Posts tagged barack obama
Washington Extra — Not another stimulus
Sep 8th
On Wednesday, President Barack Obama plans to announce his latest package of plans to stimulate the sagging U.S. economy, most of which are already known. It was hardly a surprise to see Republicans quickly positioning themselves to block the plans, but more disappointing to the White House must have been the cautious response even from the president’s fellow Democrats on the Hill, who simply said they were looking at the proposals.
Even more damning, perhaps, was the verdict from the financial markets, which greeted the news with a big yawn. Both the Dow and the S&P indices ended the day more than one percent lower, dragged down by fresh growth worries in Europe. Economists on Wall Street said the plans would not do enough for small businesses or to solve the Democrats’ biggest economic and political problem: finding work for the 14.9 million unemployed. There are big questions, too, about how the plans will be paid for. “If he chooses to take away a corporate tax break to pay for this proposal, the net gain is zero,” said Andrew Busch at BMO Capital Markets. “This is likely why U.S. stocks are not seeing much of a bounce on the news.”
Last week White House economic adviser Christina Romer left town with a plea for a new deficit-financed economic stimulus. Today it was the turn of former budget chief Peter Orszag to go public with his prescription for the economy and taxes, views which differ from those of his former boss. Orszag suggested that the Bush-era tax cuts should be extended for all Americans for another two years in an effort to spur the economy, with a promise they will be allowed to expire altogether at the end of 2012. It is a view which makes some economic sense, but is unlikely to get much traction with a president likely to be campaigning for re-election that same year.
Some interesting interviews on the first day of the Reuters Aerospace and Defense Summit here in Washington. The CEOs of Lockheed Martin and of Boeing’s defense wing said both companies were well aligned for the new reality of huge fiscal deficits and tight defense budgets. Both men expressed strong support for the administration’s recently announced export control reforms, as well as new plans to extend and expand tax credits on research and development. Lockheed Martin’s Robert Stevens said he also saw the global security environment changing significantly in coming decades: withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan, coupled with threats from the Korean peninsula, Iran and China meant resources were likely to be shifted away from land and towards air and naval defense systems.
Finally, strong words today from State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley on a Florida pastor’s plans to burn copies of the Koran on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Crowley said the actions were “un-American”, and appealed to the world’s public not to assume that any action by the obscure Dove World Outreach Center, which boasts only around 30 members, represented anything larger about the United States. Sadly, one can only shudder at the thought of images of Americans burning the Koran being repeated endlessly on TV screens across the Muslim world.
Here are our top stories from today…
Analysis: Obama plan may miss the most important mark – jobs
President Barack Obama’s new stimulus plan directs government assistance to some of the strongest parts of the economy without solving the biggest problem: finding work for the 14.9 million unemployed. The three main ideas he plans to introduce on Wednesday — $50 billion in infrastructure spending plus two sets of business tax incentives — could provide a modest burst of activity in a slow-growing economy.
For more of this story by Emily Kaiser, read here.
Congress Republicans wary of Obama economy plan
Republicans in the Congress showed little willingness to help President Barack Obama approve $350 billion worth of measures to boost the economy with midterm elections less than two months away. Obama’s plans for billions of dollars in tax breaks for businesses are policies that Republicans typically embrace, but the party has little motivation to give the Democratic White House a win.
For more of this story by Thomas Ferraro and Steve Holland, read here.
Lockheed says aligned for “new reality”
Lockheed Martin Corp is well aligned with the Pentagon’s priorities as the defense industry braces for a “new reality” shaped by massive deficits, tighter budgets and rapidly changing security threats, Chief Executive Robert Stevens said. Lockheed, the world’s largest defense contractor, expects to reach an agreement with the Pentagon “any day now” for a fourth batch of F-35 fighter jets, and it sees no major obstacles in the way of an agreement, Stevens told the annual Reuters Aerospace and Defense Summit.
For more of this story by Andrea Shalal-Esa and Karen Jacobs, read here.
Boeing cuts costs as defense outlook dim
Boeing Co’s defense unit is working to cut overhead and improve productivity, given the outlook for flat defense spending in the United States and Europe, the company’s top defense executive said. Boeing expects to expand international sales and grow in areas such as cyber security and unmanned systems, Dennis Muilenburg, chief executive of the defense, space and security division, told the annual Reuters Aerospace and Defense Summit.
