 years from now,
such an election might be held with Obama the victor.
President Obama’s Priorities
President
Obama is doing many things at once and in appropriate sequence, due to his
strong sense of priorities. During the
transition, he first selected his close Whitehouse advisors, before selecting
his cabinet members. His research teams
visited government departments to learn what needed to be maintained and what
changed. He extended his support base
through his Change.gov website.
President
Obama’s inaugural address repeated his campaign commitments to our
constitutional rights and to cooperating with other nations. He reminded us that our struggles are many
and will not be easy or quickly resolved.
He informed us that resolving these struggles would require not only
government action, but action by all of us collectively and individually. He called for an ethic of service. His message was one that both Liberals and
Conservatives could approve. For more. More.
I
believe Obama’s inaugural address was very appropriate and will be long
remembered, contrary to the views of cynical pundits, who place emphasis upon
memorable quotes. I believe that Obama
usually avoids memorable quotes, to avoid detracting from the details of his
lesson.
In
his first week in office, Obama has efficiently attended to a variety of
issues. He proclaimed a new transparency
and accountability in government, established rules to separate his staff from
lobbyists (for
more), and placed a lid on their salaries, all oriented to gaining our
trust. He blocked further implementation
of Bush’s final regulations to assist his cronies. He reversed Bush’s ban on aid to family
planning agencies. For more. For more. He prohibited torture, stopped military
trials of accused terrorists and promised to close our
Guantanamo prison within a year. His
administration will move quickly to allow
states to set strict automobile emissions and fuel-efficiency standards. For
more. For more. And
to limit global warming. He signed the Equal
Pay Bill. Obama reached out to
foreign leaders, both Democratic and Republican congressional leaders and to
both Liberal and Conservative commentators.
Conservatives are
nevertheless lying about our stimulus and recovery proposals. Can
bi-partisan support be obtained for health care reform? His transition website, change.gov has been
closed. Two new websites have been
created: whitehouse.gov
to promote transparency and america.gov to tell
Obama’s major concern has been reviving our American
economy. He has insisted that congress
must quickly pass a stimulus and recovery bill, working flexibly with them to
shape its contents. For more. Some ways
to limit our deficits – read all 3 pages.
Office
of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag will be in charge of identifying
how to limit government programs to what works. If Obama is able to assist economic recovery,
he will amass great political influence, which he can use to reduce the
influence of wealthy and powerful public interests and their lobbyists and return
influence and financial equality to our people. Reforms
necessary to return influence to our voters.
He
has encouraged Republican participation, but clearly indicated that they can
not obstruct public investment in favor of tax cuts directed to their
cronies. House Minority Leader John Boehner and other
Republicans complained about increasing our government deficit and debt,
something they never did during the enormous increases during the Bush
administration. Republicans still regard
public investment as only legitimate when it consists of tax cuts and subsidies
for their cronies, which were largely responsible for our government deficits
and debt and failing economy. For more. For more. For more. For more. For more. Our commercial media
is spreading Conservative lies concerning the Stimulus package.
Obama’s
other major concern is foreign policy.
Following his inaugural speech which reassured the world that we will no
longer take a unilateral approach, he and Hillary Clinton have asserted that
our foreign policy will rest on three legs: diplomacy, development and
military. I assume that diplomacy will
be the primary approach to immediate problems, development oriented to creating
long run conditions which reduce future problems, and military only when the
others fail. Development
will be revamped. Obama gave his
national security team the mission to end our war in Iraq. For more.
George Mitchell was
named to address Israel-Palestine justice and peace issues. Richard Holbrook was
named to address Afghanistan-Pakistan issues.
Perhaps another envoy will be named to address
As
he has done with other issues, Obama has reframed the settlement of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In an
interview on Arab television, he said, “I think it is possible for us to see a
Palestinian state -- I'm not going to put a time frame on it -- that is
contiguous, that allows freedom of movement for its people, that allows for
trade with other countries, that allows the creation of businesses and commerce
so that people have a better life.
And, look, I think anybody who has studied the region recognizes that the
situation for the ordinary Palestinian in many cases has not improved. And the bottom line in all these talks and
all these conversations is, is a child in the
And if we can keep our focus on making their lives better and look forward, and
not simply think about all the conflicts and tragedies of the past, then I
think that we have an opportunity to make real progress.” For more. For more.
Notice
that President Obama is focusing upon improving our future. Not on the past. There is no thermometer of the extent to
which the damage done by President Bush is being undone. There are many issues which have not been
addressed from ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ to promoting unionization, to regulation
of corporate abuse, to
I
can imagine that someone in the Whitehouse is maintaining a database of
interest groups and their agendas. For
example, young people, seniors, women, GLBT, men, various ethnic groups,
unions, small businesses, farmers, other industrial and commercial groups and
many more. Also groups concerned with
particular issues such as environment, civil rights, immigration, peace, nuclear
proliferation, land mines, and other issues.
He will continually adopt agenda items of various groups, often quietly,
so that only the interested groups will notice, while minimizing public
controversy. Progress by a million small
steps is the opposite of death by a million cuts.
Preparing Public Opinion and Legislating
Legislating
reforms is much easier when the public supports these reforms. The quickest route to reform may often be to
change public opinion before legislating.
But sometimes reform is so urgently needed that we can’t wait for
supportive public opinion.
An
example is the 1965 passage of President Johnson of the Voting Rights
bill. Abuses were so grave, that the
bill was passed before public support was obtained. More typically, varying amounts of public
persuasion can precede actual legislation.
In various circumstances, Liberals may legitimately disagree concerning
how much public support is needed before attempting legislative action.
I
suspect that most of us thought change would come during Obama’s presidency
through legislation. We often worried
whether he would legislate this or that, whether the legislation would come
soon enough or reach far enough. Now we
find that careful preparation of public opinion and of grassnet support will
often occur before legislation. This may
increase or decrease the time before the legislation can be passed. It will surely make the legislation more
effective and enforceable.
Already
during his first week as president (beginning with his inaugural address), we
observe that besides legislating, Obama will do much to reform public
opinion. He has signaled his support for
civil rights, including GLBT rights and for women’s rights including free choice;
for scientific integrity and research; as well as preparing support for
economic stimulus and recovery proposals and a foreign policy which emphasizes
diplomacy and includes more development.
We
can expect him to continually use his bully pulpit, through weekly addresses,
public announcement, photo op visits, webcasts, and press conferences. He may even have to limit his public
exposure, if we become tired of him as our first teacher. Notice that much of his teaching will be
directly to us, instead of mediated through our drama-seeking, controversy-promoting,
nit-picking, and cynical commercial media.
I would be glad to see our commercial media decline in importance along
with the Republican Party.
Obama Watch: Week II
President Obama’s Inaugural Speech Was
Best
I
have reviewed previous presidential inaugural and state of the union speeches
(including
By
contrast, Obama’s Inaugural speech reviewed some history of our people and
government, described our continuing commitment to long held values, indicated
that our struggle would be difficult and long, and stated what our people and
government must do. It maintained a
focus upon a general theme, with some illustrations. I believe it will be long remembered as
expressing basic truths about our
Democrats are Flooding Republicans
Focus
upon passage of the economic stimulus and development package has taken much of
the oxygen out of the air, leaving little attention to other issues. President Obama and the Democratically
controlled congress are acting on many varied smaller issues. They are running flat out, creating a flood
of executive orders, legislation and diplomatic initiatives. Such that the
Republicans can’t bring to public consciousness more than a few of the larger
ones, such as the attempts to create jobs.
As
Democrats move on to passing the 2009 budget and health care and coverage
reform, we can expect them to continue to flood the Republicans with lots of
lesser moves, which various Democratic constituencies consider important. These may include stem cell research; ‘don’t
ask, don’t tell’ and various legislation facilitating labor unionization. Some measures, such as the Employee Free
Choice Act and cutting our military budget will still involve intense
struggle. For more. For more. Before worrying about potential messes, we
should appreciate and congratulate our Democrats for what they are
doing.
With union leaders present, President Obama signed
orders, which union officials say will undo Bush administration policies that
tilted toward employers, would require federal contractors to offer jobs to
current workers when contracts change, and would make it more difficult for
federal contractors to discourage union activities. President Obama signed
the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act (video).
President
Obama signed a children’s health bill, which adds 4 million children to the
9 million who were previously eligible for free health coverage. For
more. With seniors, most children
and poor people covered, the next step is to cover everyone else. President Obama may
expand cooperation with faith based programs.
Several
armed conflicts are diminishing, including in Sri
Lanka and the Congo. International attention should be focused
upon
Now Let’s Win the Support of White Men
President
Obama is not making the mistake of the 1960s Democrats who appeared to favor
women, minorities and poor people more than White men, who then deserted to the
Republicans. Obama is focusing upon
creating jobs and assisting our middle class.
Vice
President Joe Biden says the administration will succeed if our middle class
once again shares in our economic success.
President
Obama has created a task force, chaired by Vice President Joe Biden, aimed
at studying ways to raise living standards for middle class Americans and help
the poor become middle class. The task force will be led by Jared Bernstein, a prominent liberal economist
who has been writing a study on the impact of Mr. Obama's stimulus plan.
The
focus of the first meeting will be "green jobs, those jobs that pay well,
can't be outsourced and will help us move toward a cleaner, more
self-sufficient energy future," Mr. Biden said. For more.
Future monthly meetings will be held across the country to discuss the
mundane but essential concerns of working people like child care, workplace
safety and retirement security, the vice president said. The administration has
set up a Web site, AStrongMiddleClass.gov,
that Mr. Biden said would tell people what their government was doing and
invite them to share their thoughts. For more. Submit your ideas to the
task force.
Commercial Media Interviewers Don’t
Interview
Have
you noticed that interviews on commercial television consist of the interviewer
posing a hypothesis? (For examples: The
stimulus bill is full of pork. Many
stimulus projects won’t begin quickly.) The interviewee is then asked if he or
she agrees. Whatever the answer (often
interrupted), the same question is posed slightly differently. Then still differently a third time. When the interview is over, we have little
idea what the interviewee thinks. But
CNN’s (or other network’s) thinking is very clear.
The
commercial networks could simply quit interviewing officials and candidates,
leaving interviewers to simply present their commentaries. As Wolf Blitzer has stated, “Our role is to
make the news. Our officials try to
avoid it. Baloney. Yuk.
Conservative Misrepresentations
Conservatives
claim that $800 billion is too much to pay for stimulating the economy. What they don’t say is that if the economy
isn’t stimulated, our government will lose several times more than $800
billion, through reduced income taxes and increased unemployment and other
expenses. So we have already spent $800
billion. The question is whether we will
choose a path that helps our people cope with our economic downturn. Will we choose a path that improves our
economy for the long run? Or both? All of the criticism of the
stimulus package spending only concerns 2% of the spending.
Conservatives
are now dividing $800 billion by 4 million jobs to complain that each job
produced by the stimulus package will cost 200,000 dollars. This ignores the hundreds of thousands of
dollars that will be given in tax cuts, more unemployment payment, increasing
food stamps, and similar measures which increase spending, thus producing jobs
only indirectly. I read somewhere that
the actual cost per job is about $60,000.
I don’t know if that is calculated by assuming only $240 million is
being spent on job creation. Or if it
assumes that that 13 million jobs will be directly or indirectly preserved or
created. Or maybe something in between,
with less that $800 million being spent to directly or indirectly create more
than 4 million jobs.
Conservatives
are also complaining that tax rebates for people who don’t pay income taxes are
simply welfare. They fail to recognize
that everybody pays taxes. Workers pay
FICA taxes. Everybody directly or indirectly
pays property and utilities taxes. We
all pay sales taxes. Conservatives
dislike any government expenditure or tax cut that doesn’t reward their
campaign contributing cronies. For more.
