tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61208440936148129032024-03-05T01:16:53.553-08:00Transatlantic ProgressivesMagaliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12302647210642503347noreply@blogger.comBlogger57125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6120844093614812903.post-69590200657047521072012-02-03T03:02:00.001-08:002012-02-03T03:02:32.034-08:00Obama presses Congress to step up aid for homeowners<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">President Barack Obama on Wednesday proposed a multi-billion-dollar package to help U.S. homeowners refinance and stave off foreclosure, part of an election-year push that is likely to face an uphill battle by the Republican opposition in Congress.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Obama moved to counter Republican criticism that the proposal would use taxpayer money to bail out irresponsible borrowers by stressing that only homeowners current on their payments could benefit. The president had sketched out the plan in his State of the Union address last week.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Home values have dropped 33 percent from their 2006 peak and nearly 11 million Americans now owe more than their homes are worth. Millions more have lost their homes in states that are up for grab in November's presidential election.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The White House is seeking to contrast Obama's stance with that of Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney, who has said foreclosures should be allowed to run their course.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">"The truth is, it will take more time than any of us would like for the housing market to recover from this crisis," Obama said at a community center in <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">Falls Church</city>, <state w:st="on">Virginia</state></place>. "But there are actions we can take, right now, to provide some relief to folks who've been making their payments on time."</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The $5 billion to $10 billion program, that would be funded by a tax on the nation's largest banks, would allow homeowners to refinance at record low borrowing costs through government-backed loans. A senior administration official said it could reach 3.5 million Americans whose loans are not government-guaranteed. An additional 11 million homeowners whose loans are backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could also be eligible, the official said.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The Federal Housing Administration would run the program -- another sticking point for Republicans, who are worried about the agency's solvency. The FHA has been hard hit by mortgage defaults, and Republican lawmakers have warned it could eventually need a taxpayer bailout.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Republicans also have rejected Obama's call to pay for the program with a bank tax that Congress has turned down twice before.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">"Rather than increase the government's stranglehold on our nation's housing <a href="http://www.reuters.com/finance%20" title="Full coverage of finance"><span style="color: #006e97; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">finance</span></a> system, we need to dial it back," said Republican Representative Scott Garrett of <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">New Jersey</place></state>.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">RAMPING UP HOUSING RELIEF EFFORTS</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Obama's plan would allow borrowers to refinance even if they owe far more than their homes are worth. Many homeowners have not been able take advantage of current record-low mortgage rates because the value of their homes has fallen and lending standards have tightened.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The White House said the program could save borrowers an average of $3,000 a year. It would be open to homeowners who have been current on their payments for the last six months and who have not missed more than one payment in the prior six months.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Applicants would need to occupy their home and have a credit score of 580 or higher to be eligible for the program. Only loans that fall beneath the FHA lending cap, which reaches as high as $729,750 in some high-cost markets, would be eligible.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">"Government certainly can't fix the entire problem on its own. But it is wrong for anyone to suggest that the only option for struggling, responsible homeowners is to sit and wait for the housing market to hit bottom," Obama said.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The administration also said it intends to ask Congress to broaden a separate refinance program that seeks to help underwater borrowers with loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac win new loan terms. It said the regulator that oversees the two government-controlled mortgage firms - the Federal Housing Finance Agency - had not done enough to make the program accessible.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Together, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the FHA own or guarantee nine out of 10 new <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">U.S.</place></country-region> home loans.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In addition, the administration called for a single set of federal standards for the mortgage servicing industry that would include simpler loan forms and greater efforts to assist borrowers facing foreclosure. An effort by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is already underway to streamline mortgage paperwork.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Obama also highlighted an effort the administration has undertaken with FHFA to convert foreclosed properties held by the two firms into rental units.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">FHFA said on Wednesday that investors could now sign up to prequalify to bid on properties under the program, and said it would kick off a pilot phase soon.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Last week the administration called on FHFA to allow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to reduce loan principal for struggling homeowners, an effort to widen the reach of its main foreclosure prevention program -- the Home Affordable Modification Program</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">When it launched the program in 2009, the administration said it would help as many as 4 million Americans. So far, only about 900,000 households have won permanent mortgage relief under the program.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">"I'll be honest - it didn't work at the scale we'd hoped," said Obama.</span></div>Magaliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12302647210642503347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6120844093614812903.post-3925865363398412202012-01-31T03:24:00.001-08:002012-01-31T03:24:46.498-08:00Critiques for Capitalists in Obama’s Speech, with One in Particular in His Sights (25.01.12)<h6 style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 1.2pt 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: grey; font-family: Arial; font-size: 7.5pt;">By <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/l/mark_landler/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More Articles by Mark Landler"><span style="color: #004276;">MARK LANDLER</span></a></span></h6><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><state w:st="on"><place w:st="on"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">WASHINGTON</span></place></state><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> — </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">President Obama did not mention Mitt Romney<span style="color: black;"> on Tuesday evening, but he didn’t need to. Mr. Romney, whom the president’s aides still view as his most likely opponent in the fall, was the unspoken adversary in Mr. Obama’s call for a more equitable society — the natural foil for his proposals to level the playing field for middle-class Americans, from taxes to trade policy.