For more of this story by Andrea Shalal-Esa and Soyoung Kim, read here.
Democrats seek allies in consumer agency debate
Key Democratic lawmakers hope to exploit the rare August return of the House of Representatives to intensify pressure on the White House to nominate Elizabeth Warren as head of the new consumer financial protection agency. Representative Carolyn Maloney and House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank are urging President Barack Obama to act swiftly to nominate Warren — who has alienated Wall Street and Republicans in her role as a watchdog of the government’s $700 billion bailout of the financial system.
For more of this story by David Clarke, read here.
Obama decision on consumer job, CEA may come soon
President Barack Obama may be moving closer to making a decision on two key economic jobs: the top consumer financial regulator and chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. “I can’t rule out that, at some point, that may come during the week,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said when pressed on the timing of an announcement about the two positions.
For more of this story by Caren Bohan, read here.
Ex-budget chief differs with Obama on U.S. tax cuts
Tax cuts should be extended for all Americans to help spur the economy, but even the middle-class cuts should end in two years, former budget director Peter Orszag said. Orszag’s views differed from those of his former boss, President Barack Obama.
For more of this story by Caren Bohan, read here.
NIH to use BP cash to study spill health effects
The National Institutes of Health said it would use $10 million from BP to start a multiyear study to look at the potential health effects from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
For more of this story by Maggie Fox, Health and Science editor, read here.
What we are blogging…
State Dept: church Koran burning plan “un-American”
There have been lots of angry words over plans by an obscure Florida pastor to burn copies of the Koran on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. But State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley pulled out the biggest gun of all in his effort to distance the government from the pastor’s incendiary proposal — he called it “un-American.”
For Andrew Quinn’s full blog, click here.
From elsewhere…
Google to start TV service this autumn
Google Inc will launch its service to bring the Web to TV screens in the United States this autumn and worldwide next year, its chief executive said, as it extends its reach from the desktop to the living room.
For the full story, click here.
Can money buy happiness? Maybe, up to $75,000
Can money really make you happy? Not really, but up to about $75,000 a year can ease the pain of life’s stresses, researchers reported. A survey of 1,000 Americans shows they are overall fairly happy, and more money equals more satisfaction up to a point, Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton of the Center for Health and Wellbeing at Princeton University in New Jersey found.
For the full story, click here.
For more stories from our Washington correspondents visit www.reuters.com and stay informed.
Photo Credit: REUTERS/Brendan McDermid (Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, September 7, 2010)
Cleveland was no accident, Gibbs confirms
Sep 8th
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs confirmed what had been suspected.
There was a reason for choosing Cleveland as the venue for President Barack Obama’s economy speech on Wednesday and his name is John Boehner — the man who would likely be House Speaker if Republicans oust the Democrats from control on Nov. 2.
Cleveland was where House Republican leader Boehner gave his economy speech two weeks ago in which he suggested Obama toss out his economic team, including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and White House economic adviser Larry Summers.
And it’s no accident that Boehner and Obama are paying so much attention to Ohio less than two months before the congressional elections – it’s a swing state with a crucial Senate race and several competitive House races.
To what extent was tomorrow’s speech a direct resonse to Boehner’s remarks from a couple of weeks ago?
“It’s in the same city and I think the president will use that opportunity to contrast a vision of returning to a decade of policy and value decisions that got us into this mess which, if you look back at what Congressman Boehner said in that speech, he seemed to lay out a strong predicate for the very same type of decisions that had been made over the past 10 years that got us into this mess. I anticipate the president will spend a decent amount of time discussing it,” Gibbs said.
And the shorter answer to whether the White House chose Cleveland because Boehner gave his speech there?
Gibbs: “Yes.”
Photo credit: Reuters/Yuri Gripas (Obama walks past Marine One helicopter)
State Dept: church Koran burning plan”un-American”
Sep 8th
There have been lots of angry words over plans by an obscure Florida pastor to burn copies of the Koran on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
But State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley pulled out the biggest gun of all on Tuesday in his effort to distance the government from the pastor’s incendiary proposal — he called it “un-American.”