Conservatives
are also defending huge corporate salaries and bonuses. They argue that like effective quarterbacks,
effective executive officers and securities deal makers are scarce and must be
paid well. Will they find another
company which will pay them well for destroying it? The problem is that they have not been
effective in helping our economy or even their companies. People shouldn’t be rewarded for producing
and selling mystery securities based on fraudulent mortgages and other
financial assets. For more. For more. For
more.
For more. Obama
is asking for Republican participation, but their price for cooperation is too
high. They simply want to continue
President Bush’s policies. So like
children who get upset, take their marbles and go home, house republicans
mostly from safe districts, voted 100% against our stimulus and recovery
package. They oppose the stimulus
package because they oppose government that works. Republican senators are more likely to occupy
competitive seats, so some of them will support the stimulus package. Even if they could obtain the 40 votes to
sustain a filibuster, they may not risk the public relations disaster that
could follow.
Democratic Tax Cheats
A
lobbyist is selected as presidential assistant.
Democratic tax cheats Timothy Geithner and Tom Daschle are selected as
cabinet members. They apparently have
talents so rare that normal ethics rules don’t apply. Both cabinet members plead that they overlooked
the taxes they owed. Part of being a
patriotic American is ensuring that all of one’s taxes are paid. People who want government positions should
continually vet themselves or hire someone to do it. Unfortunately, even Democrats overlook ethical
lapses of their colleagues.
I am
glad that Tom Daschle has removed himself from consideration for Secretary of
Health and Human Services and that President Obama has apologized for
attempting to appoint him. I hope Obama
will take further steps to weaken the influence of lobbyists backed by campaign
contributions, which make the
Republicans Choose Less Consistently
Conservative National Party Chair
Republican
house members who survived the last election are consistently Conservative,
including many Christian Conservatives. House
Republicans voted unanimously against the stimulus package. By contrast, delegates, who chose Michael
Steel to be their new Republican Party Chair, come from throughout our
Obama Watch – Week 3
An Unprecedented Rapid Start
President
Obama’s transition team quickly filled his staff positions and nominated
cabinet members, with only several glitches.
Although our commercial media pundits dramatize the glitches, he has
already signed various executive orders and several long delayed bills. Our major stimulus-investment package is
moving quickly toward passage.
The
most difficult unresolved issues are responding to mortgage defaults and
bailing out financial companies in order to increase credit. The major obstacle is indecision concerning
how much to continue our Borrow, Consume
and Speculate habits and how much to painfully return to Earn, Conserve and Invest habits, which
were prevalent during our prosperous period following World War II. We need to decide how much credit we should
have and what financial qualifications households should have to assume
mortgages. Our answers to these questions
will ease our making decisions concerning bailing out financial companies and
defaulting borrowers.
A Master Strategist
President
Obama is a master strategist, keeping his eye on winning the war, even as he
loses a few battles. Passing our
stimulus-investment package is winning the war.
Knowing that some Republican Senators must support passage of our
stimulus-investment package, he continues to reach out to them, even at the
cost of some investments in education, other human infrastructure and
assistance to state and local governments.
Our
stimulus-investment package passed the house without any Republican support,
was modified in the Senate to gain 3 Republican votes necessary to passage, and
now has been compromised by a conference committee to be passed soon for
President Obama’s signature. For more. For more. Liberals can support virtually everything in
the package, although we would desire more investment in our physical and
social infrastructure. The package
delivers on President Obama’s campaign promises to cut taxes for 95% of
Americans. It provides greatly needed
assistance our state and local governments.
It
introduces a disagreement between Republican congress members and Republican
state and local officials and legislators.
It opens the door for further public investments. After a 50 year wait, John Kenneth Galbraith
is smiling from heaven.
Poor Framing
I am
surprised that the Obama Administration has poorly framed the cost of our
stimulus-investment package.
Conservatives have been allowed to complain about the $800 billion cost
(over 2 years) as though there would be no cost without the package.
The
Bush administration has left us with an economy which is losing hundreds of
thousands of jobs each month. With an
increase from 4.6 to
7.6% unemployed, there are now 3% (4.6 million) more of the labor force
unemployed than in early 2007. Since each
worker produces $94,000 ($14.5 trillion GDP divided by 153 million workers),
the annual cost to our economy is $430 billion ($94,000 times 4.6 million
workers) per year. At an average annual
earned income of $50,000, lost household income per year equals $230 billion
per year. The cost to our government
would be the lost income tax on $230 billion per year plus the costs of
services and payments caused by increased unemployment.
In
addition, we have lost several trillions in speculative home values and several
trillions in speculative stock market values.
We will and should perhaps lose some more. But stimulating our economy will prevent us
from over-correcting these values and ease the transition to appropriate ones.
If
unemployment continues and increases because our government does nothing, our
economy will lose more than $430 billion a year, our workers will lose more
$230 billion per year and our government will lose some amount. If spending $800 billion puts 4 million
people back to work, increases our national production and their incomes,
reduces the amount of household dislocation (mortgage defaults, bankruptcies,
divorces and mental illness), and the government recovers some of its money, it
may be a very good deal.
This
statistical argument is too complicated for framing, but supports it. The basic
choice is between losing more than $800 billion in production plus
experiencing many other negative consequences (due to Conservative economic
policies) or spending l$800 billion over
the next two years. The economic
stimulus-investment package costs us nothing.
It enables us to regain the more than $800 billion that Bush’s economic
policies have already cost us.
Conservative Hypocrisies
·
Given the
increasing collapse of our economy, only a few Conservatives (mostly ones who
aren’t in congress) argue that no stimulus is needed.
·
They mostly argue
that our stimulus-investment package is too large, even though they voted for
all of President Bush’s budgets with huge deficits.
·
Even though large
tax cuts contributed to our economic mess, Conservatives still argue we need
more tax cuts (including supply side tax cuts for business) instead of
investments which directly create jobs.
·
They argue that
investments in our infrastructure won’t be spent soon enough, even though they
supported permanent tax cuts as
economic stimulus.
·
Even though they
have long argued that services are better offered by state and local
governments instead of our national government, they are now warning that
including funding for the former will be wasted by poor state and local
decisions.
·
They were wrong
when they predicted in 1993 that
I believe that Republican attempts to delay our
stimulus-investment package, their refusal to vote for it and their
hypocritical arguments will harm them.
With 5 incumbent Republican senators not running for re-election in
2010, Democrats can expect to win more senate seats.
Our Current Political Struggle Is Only
the Beginning
Our
Obama administration will soon unveil its 2010 budget proposal. It will surely include more expenditure for
physical and human infrastructure. It
will also include reduction of subsidies for powerful corporations and for
military technology which fulfills no realistic defense need. It may include eliminating the Bush tax cuts
for the wealthy. Republicans and their
cronies will certainly fight these shifts in budget priorities. So expect another big battle. For
more.
Our
Obama administration will then address health care and coverage reform. Even though more Americans, more employers
and more providers will support reform than ever before, private insurers and
market fundamentalist Republicans will provide strong resistance. Complicating the struggle will be a lack of
consensus among reformers concerning whether to support a single payer or a
compromised approach which includes private insurers. So another big battle.
What
will follow in 2010, will depend upon the outcome of these battles. And the extent to which our economy is
recovering. If the economy is recovering
and we win these battles, we can expect even further progress in 2010, followed
by election victories which further weaken the Republican Party. Hopefully, we can also beat Republican state
legislators to preclude them from gerrymandering the redistricting following
the 2010 census.
Obama Watch – Month 1
Transition and Appointments
·
A large diverse
transition team rapidly investigated government agencies and departments to
begin determining priorities for reforming and strengthening them.
·
Key Whitehouse
staff were appointed. See
who’s who.
·
All top Cabinet
offices but two and many sub-cabinet offices have been filled.
·
Other agency
posts were filled.
President Obama’s inaugural address Read or View it.
·
Repeated his
campaign commitments to our constitutional rights and to cooperating with other
nations.
·
Reminded us that
our struggles are many and will not be easy or quickly resolved.
·
Informed us that
resolving these struggles would require not only government action, but action
by all of us collectively and individually.
·
Called for an
ethic of service. His message was one
that both Liberals and Conservatives could approve. For more. More.
Many Changes Begin
·
President Obama
proclaimed a new transparency and accountability in government, established
rules to separate his staff from lobbyists (for
more), and placed a lid on their salaries, all oriented to gaining our
trust.
·
President Obama’s
transition website, change.gov has been closed.
Three new websites have been created:
·
Whitehouse.gov
to promote transparency and america.gov to tell
·
Organizing for America has been
created to allow our grassnet people to continue their support for Liberal
reforms. For more. For
more.
·
Recovery.gov has been created to provide
transparency for the spending of our Stimulus and Recovery funds.
·
He blocked
further implementation of Bush’s final regulations to assist his cronies.
·
He prohibited
torture, stopped military trials of accused terrorists and promised to close our
Guantanamo prison within a year.
Environmental, Health and Labor Actions
·
President Obama
indicated that his administration will move quickly to allow
states to set strict automobile emissions and fuel-efficiency standards. For
more. For more. And
to limit global warming.
·
He reversed
Bush’s ban on aid to family planning agencies.
For
more. For more.
·
With union leaders present,
President Obama signed orders, which union officials say will undo Bush
administration policies that tilted toward employers, would require federal
contractors to offer jobs to current workers when contracts change, and would
make it more difficult for federal contractors to discourage union activities.
·
President Obama signed
the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act (video). For more.
·
President
Obama signed a children’s health bill, which adds 4 million children to the
9 million who were previously eligible for free health coverage. For
more.
·
President Obama
prepared to carefully expand cooperation with faith based programs.
Major Concern #1: Reviving Our American
Economy
Only 24 days after Obama’s inauguration, congress
passed a stimulus-investment package, which largely reflects President Obama’s
initial proposals. He has fulfilled his
promise to cut taxes for 90% of Americans.
See more below.
He reached out to gain sufficient Republican
support. But only three Republican
senators and no Republican representatives voted for the package. Offering no comprehensive alternative,
Republicans are now on record as opponents of stimulating and investing in our
economy. For more. For more. Note that only 1 Republican voted for the
original Social Security bill.
Major Concern #2: Foreign Policy
·
President Obama’s
inaugural speech assured the world that we will no longer take a unilateral
approach.
·
Together with
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden, a strong
foreign policy team is in place to strongly address foreign issues.
·
President and
Hillary Clinton have asserted that our foreign policy will rest on three legs:
diplomacy, development and military.
·
Obama gave his
national security team the mission to end our war in Iraq. For more.
·
As he has done
with other issues, Obama has reframed the settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. In an interview on Arab
television, he said, “I think anybody who has studied the region recognizes
that the situation for the ordinary Palestinian in many cases has not improved.
And the bottom line in all these talks
and all these conversations is, is a child in the
·
Richard Holbrook was
named to address Afghanistan-Pakistan issues.
Perhaps another envoy will be named to address
·
Less noticed, President
is reorganizing the National Security Council to allow flexible
participation by relevant agencies in national security issues.
Whew!
What a start.
Notice
that President Obama is focusing upon improving our future. Not on the past. There is no thermometer of the extent to
which the damage done by President Bush is being undone. There are many issues which have not been
addressed such as: ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ , promoting unionization, regulation
of corporate abuse, eliminating wasted subsidies and other spending, reforming
immigration policies, altering free trade to fair trade,
Obama Watch – Week 5
President
Obama continues performing his busy agenda, including announcements about
stimulating our economy and protecting people from its ravages, foreign policy
and visiting our hinterland.