“We are conscious that a number of voices have come out and rejected what this pastor and this community have proposed,” Crowley told a news briefing. “We would like to see more Americans stand up and say ‘this is inconsistent with our American values.’ In fact these actions themselves are un-American.”
“Un-American” is not an epithet that trips lightly off the tongue for U.S. government spokespeople, carrying as it does the tang of the 1950′s witchhunt for alleged communist sympathizers spearheaded by the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center church in Florida presumably doesn’t think his book burning plans are un-American, at least by his definition.
Jones said he would torch copies of the Muslim holy book on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in an effort toward “exposing Islam” as a “violent and oppressive religion.”
“When do we stop backing down?…when does American stand for truth?” Jones said in an interview with CNN.
Crowley was in no mood to back down either.
He repeated warnings from officials including overall U.S. commander in Afghanistan David Petraeus that the proposed burning could undermine President Barack Obama’s efforts to reach out to the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims as well as trigger reprisals against U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.
And he said the proposed bonfire — while covered under U.S. First Amendment free speech rights — was nevertheless an extremely “un-American” signal to send to the rest of the world.
“We have a tremendous tradition of religious tolerance in this country….It is un-American in the sense that it does not represent the views of the vast majority of Americans who are respectful of religions,” Crowley said.
While it may well be within someone’s rights to take this action, we believe and hope that cooler heads will prevail and other ways can be found to promote a dialogue among the world’s greatest religions which is what we’ve been trying to do.”
Pastor Jones has said he is considering the various warnings, and is praying about the event.
Crowley, meanwhile, appealed to the world’s public not to assume that any action by the tiny church, which has only about 30 members, represented anything larger about the United States.
“People around the world need to also understand that America is not represented by one pastor or 50 followers. We are a nation of 300 million people and the vast majority of Americans are standing up this week and saying that these contemplated actions are inappropriate, they’re abhorrent, and they should not happen.”
PHOTO: REUTERS/Marko Djurica (A U.S. Marine adjusts U.S. flag on top of his tent at a base in Afghanistan)
Stanley Kutler: COMING ATTRACTION: MORE WAR
Sep 8th
By Stanley Kutler
“It is time to turn the page,” President Barack Obama said as he announced the “end” of combat operations in Iraq. Meanwhile, those who brought us that unnecessary war remain committed to such policies and, if returned to power, are likely to carry them out. Sadly, the president neither confronted nor repudiated his critics. They are shameless and unrepentant for designing the Iraq War, and they now call for a resumption of the policies that have resulted in a series of long, bloody and eventually unwinnable wars. It was not just the time to mark the departure of American troops; it was also the president’s moment to forcefully challenge and repudiate the policies that led us into what he once called “dumb wars.” He took a pass.
The day of the president’s speech, Paul Wolfowitz and John Bolton anticipated and criticized Obama and reiterated why we went to war. Wolfowitz had the prime space of the New York Times Op-Ed page, while Bolton appeared in the Daily Beast, with his usual meat ax, in a piece entitled “Obama’s Lose-Lose Policy.”
Chicago’s Mayor Daley Won’t Run For Re-Election
Sep 8th
by Frank James
John Smierciak/AP
Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, October 2009.
Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley dropped something of a political bombshell Tuesday announcing he won’t run for re-election next year for personal reasons.
Daley has been mayor since 1989 and could probably have been mayor for life like his father, the legendary Richard J. Daley who died in the job.
Daley the younger obviously decided he wanted a different ending for himself.
The Chicago Tribune reports the mayor made the announcement at a City Hall press conference.
“The truth is I have been thinking about this for the past several months,” Daley said at a City Hall news conference. “In the end this is a personal decision, no more, no less.”
The announcement opens the door to Rahm Emanuel, President Barack Obama’s White House chief of staff who has openly said he would like to occupy the Fifth Floor in Chicago which is how Chicagoans refer to the mayor’s office.
Obama had to really lobby Emanuel to take the chief of staff’s job because the former congressman, who has children, was reluctant to take on the kind of hours required by the White House job.
Being mayor would be a lot less taxing especially since Chicago as a city under Daley has maintained the reputation for efficiency it gained when Daley the elder managed it.
It was, after all, known as the City That Works and that moniker still seemed to fit under the son.
Of course, some of the reason why the city worked was because Daley had virtually no opposition. Any opposition that rose up, he stomped on it.
The City Council under Daley the Younger was essentially a rubber stamp, as it was under his father.
The younger Daley consolidated power in a way that would have made his father proud, co-opting many of those who could have been part of the political opposition against him by hiring them.
He maintained the backing of many black ministers, for instance, by making sure they knew they had friends in City Hall who could help their churches get projects requiring permits or other assistance through the local bureaucracy.
Of course, Chicago being a place where historically, political corruption was raised to high art, Daley’s administration had its issues with scandal.
There was the Hired Truck program in which the city contracted private trucks to do government work. Problem was, an investigation by the Chicago Sun Times indicated that some of the trucks weren’t doing any work and that taxpayer money was going to some with mob ties. That Daley didn’t initially seem as scandalized as the public by some of what was revealed didn’t help matters.
Daley was also capable of some moves that would have seemed more typical of democracy in the Middle East than the Midwest.
For instance, when he decided to close Meigs Field, the small downtown airport which he wanted to turn it into a park, he decided to present his opposition with a fait accompli. He sent bulldozers out at night to destroy the runways. End of debate.
But Daley will also be known for accomplishments other big-city mayors have since patterned themselves on. For instance, he took over the public school system to force changes in an institution that had long failed its students.
While the school system still has many troubles linked to the poverty of neighborhoods, it improved enough so that Arne Duncan, its former head, could be a credible choice by the president to be his Education Secretary.
Chicago’s downtown, one of the most beautiful in the nation, has become even more so under Daley, who will likely be remembered long after he leaves office, for Millenium Park, a new treasure in a city full of them.
Daley will also be remembered for his earthy, unusual and sometimes disjointed way he had of getting his ideas across.
Under tough questioning by reporters once, Daley said to members of the Fourth Estate “What else do you want me to do? Take my pants off?”
And then there was this doozy from May 2010 told from the perspective of Mike Dumke, a reporter for the Chicago Reader who had the temerity to question the effectiveness of the city’s strict gun ban. After all, it wasn’t like people still weren’t getting shot to death in Chicago.
He grabbed a rifle, held it up, and looked right at me. He was chuckling but there was no smile.
“If I put this up your—ha!—your butt—ha ha!—you’ll find out how effective this is!”
For a moment the room was very, very quiet. I took a good look at the weapon. It had a long bayonet. (Was it seized during the Civil War?)
“If I put a round up your—ha ha!”
The photographers snapped away. Suddenly everybody started cracking up.
That might have caused some other mayor problems. But not Daley in Chicago.
He will be a tough act to follow. But Emanuel is definitely among the select group of politicians who could give Daley the Younger a run for the money in terms of colorfulness.
Snug as a flub in a rug?
Sep 7th
Blog Guy, did you read about the problem with that brand-new rug in the Oval Office, with the great American quotes woven along the edge?
Yes, you’re talking about the embarrassing error over one of the quotes:
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” is attributed to Martin Luther King, Jr. on the rug, but it turns out King was quoting Theodore Parker, a 19th century abolitionist and Unitarian minister.
Here you can see part of that quote in the photo on the right. It looks like somebody didn’t do enough homework.
How unfortunate. What’s another quote on the rug?
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
Very inspirational. Hey Blog Guy, can you list ALL of the rug’s great American quotes?
Sure, here they are, a rug-full of Americana:
“Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job!”
“I did not have sexual relations with that woman.“
“Go ahead, make my day.”
“I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV.”
“You had me at hello…”
“It’s a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford…”
“They’re after me Lucky Charms!”
Nevermore!
“If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”
“Lucy, you got some splainin’ to do!”
Thank you so much, Blog Guy, that gave me goose bumps. I do recognize the rest of the quotes, but please remind me who said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
Um, according to the rug it was Yogi Berra.
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Top: The redecorated Oval Office of U.S. President Barack Obama has new carpeting, wallpaper and sofas. August 31, 2010. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Left: Theodore Parker, circa 1850
Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett: The Obama Administration, Iran and ‘Middle East Peacemaking’
Sep 7th
The “relaunch” of the Middle East peace process is, at best, an Arab-Israeli peace process. And, to be even more accurate, the process is really the highly conditioned Israeli-Palestinian “track” of old.
Read More…
More on Barack Obama