Our Stimulus-investment Package Becomes
Law
President
Obama traveled to
Fiscal Responsibility
Pledging to bring federal
spending and tax collections back into balance after the deficits resulting
from attempts to revive our economy, Obama held a White House summit on fiscal
responsibility. Bringing together
leading Democratic and Republican lawmakers together with policy experts. They separated into groups which discussed health-care costs, Social Security, tax reform,
defense procurement and the federal budget process, topics which exist apart
from our current recession. While Conservatives
would like to cut Social Security, Obama’s priority is to reform
health care, military procurement and taxes. For
more. Once
again, Obama is seeking bipartisan solutions. For
more. Cuts in spending for military
hardware were discussed. But no mention was made of cutting
subsidies to oil and other wealthy and powerful businesses.
Yes, We Can. And Here’s How.
The next day
(exactly five weeks after his inaugural address), President Obama delivered a
magnificent speech to
a joint session of Congress, in which he stated, “We will rebuild, we will
recover and the United States of America will emerge stronger than
before.” For more. For
more. Noting our economic
difficulties, he presented a series of goals and actions to be taken. Priorities include reviving our economy,
through restoring credit, preventing foreclosures, infrastructure investments,
reforming our environment, health care, and education and restoring fiscal
responsibility through cutting ineffective expenditures and subsidies. For
more on eliminating ineffective military expenditures. For
more. Health
care reform will be addressed this year.
For more.
Obama’s
expression of obvious truths (not mentioned or denied by the Bush
Administration) and presentation of clear goals and actions repeatedly brought
our Democratic and even Republican legislators to their feet. Immediate polls indicated that Obama’s
popularity increased from 69 to 79%.
Hopefully this indicates that we can begin to gain confidence in our
economy. 85% said
they felt more optimistic about our country’s direction after listening to
Obama’s speech. Even our cynical
commercial media pundits could find little to criticize. Once
again, Obama has demonstrated the power of his rhetoric. For
more. With this speech, President
Obama has moved the American center to Liberalism.
Let’s hope that
our congress can address these multiple goals.
And that so many initiatives will make it difficult for K-Street
lobbyists to concentrate their fire. For more. Campaign finance reform would help.
President
Obama’s and Joe Biden’s Wednesday’s agenda was typically busy.
Preliminary Budget Proposal
On Thursday,
Obama delivered a preliminary
view of his proposed 2010 budget, with the full budget proposal to be
presented in April. For
more. For
more. For
more. There will be more commentary
on the 2010 budget in next week’s newsletter.
Foreign Affairs
Having
previously met with
Republican Party May Become Small Enough
to Drown in a Bathtub.
Grover Norquist wants
to make the government so small it can drown in a bathtub. But the way Republicans are going, the
Republican party may become small enough to drown in a bathtub. They have responded to President Obama’s
bi-partisan approach with an almost unanimous ‘Just say no.’ Several Republican Governors are refusing to
take stimulus-investment funds which would create jobs and alleviate misery in
their states.
Republican
Congresswoman Michele
Bachmann said that one of her excuses for 'just saying no' to President Obama's
economic recovery bill was because "we're running out of rich people in this
country."
Republican Senator Shelby has questioned whether President
Obama is an American citizen. Louisiana’s
Republican Governor Bobby Jindal’s response to President Obama’s speech to
congress was weird. He indicated
that Republicans support the things that Obama had just promoted, while
accusing Democrats of opposing them.
9000 Conservative activists at the annual Conservative
Political Action Conference (CPAC) are listening to their most Conservative leaders
discuss how to repackage the same old stagnant ideas. Let’s win the remaining red states in
2006.
Gary
Locke for Commerce Secretary. Ron
Sims for Housing and Urban Development Deputy Secretary. Seattle
Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske to head the Office of National Drug Control Policy,
a Cabinet-level position otherwise known as the drug czar. And ethnic diversity with Chinese, African
and Polish heritages.
Obama Watch – Week 6
Also go to Whitehouse.gov.
President Obama’s Proposed Budget
President
Obama’s stimulus-investment package, calls for regulation and proposed budget
put an
end to the era of government being the problem instead of the solution. One of the best things about President
Obama’s proposed budget is its honesty,
so we can easily find out what it does and the truth of various claims
concerning it. Read the entire
budget and fact sheets. President
Obama’s honesty includes shining light on the costs of our wars. For more. For more. For more. For
more. For
more.
The
budget is also Liberal, distributing undeserved money from our wealthy to
our poorer people.
The budget includes major initiatives
concerning protecting our environment, health care and education. It will raise $2 trillion over ten years
through raising taxes on corporations and wealthy people. It
also rewards people who may become part of a long time Democratic majority. Early reports failed to mention repeal of
subsidies for oil companies; but they are there with other tax reforms. See
table S-6 of the budget summary tables.
For more. I am concerned that President Obama’s proposed budget
increases instead of decreases our military budget. For
more. Progressive
Democrats of America call for cutting military to fund health care and
non-carbon based energy. For more. For more. For
more. See what we could do with
the wasted military expenditures.
As he stood before Congress on
Tuesday night, President Obama had job approval percentages in the 60s. After
his speech, CBS News found that support for his economic plans increased from
63 percent to 80. For
more. For
more. For
more.
A Profile in Courage: President
Obama’s Weekly Saturday Address (text and video)
“Because it represents real and dramatic change, it
also represents a threat to the status quo in
“The system we have now might work for
the powerful and well-connected interests that have run
But President Obama
appears to have ruled out single-payer health coverage. For more.
Will Our 2 Senators and 6 Democratic
Congress Members Support President Obama?
Of
interest is whether our
When Will President Obama Deal with
Other Major Issues?
Unlike
numerous other Liberals, I have admired President Obama’s carefully pursuing an
agenda which enables him to continually build political support, then spending
his political capital on the most important issues. I have admired his willingness to compromise
just enough to pass necessary legislation.
I admire his openness about what he is doing, while recognizing that it
may not be useful for him to make public and alert his opponents concerning his
agenda.
But
I wish I knew when we will see action on various issues:
James Kunstler
Asks Whether Obama Will Lead Us to Change Our Consumption Mindset.
No
good, in fact, will come of a campaign to sustain the unsustainable, which is
exactly what the Obama program is starting to look like. In the folder marked
"unsustainable" you can file most of the artifacts, usufructs,
habits, and expectations of recent American life: suburban living, credit-card
spending, Happy Motoring, vacations in Las Vegas, college education for the
masses, and cheap food among them. All these things are over. The public may
suspect as much, but they can't admit it to themselves, and political
leadership has so far declined to speak the truth about it for them -- in
short, to form a useful consensus that will allow us to move forward
effectively. One of the sad paradoxes of politics is that democracies do not
seem very good at disciplining their citizens' behavior. The wish to please
voters and the influence of campaign money overwhelm even leaders with mature
instincts.
AIG Receives $30 Billion More from Our
Government
This
brings the total amount that AIG has received to $180 billion, the same amount
that was received by our public in the first tax rebate. Being considered too big to fail, AIG may
receive billions more in the future. At
the least, AIG should be broken up so that the parts aren’t too big to
fail. For more. For more.
Republican Lies
Republicans are lying
about the impact of his proposals. For more. Commentator Frank Rich noted that if more
viewers had watched Republican Louisiana Governor Bobbie Jindal’s response,
President Obama’s favorability rating might have reached 100%. Republicans are holding a
conference of Conservative Kooks. For
more. The
Republicans are not only not reaching out, they are alienating long time
allies. No Republican
seems willing to censor Rush Limbaugh for wanting President Obama’s economic
initiatives to fail.
Republican
representatives cater to their Conservative constituents, dooming their
party’s chances of winning in the rest of the country. They seem to believe erroneously that most
people believe in crony capitalism, trickle-down (tax cuts for the rich)
economics and unregulated markets. Let’s
hope they continue proclaiming their delusions.
For
more. For
more. For more. For
more.
We
should have a contest. Who do you
support for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination: Sarah Palin or Bobby
Jindal? Or maybe Rush Limbaugh or Ann
Coulter? Other similar possibilities
come to mind, but no different ones who could be nominated. With opponents like these, President Obama
will be re-elected, even if he screws up big time.
Rebuilding
Next
week’s Obama Watch will include Obama’s White House Conference on Health Care
Reform.
Obama Watch – Week 7
Also go to Whitehouse.gov.
Two Approaches to Health Care Reform:
One or Two Steps
Unlike
the 1993 attempt to reform health care, President Obama initiated his attempt
with a White House Conference on Health Care Reform which included a wide
variety of stake-holders (insurers, employers, providers, consumers and
legislators and others, although few advocates of a single-payer (Medicare
type) system). For more. More. More. More. Our media is also ignoring
single payer alternatives. For more.
Instead
of presenting any specific proposals, Obama indicated that reform could include
all private or all public coverage or some combination, but must meet three
criteria:
1.
everyone has
access
2.
to high quality
health care
3.
with cost
controls
All of the participants apparently agreed that reform
now is necessary (although they could change their minds if the reforms that
are considered don’t meet their approval).
One approach would be to attempt to adopt a single payer health
system now, even though stiff opposition from private insurers would
result. Many advocates of health care reform
and a majority of our American people believe that only a single payer system
(used by all other countries with national health care coverage) can be
affordable. For more. We believe that allowing private insurance
invariably increases costs due to assessing who qualifies for what. And reduces coverage due to motivations to
disqualify people. The result is that
not everyone is covered, quality of health care suffers, and it is expensive. This is proven by our present system and the
failure of the
President
Obama is pursuing a second approach
which reduces resistance through allowing participation of private
insurers. Once the new system is adopted
to enable coverage for everyone, the costs of including private insurance will
become apparent, especially is there is a public coverage option. It will then be possible to proceed to a
single payer system. For more. But private
insurers are objecting to having to compete with a public insurance option. For more. For
more.
For
more. For more. For
more. For
more.
Flexible Foreign Policy
Hillary Clinton is
continuing her travels to visit foreign leaders, see better relations and
explore new joint initiatives. Our
Obama administration is opening
up more foreign policy options.
Science and Stem Cell Research
Declaring
that science, not ideology will guide his administration, President
Obama allows scientists who use newer stem cell lines to apply for federal
funding. For more. For more. President
Obama repudiates president Bush’s signing statements.
Increased Support for Quality Education
Through
his stimulus package and 2010 budge, President Obama is doubling the money for
education compared to President Bush’s budget.
To make our students more competitive with students in other countries,
money is increased for early childhood education, for encouraging students to
graduate from high school and to ease their entrance into college. Particular attention is given to high poverty
hard-to-staff schools.
The
money is contingent upon schools rewarding excellent teachers and assisting or
replacing poor ones. Merit will be
measured in various ways including certification and student achievement, to be
decided through consultation with parents and teachers. Obama also supports charter schools as
laboratories for innovation. Educational
associations worry about merit pay and charter schools, but appreciate that
they will participate in defining merit.
For
more. For
more.
Promoting Unionization
House
Democrats introduced the Employee Free Choice Act, a vitally important
package of protections that would help restore working people's much-denuded
right to join a union if they so desire. There's nothing more terrifying
to corporate
Limiting Compensation of Executives of
Bailed-Out Companies
President
Obama has proposed limiting their compensation to $500,000, which is 25% more
than he receives. Median
If
all these ‘best and brightest’ financial company executives (who played key
roles in destroying our economy) quit instead of serving for $500,000, we might
be better off.
2009 Budget Bill Passed
President
Obama will sign 2009 budget legislation (for 9 remaining appropriation bills),
which includes significant increases for food aid and housing vouchers for our
poor, energy research and other programs.
It has earmarks, but only half as many as previous bills, 60% from
Democrats and 40% from Republicans. For
more.
Special Interests Ready to Fight
Businesses
in many industries are mobilizing to resist regulations, tax increases, cuts in
their subsidies. For
more.
Obama Watch – Week 8
Also go to Whitehouse.gov.
Multi-Tasking Big-Time
President
Obama is simultaneously dealing with a large number of major issues: taxes,
jobs, infrastructure investments, conservation, energy, health and
education. And other issues: government
ethics and transparency, science, women’s rights, and more. And making appointments and getting them
approved. And communicating with the public much more than any previous
president. For more.
Obama
administration is taking ethics seriously.
Obama
administration is taking military spending reform seriously.
President
Obama created an advisory committee to advise him on issues facing women. For
more.
President
Obama created a Food Safety Working Group to upgrade our food safety laws.
President Obama
restricted the use and sale of cluster bombs.
President Obama seeks
cooperation with and support for the United Nations.
Note
that President Obama never promised to eliminate all earmarks, as did John
McCain.
President
Obama is faced with gay rights decision concerning health benefits for
partners.
Apparently,
immigration reform will not be attempted until this fall. For
more. For
more.
Will
President Obama replace all U.S. Attorneys at once or stagger the replacements?
Large and Small Businesses and Community
Banks
During
his talk
with Business Roundtable leaders, President Obama defended his initiatives
to deal with a number of issues that affect our economy. He also indicated his desire to work closely
with leaders of large businesses and help them succeed in sensibly regulated
economy.
I
have long regretted that Democrats did not serve small businesses better,
noting that more families have members engaged in small businesses than have
members of unions. Small businesses
produce many innovations and new jobs.
Yet Democrats have often imposed unfunded mandates on small businesses,
instead of initiating tax and other programs to assist them. The result is that small businesses have
supported Republicans.
I
have also suggested that our government should assist local and regional banks
to offer more credit instead of focusing upon the large banks which largely
caused our credit crisis. So I am
pleased that President
Obama met with owners of small businesses and managers of community banks
to express his support for them. He is
restoring the ability of the Small Business Administration to assist low cost
loans to small businesses. Our Treasury
Department will purchase $15 billion of loans from community banks, so that
they can recover funds to make more loans.
Large financial companies will be required to report their loans to
small businesses. Various tax breaks
which will benefit small businesses will also be implemented. For
more. For
more. For
more.
Government by Shock and Awe Miracles
We
could call it government by miracles. A
miracle is simply a surprise. When
something happens that no one expects.
Although almost all of President Obama’s actions were promised during
his campaign to become election, most of our public was skeptical. So now we are impressed. During these difficult times, Obama’s
popularity is increasing.
Nervous
Liberals are warning that Obama is taking on so much that he will fail. For
more. For more. They are worried that he may try to go one
bridge too far. But by attempting many
bridges across the same river, he improves the chances of crossing the
river. Obama honestly says that not all
of his initiatives will work. But then
he will try others until we succeed. The
relevant question is: Can Congress cross many bridges quickly?
Conservatives Are Losing Ground
Obama
is providing Conservatives so many targets that they can’t concentrate their
fire. They whine about this, then about
that, simply repeating the same lies and prescriptions that were disproved by
their rule. For
more.
To
obtain a relevant balance, it would make sense for our television forums to
feature arguments between Liberals who think Obama is compromising too much
with Liberals who think he is only making necessary short-term compromises,
leaving scratched-record Conservatives out of it. But the more Conservatives repeat their same
old proven wrong diagnoses and prescriptions, the more unpopular they become.
Controlling Health Care Costs
Little
noticed is a comment that President Obama made during his health summit. He said that he would not restrict older
persons from receiving health care that younger people receive. I have assumed that one necessity for
reducing health care costs is to use cost benefit calculations to restrict
expensive end-of-life care as other countries do. Obama’s statement will reassure older people
who might otherwise oppose health care reform.
73%
of voters support having public health insurance as one alternative.
We should offer
public health insurance (like Medicare) to all.
How Strong Is our Economy?
Pundits
are noting an inconsistency between President Obama’s statement that our
economy has fundamental strengths (entrepreneurial spirit, workers who work
hard, an excellent higher education system); but before the election, he
criticized John McCain for saying our economy is fundamentally strong. The difference is that before the election,
John McCain downplayed our economic recession, while Obama has consistently
emphasized it. Obama’s message is that
while we are having a severe recession, we have the resources and the will to
recover.
Even
as unemployment (a lagging indicator) continues to increase, there are
various indicators that our economy is beginning to stabilize. A
manpower survey of 31,800 employers found that only 14% plan to cut their
payroll. Moderate
inflation instead of deflation occurred in February. Housing
starts are increasing. Obama said
that the days of overheated housing markets and maxed-out credit cards are
over. He said that “It is very important
even as we’re focused on the financial system and credit markets, that we are
laying the foundation for what I’m calling a post-bubble economic growth model.”
The Good News and the Bad
President
Obama repeatedly presents various groups with both good news and bad. He gives them some of what they want, while
denying them other things they want. He
will pay teachers more and work closely with them to set standards; but wants
merit pay and charter schools. He will
allow private insurance, but will remove their subsidies and may provide a
public insurance alternative. He will
seek input from business leaders as he implements regulations. He will considering lowering corporate taxes,
but will close loopholes which now allow businesses to escape most taxes. He will help American businesses to be
competitive with foreign ones, but will make it disadvantageous for them to
move jobs abroad. He will seek equal
rights for GLBT people, but not marriage.
You
get the idea. The various groups have
the choice of gratefully accepting what he gives, or of insisting they must
have more. Which runs the risk that they
will get less.
Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, a
Refreshing Change
I am
impressed that Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is holding daily (weekdays) press
conferences, at which he relates well to the press, with a balance of this is
our policy, I don’t want to steal the president’s message tomorrow, I don’t
know, I’ll find out, your question is trivial, etc.
He
often banters with the press: During Monday's press briefing, CNN's Ed
Henry asked Robert Gibbs to respond to Dick Cheney's withering attack on
President Obama. Gibbs
fired off a good one-liner in response, joking that apparently the GOP
didn't have Rush Limbaugh available, so they trotted out Cheney, the "next
most popular member of the Republican cabal." Also
read CNN’s supportive interview with Dick Cheney, with John King as straight
man. Yuk.
I
don’t get the impression that Robert Gibbs will lie to us in order to make the
president look good, as has been common practice among past press
secretaries. But he may equivocate and
make excuses.
President Obama’s Eisenhower Strategy
During
World War II, General Montgomery wanted our allied armies to thrust forward
toward
Economically
As critics
call upon President Obama to concentrate upon reviving credit, he is instead
taking a multi-pronged approach:
·
Free large
financial companies of toxic loans;
·
Provide a
stimulus-investment package (tax cuts; assistance to state and local governments
and schools to maintain jobs; infrastructure, conservation and non-carbon based
energy investments; and other measures to maintain and increase private and
public jobs)
·
Enable homeowners
with defaulting mortgages to reduce their payments
·
Assist family
security through extending subsidized health coverage
·
Reinsure for
community bank loans
·
Give tax breaks
to small businesses
·
And more
A
million jobs here, 500 thousand there, several hundred thousands here and
there. Soon there are real numbers,
millions of jobs maintained or restored.
Politically
President
Obama is not simply relying on support of Democrats and their allied interest
groups (such as minorities, labor unions, teachers associations and GLBT
groups. He is reaching out to a variety
of other groups to which Democrats have traditionally given little attention:
White working class males through job creation, women through defending their
rights, health providers and insurers, executives of large businesses, small
business owners and managers, and even Republicans. A few million supporters here, a million
there, hundreds of thousands elsewhere and pretty soon there are real numbers,
millions of supporters widely spread throughout our social fabric.
I
notice that Michelle Obama arranged for a White House fountain to turn green in
celebration of St. Patrick’s Day. Will
this produce more support from thousands of the 51 million Americans with Irish
ancestry? It all adds up. Just teasing.
As
in basketball with which he is familiar, Obama is executing a full court
press. As financial advisors suggest, he
is maintaining a balanced portfolio.
Instead of placing all his eggs in a one basket, he is hedging his bets. This strategy is particularly sensible when
dealing with new situations, in which solutions are uncertain. My
optimism about Obama’s economic and political success is based upon his superb
implementation of Eisenhower’s European war strategy. His strategy is audacious in fighting on so
many fronts, but less audacious than dramatically plunging on one or a few.
As
is often true, pundits are wrong to criticize Obama’s broad based economic and
political strategies. Obama’s success
will drive them nuts. They will look
for, but be unable to find, one or a few dramatic activities which explain his
success. What we need are fewer
commercial audience oriented pundits and more well educated social analysts,
able to make historical and social comparisons.
President Obama has hosted meetings which included
employers, private health insurers and health providers, big and small business
executives and bankers. But note that he
hasn’t hosted union leaders (Labor feels excluded.),
nor Hispanic leaders concerned with immigration or GLBT people. Is he assuming that he already has their
support? Or can act to obtain it
later?
Neither
President Obama nor the Change
for America book which prescribes structures and proposals for the
Obama administration have given much attention to
Compare Democratic and Republican Leaders
President
Obama is a devoted husband and father, with a healthy lifestyle (except for
smoking). Self indulgent Rush Limbaugh
is a bulky, cigar-smoking, pain killer addicted, thrice divorced owner of a
$400,000 car, private plane and 24,000 square foot house. Unlike Barack Obama, Rush Limbaugh thrives
upon expressing hate.
Other
differences include their respect for truth, their respect for American
traditions and their compassion, with Rush Limbaugh failing on all three. Many other Republican leaders resemble Rush
Limbaugh much more than they resemble Barack Obama.
Obama Watch – Week 9
Also go to Whitehouse.gov.
During previous weeks, President Obama’s
agenda dominated our news.
Obama
made executive decisions, signed several bills into law, promoted and signed
our stimulus-investment package, presented his proposed 2010 budget which
reached 10 years into the future, held various gatherings concerning health
care, large businesses, small businesses and community banks. In addition, special envoys were appointed
and trips made to explore diplomatic possibilities in the Mid-East.
Week 9 Was Very Different.
The
news was dominated by ‘retention bonuses’ given to AIG present and past
employees.
Reducing our Dependence upon Carbon
Energies
President
Obama has followed up his fiscal responsibility and health summits with a press
conference featuring private and public attempts to replace our coal, oil and
natural gas consumption with non-carbon based electricity. And to lower our energy consumption. For more about Obama’s
strategy for a green economy. I
guess that he will soon hold a summit or other gathering concerning education
reform. A compromise
may be reached concerning concerns of teachers and education reformers.
Creating Volunteer Jobs
President
Obama called for a new era of volunteer service in both his radio address and
in a commentary
in Time Magazine. He is promoting
the Serve America and GIVE acts which congress is considering. They will provide volunteer employment for
250,000 Americans a year, as well as assisting social entreneurship and
volunteer programs. They will likely pass
congress and be signed into law soon.
Dialoguing with our Public
When
I watch President Obama or Press Secretary Robert Gibbs with members of the
press, they seem like giants among pygmies.
At press conferences, many reporters ask questions which are designed to
elicit information that affects our people.
Some reporters (especially those from CNN) simply ask ‘gotcha’ questions
(of the “Have you stopped beating your wife?” variety) designed to embarrass
the president. Instead of focusing on
what the president is saying about our economic mess and steps to recover, our
electronic media focus upon President Obama’s discomfort, or supposed gaffes.
President
Obama is continuing to find new ways to dialogue with the public. He held several town meetings in
Obama’s
public popularity remains high, in spite of criticisms from pundits and
politicians across our ideological spectrum.
People appreciate the gusto with which President Obama is acting, with
less understanding and concern about his specific decisions and actions. For
more. President
Obama avoids labeling his actions as Liberal or Progressive. But they are Liberal and as they succeed,
Liberals can claim victory for their political values, proposals and
strategies.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner Gets a
‘A’ for Effort
Treasury
Secretary Tim Geithner has now presented his 4th or 5th
proposal for restoring credit. He
intends to provide public assistance and guarantees to private investors who
participate in auctions of toxic securities.
The intent is to establish a market and prices for these toxic assets. This will enable better understanding of the
worth of large financial companies and their ability to provide credit.
It
relies upon a market in which private investors establish a price, instead of
the large companies trying to establish a high price and the government perhaps
trying to establish to low a price.
While it puts our government at some risk, our risk is less than if our
government bought the toxic securities without private participation. I don’t understand how the bidders can
establish prices for the disparate combinations of mystery securities. But I hope it works to establish prices, with
minimal ultimate cost to taxpayers. For
Dean Baker’s criticism of Tim Geithner’s latest bailout proposal. Paul
Krugman’s criticism. Joe Stiglitz presents some
principles for reviving financial markets.
For
more. For
more.
Tim
Geithner is also seeking authority to regulate hedge funds and other
financial companies that aren’t now regulated.
Are Proposed Federal Expenditures and
Deficits too Large?
Various
Conservative congress members and commentators are criticizing the size of the
deficits involved in President Obama’s 2010 budget proposal. What they fail to note is that the choice is not between large budget
deficits and smaller deficits. The
choice is between large budget deficits resulting from investments to create
jobs and even larger budget deficits which will result if jobs are not
created. Obama’s budget deficits are
really preventive measures to counteract President Bush’s larger potential
budget deficits.
Our
Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has predicted larger budget deficits than
those predicted by Obama’s 2010 budget.
The difference is the assumptions concerning amount of economic recovery
and amount of production, earnings and revenues which will result. Although we can’t be certain about the rate
and amount of economic recovery, I believe that Obama’s assumptions are as
likely to be as true as the assumptions of the CBO.
Primary Opposition to Republicans, Not
Democrats
When
Republicans vote with Democrats, they are threatened by opposition from
consistently Conservative Republicans in primary elections. But when Democrats vote with Republicans
against Democratic legislation, primary opponents are typically not
threatened. Why not? And why is it taking so long for Change
for America to continue the support for Obama’s policies that its members
provided for Barack Obama’s election.
It’s time for Liberals to support President Obama’s Liberal 2010 budget
and punish Democrats who threaten to obstruct its health care reform and cap
and trade proposals. For
more. For more (video). Democrats should also be pushed to support
our Workers Free Choice Act. For
more. For
more.
I
notice frequent references to Dems as an abbreviation of Democrats. I don’t notice Rees, Reps, or Repubs as
abbreviations for Republicans. I prefer
that we use Democrats instead of Dems. I
also deplore the use of Democrat as an adjective. For example, Democrat senators instead of
Democratic senators, or Democrat party instead of Democratic party.
Is There Light at the End of
the Tunnel?
It
is easy for various important statistics to go unnoticed. During the last few weeks, we have
experienced a more stable stock market.
Housing prices are continuing to decline, but housing sales are
beginning to increase. Oil prices have
recently been increasing. The value of
our dollar is again declining, which can help our exports. This is too short a time period to announce a
trend. But taken together, they bolster
the thought that the economy is beginning to revive. The key will be what happens to
employment. For
more.
I
believe that besides the actions of our government to stimulate the creation of
jobs, there are many private parties who are seeking to create jobs. Managers and employees want to expand and
create jobs, when they find an opportunity to do so profitably. People who have been laid off are seeking
ways to create jobs for themselves.
These efforts counteract the lack of market demand which is pushing
companies to pare their workforces.
Given a glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel, many firms and
entrepreneurs may quickly act to retain employees, recall them and create
additional jobs. Dean
Baker presents a more pessimistic view, arguing that more stimulus is needed.
Quieter Progress
I
suspect a lot of quiet progress is being made as cabinet secretaries reorder
the priorities, resources and structure of their departments. See
what’s happening at USDA, EPA and FDA concerning food safety and nutrition. No
more raids against medical marijuana.
EPA halts
hundreds of mountaintop mining permits.
Five
federal departments illustrate the opportunities for reform.
Work
is continuing on the details of our 2010 federal budget, which may be presented
in May with some significant changes from the preliminary overview. Stimulus-investment tax cuts and funds are
becoming available to their recipients.
President
Obama appointed a Sudan envoy, Scott Gration. For
more. More
about Obama’s diplomatic overtures. Obama administration
considers sending development funds to other Afghan officials than corrupt
President Karzai.
Little things Mean a
Michelle
Obama had green dye put in a White House fountain for St. Patrick’s Day. Now she has organized
some school children to plant an organic garden on the White House grounds. For
more. Like motherhood and apple pie,
Michelle
Obama has also toured federal agencies, addressed tens of thousands of their
employees, thanking them for their service and discussing how our economic
stimulus-investment package will improve their work. She has as much imagination and energy as her
husband. What an outstanding first wife,
first mom and one of two first professionals.
It has been suggested that she and
other spouses should receive part of the pay going to their employed spouse,
perhaps $100,000 for her and $300,000 to Barack. We don’t hear much about the valuable
contribution of our first grandmother and mother-in-law to our first family and
country.
Obama Watch – Week 10
Also go to Whitehouse.gov.
President Obama’s Organizational
Discipline
Our
present administration is more
disciplined than any previous administration. White House officials meet weekly to decide
their agenda for coming weeks. A limited
number of important meetings are held and they are disciplined. President Obama reserves time for thinking
and mingling. The results are both
effective and efficient. Especially
compared with recent administrations.
Read
about Obama’s marketing strategy.
Obama’s
boldness with cautions is confusing both his critics and supporters.
If
our economy doesn’t quickly begin to recover, opponents of our economic
stimulus-investment package will say it isn’t working and should be
repealed. If our economy does quickly
begin to recover, opponents will say our package isn’t needed and should be
repealed.
President Obama: Here, There, Everywhere
On
Wednesday, President Obama appeared at a Wednesday evening fundraiser.
On
Thursday, he held a virtual
town meeting.
On
Friday, he
met with executives of large banks. For
more.
On
Saturday, his
weekly address extolled volunteerism. For
more.
Since
President Obama became president, his campaign for public support continues.
President
Obama’s diversified media strategy is maintaining his popularity
When people are picking at
President Obama from all directions, can he be wrong?
March
31 NY
congressional race is a referendum on President Obama’s economic policies
2010 Budget
President
Obama’s 2010 budget is being approved by congress. For
more. 2010
budget appropriation bills may need with only 50 votes to pass senate. The biggest threat to passing Obama’s
proposals is unruly
Democratic congress members. For
more. For
more.
Republican budget
outline reduces taxes for rich, increases taxes for the rest of us. For more. Democratic
ad lampoons Republicans so-called budget (video). By contrast, James Galbraith calls for an economic
revitalization program similar to wartime mobilization.
Legislation
Congress
passed and President Obama signed a Wilderness
Protection bill which adds more than 2 million acres to
The Serve
America bill has been passed by both houses of congress. It awaits President Obama’s signature when he
returns from
Binding
mercury emissions control treaty results from Obama administration efforts.
Policy
Tim
Geithner and Ben Bernanke propose comprehensive regulation of financial
companies.
President
Obama is forcing General Motors to become much smaller if it is to
survive. Chrysler is again becoming part
of a foreign company. For
more.
Our
Transportation Dept. announced tougher mileage standards, the first in 25
years. Government
may provide cash to those who trade in clunkers for more fuel efficient new
cars.
On
March 27, Obama announced an
Afghanistan/Pakistan strategy to prevent either from being a safe haven for
Al Qaeda, including military, diplomatic and development aid components. For
more. For
more. Is Obama overestimating
the danger that
President Obama plans a
late April Climate Summit with representatives of 16 major countries.
European Trip
Since Barack Obama was inaugurated on Tuesday, January
20th, I have been counting weeks as running from Tuesday through the
next Tuesday. So we will report the
Obama’s European trip next week (week 11).
Here is his itinerary:
Tuesday: Travels to
Thursday: Attends G-20
economic summit in
Friday: Goes to NATO
summit in
Saturday: Travels to
April 5: Travels to
April 6: Visits
April 7: Returns to
Here
are preliminary commentaries: one. Two. Three. Four. In spite of
President
Obama gave Queen Elizabeth an iPod. More
appropriately, he might have given her two former colonies. Perhaps
Major Political Battles to Come
Strong
lobbies will resist health care reform, cap and trade climate emissions
control, military spending reductions, and measures which promote
unionization. Our Obama administration
has so far delayed or indicated compromise on these various issues. Unless these hard fought issues are resolved
to produce necessary reforms, our deficits may be much greater and corporations
will continue to create for financial inequality.
Health Care
While
there
is widespread agreement that health reform is needed now, there is disagreement
about various aspects. Particularly
whether public health insurance should at least be an option to private health
insurance. This
and other issues are being negotiated now by White House and Congressional
participants.
In
any event, we will learn that a system which includes private health insurance
will be unaffordable, even if other problems of access and complexity can be
solved. For
more. For
more. Any money saved will come
later, so how
to pay for health reform?
Cap and Trade
Coal
interests strongly oppose Cap and Trade legislation which will reduce the use
of coal. They and their Republican
supporters argue that, like a tax increase, it will increase costs for
consumers. But the money obtained can be
given back to consumers, who will benefit in the longer run from cheaper
alternative energies, less pollution and less global warming. House
Democratic leaders have introduced a plan.
For more. For
more.
Reduce Military Spending
Our
Obama administration’s budget proposal includes a 4%
increase in military expenditures.
Cutting these expenditures is necessary to obtain money for domestic
infrastructure and safety net programs.
Just as important, a large military with many hundreds of foreign bases,
tempts us to an imperial foreign policy, including military action and the
alienation of other countries and their peoples.
Promoting Unionization
Businesses
are strenuously opposing legislation and other measures to make unionization
easier.
Unions
insist that they have sufficient congressional support. But so far the Obama administration and
congress have delayed action.
Key
to resolving these issues are the Obama administration’s policies and the votes
of our often inconsistently Liberal Democratic Congress Members. Our readers should respond to our petitions
to tell our congress members to strongly support these reforms.
Obama Watch – Week 11
Also go to Whitehouse.gov.
Travels Abroad
Tuesday: Traveled to
Thursday: Attended G-20
economic summit in
Friday: Went to NATO
summit in
Saturday: Traveled to
April 5: Traveled to
April 6: Visited
April 7: Visited
G-20 Agreements
G-20
agreed to clamp down on tax havens and to provide money for the IMF to assist
poorer nations to counter their economic collapse. Dean Baker questions whether
IMF is best funding agency. G-20
agreed to international regulatory back-up to national regulations. European countries argued that their safety
net is enough stimulus, but agreed to more stimulus if it is needed. Dean Baker argues that Europeans
need to implement more stimulus.
President Obama’s Successful Mediation
Mr. Sarkozy and Mr. Hu disagreed about tax
havens. Mr. Obama pulled Mr. Sarkozy
aside, took him to a corner, "and discussed possible alternatives. Once they arrived at one, President Obama
"sent a message to the Chinese" that a counter-offer was on the
table. The Chinese spent some time considering the offer. But they took a few minutes. So Mr. Obama, with the assistance of translators,
suggested that he and Mr. Hu have a conversation as well. They, too went to the
corner to talk. After a few minutes, Mr. Obama called upon Mr. Sarkozy to join
them. They reached an agreement. There was a multiple shaking of hands.
Diplomacy Done Right
President
Bush refused to negotiate with countries with whose policies and actions he
disagreed, derogating them instead for domestic political reasons. Turning 180 degrees, President Obama looks
for points of agreement and possible cooperation with other countries,
negotiating with them on such issues to open the way for negotiating issues of
disagreement. We are quickly seeing that
many possibilities for cooperation exist between our Country and
A New Relationship
On
Friday at a French town meeting, President Obama called for a new relationship
between Europe and the
In
Legislative Expectations
Both houses of congress passed budget resolutions which provide
most of what President Obama asked. Our
Obama administration hopes that by the August recess, House and Senate
committees will have sent health care bills to the floor and Waxman's House committee
will have reported out a comprehensive energy bill. But opposition
to President Obama’s proposals will be difficult to overcome.
See
arguments for inclusion of public health insurance in the health reform. For
more.
President Obama’s Multiple Strategies for
Reducing Global Warming
Cap and Trade
The
goal of cap and trade is to "steadily reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas
emissions economy-wide in a cost-effective manner." The "cap" is
an annual limit on total pollution; large emitters (such as power plants and
petroleum refineries) must acquire pollution allowances from the government.
These allowances can be traded, "rewarding the most efficient companies
and ensuring that the cap can be met at the lowest possible cost to the
economy.
As
McKinsey and Company has found, putting a cap on carbon emissions corrects market failures by driving investment into efficiency and fuel economy
improvements that actually save everyone money. Then it spurs investment into
the expansion of renewable energy, creating new jobs and a competitive
advantage in the international marketplace. Despite conservative claims, environmental protection creates economic growth. When a
cap-and-trade program to stop acid rain pollution from power plants was
established in 1990, as Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Daniel J.
Weiss explains, industry studies included "hysterical predictions" about "the loss of tens
of thousands of jobs, and compliance costs totaling tens of billions of
dollars." In reality, pollution reductions cost "one quarter of
original EPA estimates," electricity rates fell 10 percent, and the
Energy Conservation
Total
electricity use, per capita, 1960-2001
Because a coherent energy
policy is critical to our nation's future, Obama's proposed plan goes far
beyond capping emissions to reform the transportation and electricity infrastructure, prioritize energy efficiency, transform the housing industry, and create millions of new high-paying
jobs. For more.
Jim McDermott’s Bill
Congressman Jim McDermott
introduced The Clean Environment and Stable Energy Market Act of 2009 in
the House of Representatives. You can read the bill online at www.Thomas.gov. He says, “I want to reduce carbon emissions
over time through the use of permits sold at a predictable price that is set by
the Secretary of the Treasury.” “Price
predictability is key to enabling producers of products and resources that emit
greenhouse gas emissions to reduce their carbon footprint. The reason is
simple- the enormous financing that it will take to transform America into a
clean and renewable economy will need a stable financial market in order to
thrive and sustain this transformation.“
”Yes, my legislation mandates reductions in carbon emissions; in fact, there is
a schedule in the legislation that cuts carbon emissions 80% by the middle of
the century. And the bill includes a Climate Protection and Economic Security
Trust Fund where revenue raised from the sale of permits would be deposited. I
envision this money being used to help nurture and sustain the transformation
of
Obama Watch – Week 12 (April 7 – 14)
Also go to Whitehouse.gov.
Foreign Policy
Copying a strategy
used successfully in Iraq, U.S. is recruiting local militias in Afghanistan.
President
Obama’s Foreign Policy
President
Obama and the United Nations For
more. For
more. For
more.
President Obama vowed to
cooperate with other countries to counteract piracy. For
more.
President
Obama relaxes restrictions on travel and gifts to Cuba.
President
Obama plans trip to Latin American summit.
Stimulus-Investment Package
Infrastructure
projects costing less than expected, allowing more of them.
On
Tuesday at Georgetown University, President Obama described 5 pillars of
recovery (video). More. For
more.
Health Care Reform
Max Baucus
leads struggle for health reform.
Largest
battle will be whether to include public health insurance option.
Arguments
for including a public health insurance option in health reform package.
House
Liberals may insist upon including a public health insurance option in health
reform package. For
More.
Health care costs can’t
be cut by other measures than replacing private with public health insurance. For more.
People
without health care insurance aren’t an organized advocacy group.
Other Initiatives
President
Obama promotes refinancing mortgages
Attorney
General Eric Holder restores disclosures required by freedom of information
act.
Carol
Browner is promoting President Obama’s Energy and Climate Initiatives.
Various
political alternatives exist for dealing with climate change. Unclear which will prevail.
Environmental
Protection Agency is reversing Bush Administration environmental policies.
Obama
Administration will rewrite regulations to better protect spotted owls.
White
House is reaching out to Washington, DC schools and students.
Obama’s
weekly address All weekly addresses.
President Obama’s continues to be
popular at 68%. Republicans unpopularity
is 66%. For
more.
Organizing
for America (successor to Obama’s campaign organization) is off to a slow
start.
Obama Watch – Week 13 (April 14 – 21)
Also go to Whitehouse.gov.
During
the first 10 weeks of Barack Obama’s presidency, the focus was on our
economy. The stimulus-investment
package, the remaining 2009 appropriations bills and the State Children’s
Health Insurance Program were passed.
More money was given to AIG and other large financial companies. A program was initiated for avoiding some
mortgage defaults.
Then, Obama went to
A
Wednesday Commentary on the week.
Latin American Trip and Policy
President Obama
comments on Latin American issues, policies and visit.
President
Obama visits Mexico. Obama
is unwilling to oppose International Rifle Association to restrict guns used by
drug cartels.
In a Washington Post Op Ed, President Obama called for
a new
day of American Nations meeting shared challenges. This
continues his approach to foreign policy.
But Washington
still appears to reject the independent thinking of new strong Liberal
democratic Latin American administrations.
For
more.
This
Serve
President
Obama signed the Serve America Act, greatly increasing the number of
participants in various volunteers programs.
For
more. This act will employ a small
percentage of the number who were employed by WPA and CCC programs of the
1930s. But in 1930, a small wage was
sufficient for men who didn’t have large mortgages and other obligations.
Other Initiatives
Release
of Bush Administration memos concerning interrogation techniques. More. More. More.
President
Obama promotes high speed rail. For
more. About
Pacific NW rail.
President
Obama spoke of building a new economy on a sound foundation. For
more.
President
Obama’s weekly address introduced a Chief Performance Officer and Chief
Technology Officer. He is
asking his department heads to cut costs by $100 million.
President
Obama appoints border czar, but may delay immigration reform to later this
year.
FDA approves making Plan B
EPA
takes first step toward regulating green house gases.
Energy
and Labor Secretaries say now is time to build a clean energy economy.
President
Obama may offer Iran a nuclear deal they will accept.
Stress
test results will be released on May 4th.
Health Care Reform
·
Various
factors favor passage of health care reform this year.
·
Read about the top 10
opponents of single payer public health insurance.
·
Bill
Greider calls for Liberal opposition to Democrats who are beholden to moneyed
interests. Some
corporations are pretending to support health care reform while spreading
disinformation to obstruct it.
·
Howard
Dean rejoins Democracy for America to promote public health insurance. Sign
his petition.
·
One
issue is whether health care reform can pass the senate with a simple majority. For
more.
·
Robert
Reich says passing health care reform quickly to reduce costs requires fast
tracking it.
·
Senate
plans to markup health reform bill in June, which will likely include some form
of public health insurance. For
more.
·
Health and Human
Services Secretary Designate Kathleen Sebelius has described Obama’s
rationale for including a public health insurance option.
·
Medicare
pays too much to HMO providers who then offer extra services to attract more
clients.
Reflection
President
Obama’s popularity increases a bit more to 69%. If fewer bailouts are performed, this will
help President Obama’s reputation.
Imagine that health care reform passes and our economy shows definite
signs of recovery this year. President
Obama will then have the political capital to spend on such controversial
subjects as immigration reform. Until
then, he is delaying action on Immigration reform and various other issues.
Beginning
next week, we can expect things to be more routine, with both congress and
President Obama attending to a variety of issues. After
Easter Recess, congress will have many issues to resolve. What
to expect from congress.
What Tea Baggers Profess,
Obama Is Doing
Tea
bag demonstrations (supported
by Fox cable news and corporate interests) profess to want lower taxes,
lower deficits, lower debt and less government.
For more. For
more. For
more. More
about protests in Washington State. Unlike President Clinton, President Obama has
fulfilled his campaign promise to lower taxes.
He has lowered taxes for 95% of American people, those having incomes
less that $250,000 people. Income
taxes are near their historic low, with average families paying 9% and
middle income families paying 3%. For
more. Although our immediate
deficits are larger than before, the total deficits and debt over the next 10
years will be less than would occur if no stimulus-investment package was
implemented.
While
our government will be funding more investments and a more comprehensive safety
net, the Obama Administration and Congress are not proposing to employ large
numbers of additional government workers.
Unlike President Roosevelt’s New Deal CCC and WPA programs, Obama is not
proposing programs to hire our unemployed.
Private contractors will instead by hired by federal, state and local
governments to fix our infrastructure, private businesses will be stimulated to
create green and other jobs, and tax cuts will provide demand for private
employment.
But
the tea baggers are clearly not supporting the President Obama. Instead, they are expressing hatred for
him. The
tea baggers are a Conservative response to the new Liberal dominance of our
federal government. Mouthing long
time Conservative misconceptions of Liberals, they accuse the Obama
Administration of what more appropriately applies to the Bush
Administration. Their
expression of hate harms their appeal to others.
The
tea baggers include racists who carry racist signs. Note that Conservatives
are reacting negatively to a newly released Homeland
Security Report which labels hate groups (which target ethnic and religious
groups) as right wing extremists. For more. This despite the fact that prominent
Republicans often appear at hate group conferences and endorse many of their
views toward immigrants and others.
Conservative radio and television commentators don’t condemn hate groups. Instead they express many of the same
views. For more. For more. Tea
bag parties may be harming image of Republicans.
Obama Watch – Week 14 (April 21 – 28)
Also go to Whitehouse.gov.
Aren’t you glad Katrina George isn’t in charge of
responding to our swine flu threat?
On
Tuesday, congress
began work on President Obama’s environmental proposals.
On Thursday, President Obama
met with credit card executives, chastising them for the consumer
abuses. Both
houses of congress are preparing regulatory legislation.
President Obama’s Saturday
weekly address emphasized fiscal discipline. He called on federal employees to identify
ways to cut government expenditures
On Monday, President
Obama met with scientists and educators to express their importance. The $5 billion ‘Race
to the Top’ funds in our stimulus-investment package will stimulate higher
standards and better teaching for science and engineering.
On
Wednesday, President
Obama swore in Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius,
completing the seating of all his cabinet members. Both the
house and senate passed the 2010 budget proposal (similar to what President
Obama proposed) with all Republicans voting against it. Four senate Democrats and 17 house Democrats
voted against it.
President Obama’s First 100 Days
Beginning
with President Franklin Roosevelt, the custom of political commentators is to evaluate
a president’s first 100 days. For
more. For more. For
more. Barack Obama was inaugurated
on Tuesday, January 20 at noon. The 100th
day of his presidency begins on Wednesday, April 29 at noon and ends on
Thursday, April 30 at noon.
Watch
President Obama’s 100th Day press conference. (Video)
Bully Pulpit
The
most obvious feature of President Obama’s first 100 days is his use of the
bully pulpit. Almost daily, he and his
Press Secretary Robert Gibbs talk to the American people, in meetings
concerning various issues, at press conferences, weekly Saturday addresses,
town meetings away from Washington, bill signings, meetings focused upon
various issues, meetings with government employees in various departments. Other top officials also give frequent
addresses and appear on television talk shows.
During
his campaign, Obama argued that we must not only change our practices. We must change our mindset. He speaks often of our national traditions,
our oneness, our obligations to our country and to each other. He speaks of the difficulties we face,
alternative responses, what his administration is doing and what we Americans
can do. His speeches and his
administration’s websites present us with a more complete and detailed
understanding of administration agenda, principles and actions than have
occurred during any previous presidency.
For
more.
His
critics have argued that he will wear out his welcome. But so far, our people have relished Obama’s
openness and communication. We are glad
to know about our political and economic situation, and what is being done to
improve it. We often don’t understand
much of what is being done or why, but we are reassured that considered action
is being taken. The proportion of
Americans who believe the country is heading in the right direction has greatly
increased. President Obama’s popularity
has been continually increasing. Conservatives
are going ballistic.
Many Things at One Time
Also
distinctive is President Obama’s multi-pronged approach to resolving our
economic crisis: government ethical standards and openness; promised tax cuts
and increased food stamp, unemployment and other payments; assisting home
owners with defaulting mortgages; bailing out financial companies; reforming
and augmenting our health care, education and energy systems; and eliminating
waste. While critics have argued that he
should focus upon only one or a few of these, his strategy is cautious. Instead of putting all his eggs in one
basket, he is increasing our chances for success, even if one or several
initiatives fail. He said during the
campaign that a president must be able to do more than one thing at a
time. He is demonstrating that he can do
many things at one time.
Obama
has made "spending to promote renewable energy technologies that will
generate jobs and an effort to shift
the nation to a low-carbon economy" key priorities. For more. For
more.
President
Obama is also working well with Congressional Democrats. His major achievement was hasty passage of
our stimulus-investment package, with few changes from his proposals. The 2009 budget appropriation was passed. The
2010 budget proposals are proceeding rapidly through congress. The use of reconciliation and the switch by Republican Senator
Arlen Specter to become a Democrat promises well for passage of Obama’s
budget initiatives.
Extending Our Arm of Cooperation
Unlike
President Bush’s ‘You’re with us or you’re against us.’ foreign policy and refusing
to negotiate with those who are not with us, President Obama has expressed at
home and abroad that we are a cooperative member of our world community of
nations. We will negotiate with any
country to first find issues and solutions of agreement, and then to address
issues of disagreement. The result is
that President Obama has been warmly received on his trips. Respect for and popularity of our
What Various Commentators Are Saying.
Various
commentators insist upon giving President Obama a grade of incomplete, because
the results of his initiatives are not yet apparent. But that has been true for every president
after only 100 days. They have also
graded him poorly for doing what they think should be done. But again, it is too early to tell whether he
or they are right. As he has said, some
of his initiatives will prove disappointing.
But as the results occur, he can add to some and curtail others. So far, various initiatives are producing
positive results and few negative results are apparent. For
more. For more. For
more. For
more.
Looking
ahead, a major question is ‘How
will he use his political capital?’ For
more. Watch
President Obama’s 100th day news conference. (Video)
Some Obama Administration Environmental Policy Changes
· On January 26th, President Obama ordered
tough new fuel economy standards for cars and trucks.
· Interior Secretary Ken Salazar voided Bush era
· Salazar voided leases to develop
· Obama included $100 billion in stimulus-investment
package for reducing usage of carbon based fuel and green house gas emissions.
· In his 2010 budget proposal, Obama increased EPA spending
by a third, revived superfund program for cleaning up hazardous waste,
allocated $3.9 billion for clean water projects and directed revenues from a
cap and trade program to reducing emissions.
· Obama eliminated a Bush rule by requiring federal
agencies to consult with scientists before allowing construction which might
harm endangered species.
· Obama eliminated funding for nuclear waste repository
at
· Obama reversed Bush policy by supporting an
international treaty to cut mercury pollution.
· And you ain’t seen nothing yet.
Most Americans think
President Obama will do a good job of protecting our environment.
What President Obama Has Done for Working
Families
Dear Dave, It's
remarkable! In just 100 days, President Obama and Vice President
Biden, with your help, have laid down a foundation of change for
Given the perilous
state of the economy and the world, there remains much to be done. But
today is a time for a brief reflection on what the Obama administration has
accomplished and what lies ahead.
For starters,
President Obama has shown his commitment to strengthening the middle class and
making the economy work for working families by:
·
Signing
the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to ensure that women earn equal pay for equal
work;
·
Working
with Congress to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program to cover
an additional 4 million children;
·
Creating
the Task Force on Middle Class Working Families, so workers have a direct input
into policymaking;
·
Appointing
Hilda Solis, a champion for workers, as secretary of labor; and
·
Protecting
More broadly,
with the Economic Recovery Act and the budget, the Obama administration,
together with Congress, is rebuilding our economy by:
·
Investing
in the rebuilding of our infrastructure and creating good jobs;
·
Providing
aid to state and local governments, so they can avoid layoffs and continue to
provide essential services;
·
Funding
the development of "green technologies" that will create good-paying
jobs while protecting our environment; and
·
Setting
aside resources for real health care and education reform.
The Obama
administration focused its first 100 days on putting down an important
foundation for change, and many challenges remain. We look forward to helping
the administration meet those challenges by passing the Employee Free Choice
Act and comprehensive national health care reform so our economy truly
works for everyone. In solidarity, Marc Laitin, AFL-CIO Online
Mobilization Coordinator
Government Watch
Budget Plan
Approved
On Wednesday, April 29th, Congress
approved a $3.4 trillion budget plan.
Despite a persistent recession and soaring budget
deficits, Democrats overwhelmingly endorsed the president's request for
hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending over the next decade for
college loans, early childhood education programs, veterans' benefits and investments
in renewable energy aimed at reducing the nation's dependence on foreign
oil. Only
17 Democrats in the House and three in the Senate voted against it, as did Sen. Arlen Specter of
Lawmakers also agreed to use a powerful procedural tool known as
reconciliation to advance the president's proposal to expand health coverage
for the uninsured -- a move that ensures Republicans would not be able to
filibuster the legislation. Approval of
the budget blueprint marked a huge victory for Obama on his 100th day in
office, but it was not a slam-dunk for him. Lawmakers trimmed his tax-cutting
plans, refusing to extend his signature tax credit for working families past
2010 unless it is paid for. They sliced $10 billion from his spending request
for non-defense programs in the fiscal year that begins in October and
jettisoned his suggestion that another $250 billion would be needed to
stabilize the banking system. They also refused to authorize the use of
reconciliation for his plan to cap greenhouse gas emissions.
Leaders
of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition stood shoulder to shoulder with
House leaders on Wednesday and rallied around a $3.4 trillion budget agreement
that also paves
the way for an eventual pay-as-you-go law — a provision that became a
prerequisite for Blue Dog support of the budget document. Yet they acknowledged that they might have to
settle for a codified version of the Democratic pay-go rule that allows for
offsets to be found five or even 10 years after new spending is enacted.
The
budget plan favors health care reform but could severely
crimp the rest of Obama’s domestic agenda unless new revenues or savings
are found. Economic recovery could
produce both revenues and savings. Less
money than Obama wanted is included for middle-class tax cuts, including his
signature Make Work Pay credit to relieve the burden of payroll taxes on
working-class families. And the final compromise retreats from a House proposal
to build into the budget adequate funds to cover annual Medicare reimbursement
increases for physicians.
President Obama
reports on his first 100 days as president (video).
Lots of Issues
The
swine flu pandemic. Selection of a
Supreme Court justice. Arlen Specter
changes parties. More issues for our
Obama Administration to deal with. But
also more issues for Conservatives to complain about. With no official leader, Republicans can’t
focus on a few issues and can’t agree on their message. Just a bunch of whiners, who examine and
react to the daily news.
For
example, the top Republican in Congress, John
Boehner, tried to argue that global warming was a hoax related to cow
flatulence but then did an immediate about face and promised a plan to solve
global warming. Congressman Joe Barton (R-TX) displayed his clear lack of
scientific knowledge when
he suggested oil in the Arctic arrived there via a pipeline from Texas. You
have to see the video to believe it. Representative John Shimkus (R-IL)
actually called
a bipartisan clean energy plan a greater "assault on democracy" than
the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
Big
mouth Biden did it again. Indicating
people shouldn’t travel. Sometimes, I
wish David
Axelrod was Vice President. I think
he might be able to best continue Obama’s reforms.
When
asked about whether immigration reform would occur this year, President Obama
said that he was already being accused of taking on too many issues. He said he is focusing on issues most
relevant to our economic recovery, including reestablishing credit, assisting
defaulting mortgage holders, health care reform, education reform and energy
reform. He said progress was being made
toward immigration reform, implying that it wouldn’t be implemented until next
year.
Through
honestly describing and explaining our economic challenges and what his
administration is doing to meet them, President Obama has achieved a remarkably
high level of popularity among Democrats and Independents, including
Republicans who have become Independents, leaving only a small 20% minority of
Republicans. But his popularity will
quickly decline if our economic recovery falters. To maintain his political capital, he must
focus upon ensuring economic recovery. For
more. Hopefully the Worker’s Free Choice Act (which is certainly related to
economic recovery) will be passed this year.
If
economic recovery is clearly occurring later this year, President Obama will then have solid
political capital to address other issues, such as immigration reform, changing
our military’s ‘Don’t ask. Don’t tell.’
policy toward gays; and possibly such issues as gun registration and
restrictions, and the so-called ‘war on drugs’. 2010 may see as many reforms as are
occurring this year. The issues involved
in our Cultural Wars may be resolved, to eliminate some of the worst President
Bush era threats to our civil liberties.
For
more.
Government Watch
Less Bully Pulpit
During
the first 100 days of his presidency, Barack Obama was everywhere in the public
eye: press conferences, town meetings, so-called summits with political and
economic leaders concerning various economic reforms, weekly addresses, and
appearances on television shows. His
message was that our economy has collapsed; his stimulus-investment package and
other measures would restore the economy, but not quickly; and that we should
support his programs while remaining patient for results. His use of the bully pulpit was successful.
These
past several weeks, President Obama has been much less in the public eye. A fun exception was his
appearance before the White House Press Association. He also met Health
Care Insurers and providers who pledged to reduce increased health care costs. He
praised companies which encourage employee health. More
on health care reform. He asked his cabinet to find ways
to cut expenditures. In his weekly address, Obama
called for congress to address credit card abuse.
Government Department Actions
Most
of the political action is occurring in various government agencies and
Congress. Many of President Bush’s
actions to let corporations override our environmental laws have been
reversed. Our EPA and FDA are taking on
new responsibilities for regulating and enforcing environmental and consumer
protection. FDA says Cheerios can’t be marketed as a
drug. Our Justice Department is
increasing its willingness and resources to investigate and pursue anti-trust
and fraud violations. For more. Our Housing and Urban Development and
Transportation Departments are increasing
the coordination of their activities.
Our State Department is enhancing its diplomatic and development
capacity. Similar actions are occurring
in other Departments. Tax reductions are
being distributed and infrastructure investment projects are beginning. Our Military is adopting a new counterinsurgency
strategy for Iraq.
In
the aftermath of the stress tests, fewer unpopular bailouts are anticipated. Bankruptcy will resolve the fates of Chrysler
and General Motors. The number of troops
in
Environmental, Health Care and
Educational Reform
Having
passed the 2010 budget resolution, Congress is moving rapidly on health care,
with some form of public health coverage an option. Greenhouse gas cap and trade legislation is
being prepared with credits being given free during our recession and then
auctioned off. House
climate bill may pass soon. For
more. For more. Our Education Department is promoting reforms
and providing 100 billion in stimulus-investment funds to assist local schools.
Not Yet
Various
issues are being delayed while emphasis is upon dealing with our
recession. No immigration reform bill is
being introduced; but Homeland Security is scaling back its raids upon
employers of undocumented immigrants and deportation of those found. No attempts are anticipated to legalize
drugs, but the federal government is allowing states and cities to quit
punishing drug users. As states are
increasing civil rights for GLBT people, our Federal government is even waiting
to eliminate ‘Don’t Ask. Don’t Tell.’
Our
Obama Administration is not mounting a frontal assault on
President Obama is
framing his reforms as building a New Foundation. His favorable poll numbers are staying high
at 68%.
Commencement
Addresses
Many of President Obama’s addresses, including the
commencement addresses he delivered at
Torture
Photos
President Obama decided to appeal a court decision
requiring the release of torture photos, saying they would inflame opinion
against our
Another
Commercial Media Frenzy
While former Vice President Dick Cheney is arguing for
torture, the media has decided to harass House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for not
speaking up against torture, after being informed about torture policy (and
maybe practice) by the CIA. For more. For more. The major
villains are the Bush Administration officials who justified, authorized and
implemented torture, in an attempt to prove links between
President Obama decided to use a modified form of
military commission to try at least some of our
Virtually none of the
I believe the 9/11 attacks involving several dozen
competent terrorists, fortunate that the Bush Administration paid no attention
to threats posed by Al Qaeda, caused a hysteria and over-reaction to the threat
of terrorism. Since cockpit doors were
secured, hijackers cannot obtain control of a plane. I think our no fly lists are unnecessary and
contrary to our freedom. I am disappointed to
see the ending of easy transit across our Canadian border.
Our Senate voted 90 to 6 to bar the use of
funds to transfer Guantanamo prisoners to our U.S. There are some inconsistencies between President Obama’s speech about civil
liberties and his proposed treatment of
Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Meeting with President
Obama, Prime Minister
Netanyahu said that before any two-state agreement, Palestinians must accept
Health Care
Reform
Having secured his stimulus-investment package and in
large part, his 2010 budget proposal, President Obama is giving congress much
leeway in crafting the detailed budget. Obama comments on health care proposal
(video) For more. For more. Senate Finance
Chairman Max Baucus (a major recipient of campaign contributions from health
insurers) has largely banned advocates of single-payer health insurance from
health care reform deliberations. For more on campaign
contributions. But I believe that enough support for
single-payer health insurance exists in the house and senate that a public
insurance option will be included. The
major bargaining will be over the specifics of the public insurance option
which affect how competitive it will be with private insurance plans. For more.
Wanting to privatize Social Security to the enormous
benefit of Wall Street, Conservatives continue to claim that Social Security is
fiscally untenable. In fact, Social
Security is in no trouble, unless our economy continues in serious trouble, in
which case all of our public and private services are in trouble. The real challenge is increasing health care
costs, including Medicare and Medicaid.
Health care reform is essential.
While various measures can reduce costs, the biggie is elimination of
private health insurance. The major
question is whether it will be sooner or later that we change to the public
health insurance coverage that all other affluent countries have adopted.
Once the Democrats get health care reform right, it
will become as popular as Social Security and Medicare. Republicans will find it’s a third rail that
they can’t reverse.
Various private health insurers, pharmaceuticals, and
health providers met with President Obama to pledge to reduce the rate of
increase of health coverage and care prices.
But immediately began
to back away from any commitments. For more. For more. For more. Some strategies to reduce health care costs.
Greenhouse
Gas Emissions Bill
Regional coal and
electricity interests are weakening the greenhouse gas emissions bill. For more. For More. For More. 10 lobbying firms
represent hundreds of clients.
Changing to non-carbon
based energy will help our economic recovery.
Increased
Mileage and Reduced Emissions
I wondered when our administration would approve
Our administration may have various task
forces forging other initiatives.
Perhaps concerning immigration, illicit drugs, gun control, and gay
rights. We don’t know of such
initiatives because it’s difficult to forge consensus publicly with divisive
factions weighing in.
Two Phase
Fiscal Reform
President Obama has apparently decided to not pursue
various fiscal reforms that would increase taxes or reduce employment during
our economic recession. He is letting
the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy continue until they end in 2011. His proposed cuts in military procurement are
only a small fraction of our spending upon unneeded military equipment and
activity.
President Obama is proposing the closing of business
tax loopholes, and the elimination of some subsidies for oil companies. I expect that more tax increases, subsidy and
spending decreases will occur once our economy recovers.
Protecting
Homeowners and Our Economy From Fraud
President Obama signed
two bills to protect homeowners from fraud. The Fraud Enforcement
and Recovery Act will protect Americans by:
·
Increasing resources for
federal investigators and prosecutors to go after cases of financial fraud,
·
Modernizing fraud and
money laundering statutes to deal with the growing wave of fraud,
·
Strengthening the False
Claims Act to better equip the Justice Department to recover the proceeds
of fraud, and
·
Establishing a Financial
Crisis Inquiry Commission to investigate the root causes of the economic and
financial crisis.
Other
Happenings
President Obama chooses
Utah’s Republican Governor Jon Huntsman Jr. to be Ambassador to China.
Michelle Obama speaks
out for working families.
A compromise bill to ease unionization is
likely to pass.
House passes green
schools bill.
Let’s hope our Republicans are right. Democrats need more socialism.
What Should We Be Doing?
It
was easy to know that we should support Barack Obama for president. It was easy to support the passage of the
stimulus-investment package. It is not easy
to know what we should do about various possible compromises in the 2010
budget. We want a public single
payer health care coverage system. But
what about a compromise that only includes it as an option, with perhaps
various limits, to enable private health insurance to better compete? We want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,
through a carbon tax, or a cap and trade system. But
what about a compromised cap and trade system? We want to regulate financial companies,
financial products and financial markets.
But what regulations? Many of these decisions are highly technical
and have little historical evidence to guide them.
Even
if we can decide what decisions we support, how do we support them? We should sign petitions to our president and
congress members to indicate our positions.
We should focus upon stimulating congress members who have been
influenced by campaign contributing business interest. Unfortunately, googling the websites of our
congress members reveals little about their positions on these issues. We should email them to ask their position
and express our own. If they persist in
voting for Wall Street instead of
2010 Elections
Our
decennial census will occur in 2010. Population
shifts will result in 11 (mostly Democratic states) losing 12 congressional
seats and 7 (mostly Republican states) gaining 12 seats. Our 2010 elections will determine whether
Democrats or Republicans will be in control of redistricting congressional and
state legislative districts. For
more.
Government Watch
Also go to Whitehouse.gov.
President Obama Signs New Legislation
5/20 Helping
Families Save Their Homes Act
5/20 Fraud
Enforcement and Recovery Act Includes
investigation of causes of financial collapse.
5/22 Credit Card
Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure (CARD) Act of 2009 For more. More.
5/22 Weapons
Systems Acquisition Reform Act
President Obama Speeches
5/21 President Obama spoke on the values that guide
his foreign policy decisions, including the closing of
5/22 Annapolis (video) The President speaks at the US Naval Academy
Commencement in Annapolis, Maryland, and reminds us that our military is made
up of hundreds of thousands of individual stories, each guided by a common set
of values. He connects his admiration for the service of sailors and Marines to
the values he espoused yesterday at the National Archives.
5/23 Weekly
Address: Sacrifice (video) On
Memorial Day weekend, President Obama calls on the American people to join him
in paying tribute to America’s veterans, servicemen and women – particularly
those who have made the ultimate sacrifice - and their families.
President Obama honors
military dead and increases expenditures for veterans.
President
Obama nominates Sonia Sotomayer for Supreme Court (video). For more.
Conservative
racists accuse Sonia Sotomayer of being racist. Our best 20th Century Supreme
Court Judges (Oliver Wendell Holmes, Earl Warren, William J. Brennan, William
O. Douglas, and Hugo Black) had
no previous service in Federal Courts.
28
senators have co-sponsored a resolution to provide a public health insurance
option. Single-Payer events
are scheduled in 50 cities.
Gail
Collins says that the college loan system is a mess and needs to be
reformed, but is skeptical that it will happen: The White House estimates that
it could save about $94 billion over 10 years if it cut out all the middlemen.
And it has the basis of a system in place, since the Department of Education
already makes a lot of direct loans to students. How many people out there
think that there’s going to be some reason that this turns out to be extremely
controversial? Can I see a show of hands?
“Senator Nelson is for the system as
it is now,” said a spokesman for Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska. If you are a
big fan of Senate stalemates, you will remember Nelson, the star of such past
triumphs as The Stimulus Is Too Big. A
great part of Nelson’s resistance has to do with the fact that Nelnet, a big
student loan provider, has its headquarters in his state.
After messy last week, everyone
became less popular, but President Obama is still much more popular than
Republicans. Colin
Powell is much more popular than Dick Cheney or Rush Limbaugh. Among Republicans, Colin Powell, Dick Cheney
and Rush Limbaugh are tied.
Three Types of
Economic Stimulus: Good, Bad, Ugly
Unnoticed
by our commercial commentators, there are three types of economic
stimulus. The good type is our economic
stimulus-investment package, which creates jobs and improves our public
services. The bad type is bailouts of
financial companies, which sustains jobs and incomes which harm our
economy. The ugly type is tax breaks and
subsidies of wealthy and powerful private interests, which create some jobs and
needed public services; but not nearly as many per dollar as our economic
stimulus package. Our Obama
administration is treating these three types of economic stimulus differently.
Good Economic Stimulus
Our
economic stimulus-investment package is a shift in policy from the Bush
administration. It includes tax cuts for
middle and lower income people, increased unemployment benefits and food stamps
to create consumer demand and jobs. It
includes funds for state and local governments to maintain jobs and public
services. It includes funds to maintain
and improve our infrastructure and stimulate conservation and non-carbon based
energy, thereby creating construction, manufacturing and other jobs. Generally, these funds efficiently create
needed jobs, doing work that needs to be done.
They may produce half as many jobs as have been lost. Popular with
Another
good economic stimulus is unionization, which increases wages, consumer demand
and jobs. So far, our Obama
Administration has not moved on this issue.
For
more.
Bad Economic Stimulus
Our
bailouts of too big (actually too politically powerful) to fail financial
companies began under the Bush administration and are now diminishing. These bailouts maintain employment of people,
who were often the ones responsible for our economic collapse. For
more.
Ugly Economic Stimulus
Our
tax breaks and subsidies for private interests have increased greatly during
the years of Republican dominance. Due
to ‘K’ Street lobbyists, our wealthy and powerful have received many unfair tax
breaks. Military-industrial,
agro-business, oil, private contractors and other private cronies receive
money, far in excess of the public value of any services they offer. The funds they receive creates far fewer jobs
per dollar than the funds that are spent on our stimulus-investment package.
Instead
of being seen as increasing taxes and cutting jobs during our economic
recession, our Obama administration is choosing to allow many of the tax breaks
and subsidies to continue until the economy recovers. Perhaps during 2011, we can expect a huge
confrontation between the Obama administration and ‘K’ Street interests. In the meantime, the continuation of these
inefficient economic stimuli is contributing to our federal deficits. For more. When will basic changes
occur?
Government Watch
Also go to Whitehouse.gov.
Speech to Moslems
President Obama’s speech to
Moslems (transcript and video).
Obama described our historic differences, called for a new beginning and
cited 6 Mid-East issues to be resolved: terrorist extremists, Iraqi
sovereignty, Israeli/Palestinian statehood, nuclear non-proliferation,
democracy and women’s rights. He spoke unpleasant
truths to all, while offering pleasant futures through cooperation.
Health Care Reform
President Obama
tells supporters to tell congress that we
must have health care reform now. For
more. Senator
Ted Kennedy says Health,
Education, Labor and Pensions subcommittee will include public health insurance
in its report. For
more. Senator
Max Baucus supports public health insurance option. Kennedy
and Baucus will try to create a single bill, which includes a public health
insurance option. For
more. For more.
Regulation and Enforcement
FDIC
Chair Sheila Blair seeks to restrict power of large financial companies.
In 1932 through 1934 the Senate Banking Committee,
led by its Chief Counsel Ferdinand Pecora, ferreted out the deeper fraud and
corruption that led to the Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression. The Pecora
Committee's findings helped change the political mood, and laid the groundwork
for the sweeping financial reforms of
How
the Obama Administration developed its American auto industry recovery
strategy. For more.
For more.
Agricultural
Secretary Tom Vilsack ends discrimination against Black farmers. Obama
Administration gives Agriculture Department Secretary Tom Vilsack sole authority on
development in roadless areas for one year.
President
Obama appoints Republican congressman as Secretary of the Army.