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">When Mr. Obama talked about levying a millionaires’ tax, he might have been referring to Mr. Romney’s newly released tax return, which disclosed he paid a tax rate of 13.9 percent on income of more than $20 million in 2010. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">When he referred to his administration’s bailout of the auto industry, noting that “some even said we should let it die,” he could have been talking about Mr. Romney’s argument that the carmakers should have been allowed to fail. And when he said he would oppose “any effort to return to the very same policies that brought on this economic crisis in the first place,” he could have been referring to Mr. Romney’s call for a rollback of regulations on Wall Street. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Nine months before he faces the voters, Mr. Obama seized what is likely to be one of his most prominent platforms of the year to draw a bright line between himself and Mr. Romney — and, in the process, try to appeal to those frustrated by the deepening economic divide. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Gone was the soaring language of his last </span><u><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">State of the <place w:st="on">Union</place> address</span></u><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">, when the president spoke of winning the future — a challenge he likened to “<u>our generation’s Sputnik moment</u>.”<span style="color: black;"> With the tents of the Occupy protesters catching snow in American cities, he was tapping into a national sense of grievance. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“When Americans talk about folks like me paying my fair share of taxes, it’s not because they envy the rich,” Mr. Obama said, answering Mr. Romney’s charge that the president engages in the “bitter politics of envy.” “It’s because they understand that when I get tax breaks I don’t need and the country can’t afford, it either adds to the deficit or somebody else has to make up the difference.” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">It is a theme he has struck repeatedly as his campaign has geared up, and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/us/politics/obama-strikes-populist-chord-with-speech-in-heartland.html" title="Times article."><u><span style="color: #004276;">nowhere more forcefully than last month in Osawatomie, Kan.</span></u></a>, where he invoked the spirit of Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican aristocrat who nevertheless broke up monopolies and campaigned for a progressive income tax. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Mr. Obama’s appeal on Tuesday, studded as it was with the policy proposals that fill these addresses, did not match that populist fury. But in the august setting of the Capitol, squaring off against an often-hostile Congress, the president rolled out an election-year message that offers voters a stark choice between his vision and what he paints as the Darwinian approach of Mr. Romney and other Republicans. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">To some extent, Mr. Obama was also aiming his words at <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Florida</place></state>, where Mr. Romney and the rest of the Republican field are competing in a primary next week over the right to challenge the president. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Every word in a State of the Union address is carefully chosen. So it was no accident that when the president discussed the auto industry and the future of American manufacturing, he said: “What’s happening in <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Detroit</place></city> can happen in other industries. It can happen in <city w:st="on">Cleveland</city> and <city w:st="on">Pittsburgh</city> and <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Raleigh</place></city>.” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Those cities happen to be in <state w:st="on">Michigan</state>, <state w:st="on">Ohio</state>, <state w:st="on">Pennsylvania</state> and <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">North Carolina</place></state> — battleground states totaling 69 electoral votes. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But much of the president’s message was clearly intended to push back at his Republican rivals and their critiques of his record. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Lest anyone forget Mr. Romney’s background at Bain Capital as an avid buyer and seller of companies, Mr. Obama offered a paean to permanence — to companies built on a sturdy foundation of manufacturing and skilled workers. These businesses, he said, are the basis of a competitive economy. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Mr. Obama also seemed to have Mr. Romney in mind when he announced new housing assistance and declared that “responsible homeowners shouldn’t have to sit and wait for the housing market to hit bottom to get some relief.” Last year, Mr. Romney went to <state w:st="on">Nevada</state>, the state hardest hit by <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/f/foreclosures/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="More articles about foreclosures."><u><span style="color: #004276;">foreclosures</span></u></a>, and told a <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Las Vegas</place></city> newspaper that the housing market needed to bottom out. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Mr. Obama also said he would oppose efforts to repeal <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/credit_crisis/financial_regulatory_reform/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="More articles about financial regulatory reform."><u><span style="color: #004276;">financial regulations</span></u></a>, and he drew a direct link between the policies of his predecessor, George W. Bush, and the economic mess that has consumed his own presidency. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In recent weeks, Mr. Obama has had a useful surrogate in <a href="http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/primaries/candidates/newt-gingrich?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about Newt Gingrich."><u><span style="color: #004276;">Newt Gingrich</span></u></a>, the former House speaker, who has accused Mr. Romney of destroying jobs while at Bain and pressured him to release his tax returns. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But Mr. Gingrich, whose victory in the <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">South Carolina</place></state> primary has turned him into a real competitor, did not escape a few jabs Tuesday night. Mr. Obama called for new rules to reduce the influence of lobbyists. Left unsaid was Mr. Gingrich’s disclosure on Monday that he had been paid $1.6 million to advise the mortgage giant Freddie Mac. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Mr. Romney was not silent on Mr. Obama’s big day, earlier laying out his own case for leadership in a speech at a shuttered factory in <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">Tampa</city>, <state w:st="on">Fla.</state></place> He argued that his 25 years in business had given him the skills to turn around the economy. The president, Mr. Romney said, “puts his faith in government; we put our faith in the American people.” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Ours is the party of free enterprise, free markets and consumer choice,” he said. “The Republican Party stands for personal responsibility and equal opportunity. We don’t demonize prosperity; we celebrate success.” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Mr. Obama countered that he had turned things around, pointing to the revived auto industry, a recovering economy and three million private-sector jobs. And he flatly rejected the contention of Mr. Romney, Mr. Gingrich and other Republicans that he is presiding over a country in decline. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Anyone who tells you otherwise,” the president said, “anyone who tells you that <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region> is in decline or that our influence has waned, doesn’t know what they’re talking about.” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Jonathan Weisman contributed reporting.</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">NY Times </span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div>Magaliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12302647210642503347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6120844093614812903.post-91955616969654244612012-01-31T03:21:00.001-08:002012-01-31T03:21:29.082-08:00State of the Union Speech<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">State of the Union Speech: Full Text</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">(<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/01/state-of-the-union-speech-full-text/251941/"><span style="color: #606420;">http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/01/state-of-the-union-speech-full-text/251941/</span></a>)</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">By David A. Graham </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The following is the complete text of President Obama's State of the Union address as written.</span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Remarks of President Barack Obama - As Prepared for Delivery</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">State of the Union Address</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">"An <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region> Built to Last"</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Tuesday, January 24th, 2012</span></b></div><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><br />
<place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">Washington</city>, <state w:st="on">DC</state></place></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">As Prepared for Delivery -</span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans: </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Last month, I went to Andrews Air Force Base and welcomed home some of our last troops to serve in <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Iraq</place></country-region>. Together, we offered a final, proud salute to the colors under which more than a million of our fellow citizens fought - and several thousand gave their lives. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">We gather tonight knowing that this generation of heroes has made the <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">United States</place></country-region> safer and more respected around the world. For the first time in nine years, there are no Americans fighting in <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Iraq</place></country-region>. For the first time in two decades, Osama bin Laden is not a threat to this country. Most of al Qaeda's top lieutenants have been defeated. The Taliban's momentum has been broken, and some troops in <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Afghanistan</place></country-region> have begun to come home. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">These achievements are a testament to the courage, selflessness, and teamwork of <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region>'s Armed Forces. At a time when too many of our institutions have let us down, they exceed all expectations. They're not consumed with personal ambition. They don't obsess over their differences. They focus on the mission at hand. They work together. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Imagine what we could accomplish if we followed their example. Think about the <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region> within our reach: A country that leads the world in educating its people. An <place w:st="on"><country-region w:st="on">America</country-region></place> that attracts a new generation of high-tech manufacturing and high-paying jobs. A future where we're in control of our own energy, and our security and prosperity aren't so tied to unstable parts of the world. An economy built to last, where hard work pays off, and responsibility is rewarded. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">We can do this. I know we can, because we've done it before. At the end of World War II, when another generation of heroes returned home from combat, they built the strongest economy and middle class the world has ever known. My grandfather, a veteran of Patton's Army, got the chance to go to college on the GI Bill. My grandmother, who worked on a bomber assembly line, was part of a workforce that turned out the best products on Earth. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The two of them shared the optimism of a Nation that had triumphed over a depression and fascism. They understood they were part of something larger; that they were contributing to a story of success that every American had a chance to share - the basic American promise that if you worked hard, you could do well enough to raise a family, own a home, send your kids to college, and put a little away for retirement. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The defining issue of our time is how to keep that promise alive. No challenge is more urgent. No debate is more important. We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by. Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules. What's at stake are not Democratic values or Republican values, but American values. We have to reclaim them. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Let's remember how we got here. Long before the recession, jobs and manufacturing began leaving our shores. Technology made businesses more efficient, but also made some jobs obsolete. Folks at the top saw their incomes rise like never before, but most hardworking Americans struggled with costs that were growing, paychecks that weren't, and personal debt that kept piling up. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In 2008, the house of cards collapsed. We learned that mortgages had been sold to people who couldn't afford or understand them. Banks had made huge bets and bonuses with other people's money. Regulators had looked the other way, or didn't have the authority to stop the bad behavior. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">It was wrong. It was irresponsible. And it plunged our economy into a crisis that put millions out of work, saddled us with more debt, and left innocent, hard-working Americans holding the bag. In the six months before I took office, we lost nearly four million jobs. And we lost another four million before our policies were in full effect. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Those are the facts. But so are these. In the last 22 months, businesses have created more than three million jobs. Last year, they created the most jobs since 2005. American manufacturers are hiring again, creating jobs for the first time since the late 1990s. Together, we've agreed to cut the deficit by more than $2 trillion. And we've put in place new rules to hold Wall Street accountable, so a crisis like that never happens again. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The state of our <place w:st="on">Union</place> is getting stronger. And we've come too far to turn back now. As long as I'm President, I will work with anyone in this chamber to build on this momentum. But I intend to fight obstruction with action, and I will oppose any effort to return to the very same policies that brought on this economic crisis in the first place. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">No, we will not go back to an economy weakened by outsourcing, bad debt, and phony financial profits. Tonight, I want to speak about how we move forward, and lay out a blueprint for an economy that's built to last - an economy built on American manufacturing, American energy, skills for American workers, and a renewal of American values. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">This blueprint begins with American manufacturing. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">On the day I took office, our auto industry was on the verge of collapse. Some even said we should let it die. With a million jobs at stake, I refused to let that happen. In exchange for help, we demanded responsibility. We got workers and automakers to settle their differences. We got the industry to retool and restructure. Today, General Motors is back on top as the world's number one automaker. Chrysler has grown faster in the <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">U.S.</place></country-region> than any major car company. Ford is investing billions in <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">U.S.</place></country-region> plants and factories. And together, the entire industry added nearly 160,000 jobs. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">We bet on American workers. We bet on American ingenuity. And tonight, the American auto industry is back. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">What's happening in <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Detroit</place></city> can happen in other industries. It can happen in <city w:st="on">Cleveland</city> and <city w:st="on">Pittsburgh</city> and <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Raleigh</place></city>. We can't bring back every job that's left our shores. But right now, it's getting more expensive to do business in places like <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">China</place></country-region>. Meanwhile, <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region> is more productive. A few weeks ago, the CEO of Master Lock told me that it now makes business sense for him to bring jobs back home. Today, for the first time in fifteen years, Master Lock's unionized plant in <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Milwaukee</place></city> is running at full capacity. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">So we have a huge opportunity, at this moment, to bring manufacturing back. But we have to seize it. Tonight, my message to business leaders is simple: Ask yourselves what you can do to bring jobs back to your country, and your country will do everything we can to help you succeed. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">We should start with our tax code. Right now, companies get tax breaks for moving jobs and profits overseas. Meanwhile, companies that choose to stay in <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region> get hit with one of the highest tax rates in the world. It makes no sense, and everyone knows it. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">So let's change it. First, if you're a business that wants to outsource jobs, you shouldn't get a tax deduction for doing it. That money should be used to cover moving expenses for companies like Master Lock that decide to bring jobs home. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Second, no American company should be able to avoid paying its fair share of taxes by moving jobs and profits overseas. From now on, every multinational company should have to pay a basic minimum tax. And every penny should go towards lowering taxes for companies that choose to stay here and hire here. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Third, if you're an American manufacturer, you should get a bigger tax cut. If you're a high-tech manufacturer, we should double the tax deduction you get for making products here. And if you want to relocate in a community that was hit hard when a factory left town, you should get help financing a new plant, equipment, or training for new workers. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">My message is simple. It's time to stop rewarding businesses that ship jobs overseas, and start rewarding companies that create jobs right here in America. Send me these tax reforms, and I'll sign them right away. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">We're also making it easier for American businesses to sell products all over the world. Two years ago, I set a goal of doubling <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">U.S.</place></country-region> exports over five years. With the bipartisan trade agreements I signed into law, we are on track to meet that goal - ahead of schedule. Soon, there will be millions of new customers for American goods in <country-region w:st="on">Panama</country-region>, <country-region w:st="on">Colombia</country-region>, and <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">South Korea</place></country-region>. Soon, there will be new cars on the streets of <city w:st="on">Seoul</city> imported from <city w:st="on">Detroit</city>, and <city w:st="on">Toledo</city>, and <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Chicago</place></city>. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I will go anywhere in the world to open new markets for American products. And I will not stand by when our competitors don't play by the rules. We've brought trade cases against <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">China</place></country-region> at nearly twice the rate as the last administration - and it's made a difference. Over a thousand Americans are working today because we stopped a surge in Chinese tires. But we need to do more. It's not right when another country lets our movies, music, and software be pirated. It's not fair when foreign manufacturers have a leg up on ours only because they're heavily subsidized. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Tonight, I'm announcing the creation of a Trade Enforcement Unit that will be charged with investigating unfair trade practices in countries like <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">China</place></country-region>. There will be more inspections to prevent counterfeit or unsafe goods from crossing our borders. And this Congress should make sure that no foreign company has an advantage over American manufacturing when it comes to accessing finance or new markets like <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Russia</place></country-region>. Our workers are the most productive on Earth, and if the playing field is level, I promise you - <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region> will always win. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I also hear from many business leaders who want to hire in the <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">United States</place></country-region> but can't find workers with the right skills. Growing industries in science and technology have twice as many openings as we have workers who can do the job. Think about that - openings at a time when millions of Americans are looking for work. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">That's inexcusable. And we know how to fix it. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Jackie Bray is a single mom from <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">North Carolina</place></state> who was laid off from her job as a mechanic. Then Siemens opened a gas turbine factory in <city w:st="on">Charlotte</city>, and formed a partnership with <place w:st="on"><placename w:st="on">Central</placename> <placename w:st="on">Piedmont</placename> <placetype w:st="on">Community College</placetype></place>. The company helped the college design courses in laser and robotics training. It paid Jackie's tuition, then hired her to help operate their plant. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I want every American looking for work to have the same opportunity as Jackie did. Join me in a national commitment to train two million Americans with skills that will lead directly to a job. My Administration has already lined up more companies that want to help. Model partnerships between businesses like Siemens and community colleges in places like <city w:st="on">Charlotte</city>, <city w:st="on">Orlando</city>, and <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">Louisville</city></place> are up and running. Now you need to give more community colleges the resources they need to become community career centers - places that teach people skills that local businesses are looking for right now, from data management to high-tech manufacturing. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">And I want to cut through the maze of confusing training programs, so that from now on, people like Jackie have one program, one website, and one place to go for all the information and help they need. It's time to turn our unemployment system into a reemployment system that puts people to work. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">These reforms will help people get jobs that are open today. But to prepare for the jobs of tomorrow, our commitment to skills and education has to start earlier. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">For less than one percent of what our Nation spends on education each year, we've convinced nearly every State in the country to raise their standards for teaching and learning - the first time that's happened in a generation. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But challenges remain. And we know how to solve them. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">At a time when other countries are doubling down on education, tight budgets have forced States to lay off thousands of teachers. We know a good teacher can increase the lifetime income of a classroom by over $250,000. A great teacher can offer an escape from poverty to the child who dreams beyond his circumstance. Every person in this chamber can point to a teacher who changed the trajectory of their lives. Most teachers work tirelessly, with modest pay, sometimes digging into their own pocket for school supplies - just to make a difference. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Teachers matter. So instead of bashing them, or defending the status quo, let's offer schools a deal. Give them the resources to keep good teachers on the job, and reward the best ones. In return, grant schools flexibility: To teach with creativity and passion; to stop teaching to the test; and to replace teachers who just aren't helping kids learn. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">We also know that when students aren't allowed to walk away from their education, more of them walk the stage to get their diploma. So tonight, I call on every State to require that all students stay in high school until they graduate or turn eighteen. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">When kids do graduate, the most daunting challenge can be the cost of college. At a time when Americans owe more in tuition debt than credit card debt, this Congress needs to stop the interest rates on student loans from doubling in July. Extend the tuition tax credit we started that saves middle-class families thousands of dollars. And give more young people the chance to earn their way through college by doubling the number of work-study jobs in the next five years. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Of course, it's not enough for us to increase student aid. We can't just keep subsidizing skyrocketing tuition; we'll run out of money. States also need to do their part, by making higher education a higher priority in their budgets. And colleges and universities have to do their part by working to keep costs down. Recently, I spoke with a group of college presidents who've done just that. Some schools re-design courses to help students finish more quickly. Some use better technology. The point is, it's possible. So let me put colleges and universities on notice: If you can't stop tuition from going up, the funding you get from taxpayers will go down. Higher education can't be a luxury - it's an economic imperative that every family in <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region> should be able to afford. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Let's also remember that hundreds of thousands of talented, hardworking students in this country face another challenge: The fact that they aren't yet American citizens. Many were brought here as small children, are American through and through, yet they live every day with the threat of deportation. Others came more recently, to study business and science and engineering, but as soon as they get their degree, we send them home to invent new products and create new jobs somewhere else. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">That doesn't make sense. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I believe as strongly as ever that we should take on illegal immigration. That's why my Administration has put more boots on the border than ever before. That's why there are fewer illegal crossings than when I took office. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The opponents of action are out of excuses. We should be working on comprehensive immigration reform right now. But if election-year politics keeps Congress from acting on a comprehensive plan, let's at least agree to stop expelling responsible young people who want to staff our labs, start new businesses, and defend this country. Send me a law that gives them the chance to earn their citizenship. I will sign it right away. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">You see, an economy built to last is one where we encourage the talent and ingenuity of every person in this country. That means women should earn equal pay for equal work. It means we should support everyone who's willing to work; and every risk-taker and entrepreneur who aspires to become the next Steve Jobs. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">After all, innovation is what <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region> has always been about. Most new jobs are created in start-ups and small businesses. So let's pass an agenda that helps them succeed. Tear down regulations that prevent aspiring entrepreneurs from getting the financing to grow. Expand tax relief to small businesses that are raising wages and creating good jobs. Both parties agree on these ideas. So put them in a bill, and get it on my desk this year. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Innovation also demands basic research. Today, the discoveries taking place in our federally-financed labs and universities could lead to new treatments that kill cancer cells but leave healthy ones untouched. New lightweight vests for cops and soldiers that can stop any bullet. Don't gut these investments in our budget. Don't let other countries win the race for the future. Support the same kind of research and innovation that led to the computer chip and the Internet; to new American jobs and new American industries. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Nowhere is the promise of innovation greater than in American-made energy. Over the last three years, we've opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration, and tonight, I'm directing my Administration to open more than 75 percent of our potential offshore oil and gas resources. Right now, American oil production is the highest that it's been in eight years. That's right - eight years. Not only that - last year, we relied less on foreign oil than in any of the past sixteen years. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But with only 2 percent of the world's oil reserves, oil isn't enough. This country needs an all-out, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy - a strategy that's cleaner, cheaper, and full of new jobs. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">We have a supply of natural gas that can last <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region> nearly one hundred years, and my Administration will take every possible action to safely develop this energy. Experts believe this will support more than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade. And I'm requiring all companies that drill for gas on public lands to disclose the chemicals they use. <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region> will develop this resource without putting the health and safety of our citizens at risk. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The development of natural gas will create jobs and power trucks and factories that are cleaner and cheaper, proving that we don't have to choose between our environment and our economy. And by the way, it was public research dollars, over the course of thirty years, that helped develop the technologies to extract all this natural gas out of shale rock - reminding us that Government support is critical in helping businesses get new energy ideas off the ground. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">What's true for natural gas is true for clean energy. In three years, our partnership with the private sector has already positioned <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region> to be the world's leading manufacturer of high-tech batteries. Because of federal investments, renewable energy use has nearly doubled. And thousands of Americans have jobs because of it. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">When Bryan Ritterby was laid off from his job making furniture, he said he worried that at 55, no one would give him a second chance. But he found work at Energetx, a wind turbine manufacturer in <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Michigan</place></state>. Before the recession, the factory only made luxury yachts. Today, it's hiring workers like <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Bryan</place></city>, who said, "I'm proud to be working in the industry of the future." </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Our experience with shale gas shows us that the payoffs on these public investments don't always come right away. Some technologies don't pan out; some companies fail. But I will not walk away from the promise of clean energy. I will not walk away from workers like <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Bryan</place></city>. I will not cede the wind or solar or battery industry to <country-region w:st="on">China</country-region> or <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Germany</place></country-region> because we refuse to make the same commitment here. We have subsidized oil companies for a century. That's long enough. It's time to end the taxpayer giveaways to an industry that's rarely been more profitable, and double-down on a clean energy industry that's never been more promising. Pass clean energy tax credits and create these jobs. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">We can also spur energy innovation with new incentives. The differences in this chamber may be too deep right now to pass a comprehensive plan to fight climate change. But there's no reason why Congress shouldn't at least set a clean energy standard that creates a market for innovation. So far, you haven't acted. Well tonight, I will. I'm directing my Administration to allow the development of clean energy on enough public land to power three million homes. And I'm proud to announce that the Department of Defense, the world's largest consumer of energy, will make one of the largest commitments to clean energy in history - with the Navy purchasing enough capacity to power a quarter of a million homes a year. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Of course, the easiest way to save money is to waste less energy. So here's another proposal: Help manufacturers eliminate energy waste in their factories and give businesses incentives to upgrade their buildings. Their energy bills will be $100 billion lower over the next decade, and <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region> will have less pollution, more manufacturing, and more jobs for construction workers who need them. Send me a bill that creates these jobs. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Building this new energy future should be just one part of a broader agenda to repair <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region>'s infrastructure. So much of <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region> needs to be rebuilt. We've got crumbling roads and bridges. A power grid that wastes too much energy. An incomplete high-speed broadband network that prevents a small business owner in rural <place w:st="on"><country-region w:st="on">America</country-region></place> from selling her products all over the world. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">During the Great Depression, <country-region w:st="on">America</country-region> built the Hoover Dam and the <place w:st="on"><placename w:st="on">Golden Gate</placename> <placetype w:st="on">Bridge</placetype></place>. After World War II, we connected our States with a system of highways. Democratic and Republican administrations invested in great projects that benefited everybody, from the workers who built them to the businesses that still use them today. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In the next few weeks, I will sign an Executive Order clearing away the red tape that slows down too many construction projects. But you need to fund these projects. Take the money we're no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the rest to do some nation-building right here at home. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">There's never been a better time to build, especially since the construction industry was one of the hardest-hit when the housing bubble burst. Of course, construction workers weren't the only ones hurt. So were millions of innocent Americans who've seen their home values decline. And while Government can't fix the problem on its own, responsible homeowners shouldn't have to sit and wait for the housing market to hit bottom to get some relief. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">That's why I'm sending this Congress a plan that gives every responsible homeowner the chance to save about $3,000 a year on their mortgage, by refinancing at historically low interest rates. No more red tape. No more runaround from the banks. A small fee on the largest financial institutions will ensure that it won't add to the deficit, and will give banks that were rescued by taxpayers a chance to repay a deficit of trust. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Let's never forget: Millions of Americans who work hard and play by the rules every day deserve a Government and a financial system that do the same. It's time to apply the same rules from top to bottom: No bailouts, no handouts, and no copouts. An <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region> built to last insists on responsibility from everybody. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">We've all paid the price for lenders who sold mortgages to people who couldn't afford them, and buyers who knew they couldn't afford them. That's why we need smart regulations to prevent irresponsible behavior. Rules to prevent financial fraud, or toxic dumping, or faulty medical devices, don't destroy the free market. They make the free market work better. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">There is no question that some regulations are outdated, unnecessary, or too costly. In fact, I've approved fewer regulations in the first three years of my presidency than my Republican predecessor did in his. I've ordered every federal agency to eliminate rules that don't make sense. We've already announced over 500 reforms, and just a fraction of them will save business and citizens more than $10 billion over the next five years. We got rid of one rule from 40 years ago that could have forced some dairy farmers to spend $10,000 a year proving that they could contain a spill - because milk was somehow classified as an oil. With a rule like that, I guess it was worth crying over spilled milk. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I'm confident a farmer can contain a milk spill without a federal agency looking over his shoulder. But I will not back down from making sure an oil company can contain the kind of oil spill we saw in the Gulf two years ago. I will not back down from protecting our kids from mercury pollution, or making sure that our food is safe and our water is clean. I will not go back to the days when health insurance companies had unchecked power to cancel your policy, deny you coverage, or charge women differently from men. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">And I will not go back to the days when Wall Street was allowed to play by its own set of rules. The new rules we passed restore what should be any financial system's core purpose: Getting funding to entrepreneurs with the best ideas, and getting loans to responsible families who want to buy a home, start a business, or send a kid to college. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">So if you're a big bank or financial institution, you are no longer allowed to make risky bets with your customers' deposits. You're required to write out a "living will" that details exactly how you'll pay the bills if you fail - because the rest of us aren't bailing you out ever again. And if you're a mortgage lender or a payday lender or a credit card company, the days of signing people up for products they can't afford with confusing forms and deceptive practices are over. Today, American consumers finally have a watchdog in Richard Cordray with one job: To look out for them. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">We will also establish a Financial Crimes Unit of highly trained investigators to crack down on large-scale fraud and protect people's investments. Some financial firms violate major anti-fraud laws because there's no real penalty for being a repeat offender. That's bad for consumers, and it's bad for the vast majority of bankers and financial service professionals who do the right thing. So pass legislation that makes the penalties for fraud count. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">And tonight, I am asking my Attorney General to create a special unit of federal prosecutors and leading state attorneys general to expand our investigations into the abusive lending and packaging of risky mortgages that led to the housing crisis. This new unit will hold accountable those who broke the law, speed assistance to homeowners, and help turn the page on an era of recklessness that hurt so many Americans. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">A return to the American values of fair play and shared responsibility will help us protect our people and our economy. But it should also guide us as we look to pay down our debt and invest in our future. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Right now, our most immediate priority is stopping a tax hike on 160 million working Americans while the recovery is still fragile. People cannot afford losing $40 out of each paycheck this year. There are plenty of ways to get this done. So let's agree right here, right now: No side issues. No drama. Pass the payroll tax cut without delay. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">When it comes to the deficit, we've already agreed to more than $2 trillion in cuts and savings. But we need to do more, and that means making choices. Right now, we're poised to spend nearly $1 trillion more on what was supposed to be a temporary tax break for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans. Right now, because of loopholes and shelters in the tax code, a quarter of all millionaires pay lower tax rates than millions of middle-class households. Right now, Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Do we want to keep these tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans? Or do we want to keep our investments in everything else - like education and medical research; a strong military and care for our veterans? Because if we're serious about paying down our debt, we can't do both. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The American people know what the right choice is. So do I. As I told the Speaker this summer, I'm prepared to make more reforms that rein in the long term costs of Medicare and Medicaid, and strengthen Social Security, so long as those programs remain a guarantee of security for seniors. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But in return, we need to change our tax code so that people like me, and an awful lot of Members of Congress, pay our fair share of taxes. Tax reform should follow the Buffett rule: If you make more than $1 million a year, you should not pay less than 30 percent in taxes. And my Republican friend Tom Coburn is right: <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Washington</place></state> should stop subsidizing millionaires. In fact, if you're earning a million dollars a year, you shouldn't get special tax subsidies or deductions. On the other hand, if you make under $250,000 a year, like 98 percent of American families, your taxes shouldn't go up. You're the ones struggling with rising costs and stagnant wages. You're the ones who need relief. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, you can call this class warfare all you want. But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">We don't begrudge financial success in this country. We admire it. When Americans talk about folks like me paying my fair share of taxes, it's not because they envy the rich. It's because they understand that when I get tax breaks I don't need and the country can't afford, it either adds to the deficit, or somebody else has to make up the difference - like a senior on a fixed income; or a student trying to get through school; or a family trying to make ends meet. That's not right. Americans know it's not right. They know that this generation's success is only possible because past generations felt a responsibility to each other, and to their country's future, and they know our way of life will only endure if we feel that same sense of shared responsibility. That's how we'll reduce our deficit. That's an <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region> built to last. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I recognize that people watching tonight have differing views about taxes and debt; energy and health care. But no matter what party they belong to, I bet most Americans are thinking the same thing right now: Nothing will get done this year, or next year, or maybe even the year after that, because Washington is broken. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Can you blame them for feeling a little cynical? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The greatest blow to confidence in our economy last year didn't come from events beyond our control. It came from a debate in <state w:st="on">Washington</state> over whether the <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">United States</place></country-region> would pay its bills or not. Who benefited from that fiasco? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I've talked tonight about the deficit of trust between <street w:st="on"><address w:st="on">Main Street</address></street> and Wall Street. But the divide between this city and the rest of the country is at least as bad - and it seems to get worse every year. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Some of this has to do with the corrosive influence of money in politics. So together, let's take some steps to fix that. Send me a bill that bans insider trading by Members of Congress, and I will sign it tomorrow. Let's limit any elected official from owning stocks in industries they impact. Let's make sure people who bundle campaign contributions for Congress can't lobby Congress, and vice versa - an idea that has bipartisan support, at least outside of <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Washington</place></state>. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Some of what's broken has to do with the way Congress does its business these days. A simple majority is no longer enough to get anything - even routine business - passed through the Senate. Neither party has been blameless in these tactics. Now both parties should put an end to it. For starters, I ask the Senate to pass a rule that all judicial and public service nominations receive a simple up or down vote within 90 days. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The executive branch also needs to change. Too often, it's inefficient, outdated and remote. That's why I've asked this Congress to grant me the authority to consolidate the federal bureaucracy so that our Government is leaner, quicker, and more responsive to the needs of the American people. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Finally, none of these reforms can happen unless we also lower the temperature in this town. We need to end the notion that the two parties must be locked in a perpetual campaign of mutual destruction; that politics is about clinging to rigid ideologies instead of building consensus around common sense ideas. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I'm a Democrat. But I believe what Republican Abraham Lincoln believed: That Government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more. That's why my education reform offers more competition, and more control for schools and States. That's why we're getting rid of regulations that don't work. That's why our health care law relies on a reformed private market, not a Government program. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">On the other hand, even my Republican friends who complain the most about Government spending have supported federally-financed roads, and clean energy projects, and federal offices for the folks back home. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The point is, we should all want a smarter, more effective Government. And while we may not be able to bridge our biggest philosophical differences this year, we can make real progress. With or without this Congress, I will keep taking actions that help the economy grow. But I can do a whole lot more with your help. Because when we act together, there is nothing the <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">United States of America</place></country-region> can't achieve. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">That is the lesson we've learned from our actions abroad over the last few years. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Ending the <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Iraq</place></country-region> war has allowed us to strike decisive blows against our enemies. From <country-region w:st="on">Pakistan</country-region> to <country-region w:st="on">Yemen</country-region>, the al Qaeda operatives who remain are scrambling, knowing that they can't escape the reach of the <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">United States of America</place></country-region>. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">From this position of strength, we've begun to wind down the war in <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Afghanistan</place></country-region>. Ten thousand of our troops have come home. Twenty-three thousand more will leave by the end of this summer. This transition to Afghan lead will continue, and we will build an enduring partnership with <country-region w:st="on">Afghanistan</country-region>, so that it is never again a source of attacks against <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region>. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">As the tide of war recedes, a wave of change has washed across the Middle East and North Africa, from <state w:st="on">Tunis</state> to <city w:st="on">Cairo</city>; from Sana'a to <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Tripoli</place></city>. A year ago, Qadhafi was one of the world's longest-serving dictators - a murderer with American blood on his hands. Today, he is gone. And in <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Syria</place></country-region>, I have no doubt that the Assad regime will soon discover that the forces of change can't be reversed, and that human dignity can't be denied. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">How this incredible transformation will end remains uncertain. But we have a huge stake in the outcome. And while it is ultimately up to the people of the region to decide their fate, we will advocate for those values that have served our own country so well. We will stand against violence and intimidation. We will stand for the rights and dignity of all human beings - men and women; Christians, Muslims, and Jews. We will support policies that lead to strong and stable democracies and open markets, because tyranny is no match for liberty. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">And we will safeguard <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region>'s own security against those who threaten our citizens, our friends, and our interests. Look at <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Iran</place></country-region>. Through the power of our diplomacy, a world that was once divided about how to deal with <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Iran</place></country-region>'s nuclear program now stands as one. The regime is more isolated than ever before; its leaders are faced with crippling sanctions, and as long as they shirk their responsibilities, this pressure will not relent. Let there be no doubt: <country-region w:st="on">America</country-region> is determined to prevent <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Iran</place></country-region> from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal. But a peaceful resolution of this issue is still possible, and far better, and if <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Iran</place></country-region> changes course and meets its obligations, it can rejoin the community of nations. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The renewal of American leadership can be felt across the globe. Our oldest alliances in Europe and <place w:st="on">Asia</place> are stronger than ever. Our ties to the <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Americas</place></country-region> are deeper. Our iron-clad commitment to <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Israel</place></country-region>'s security has meant the closest military cooperation between our two countries in history. We've made it clear that <country-region w:st="on">America</country-region> is a Pacific power, and a new beginning in <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Burma</place></country-region> has lit a new hope. From the coalitions we've built to secure nuclear materials, to the missions we've led against hunger and disease; from the blows we've dealt to our enemies; to the enduring power of our moral example, <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region> is back. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Anyone who tells you otherwise, anyone who tells you that <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region> is in decline or that our influence has waned, doesn't know what they're talking about. That's not the message we get from leaders around the world, all of whom are eager to work with us. That's not how people feel from <city w:st="on">Tokyo</city> to <state w:st="on">Berlin</state>; from <city w:st="on">Cape Town</city> to Rio; where opinions of <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region> are higher than they've been in years. Yes, the world is changing; no, we can't control every event. But <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region> remains the one indispensable nation in world affairs - and as long as I'm President, I intend to keep it that way. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">That's why, working with our military leaders, I have proposed a new defense strategy that ensures we maintain the finest military in the world, while saving nearly half a trillion dollars in our budget. To stay one step ahead of our adversaries, I have already sent this Congress legislation that will secure our country from the growing danger of cyber-threats. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Above all, our freedom endures because of the men and women in uniform who defend it. As they come home, we must serve them as well as they served us. That includes giving them the care and benefits they have earned - which is why we've increased annual VA spending every year I've been President. And it means enlisting our veterans in the work of rebuilding our Nation. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">With the bipartisan support of this Congress, we are providing new tax credits to companies that hire vets. Michelle and Jill Biden have worked with American businesses to secure a pledge of 135,000 jobs for veterans and their families. And tonight, I'm proposing a Veterans Job Corps that will help our communities hire veterans as cops and firefighters, so that <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region> is as strong as those who defend her. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Which brings me back to where I began. Those of us who've been sent here to serve can learn from the service of our troops. When you put on that uniform, it doesn't matter if you're black or white; Asian or Latino; conservative or liberal; rich or poor; gay or straight. When you're marching into battle, you look out for the person next to you, or the mission fails. When you're in the thick of the fight, you rise or fall as one unit, serving one Nation, leaving no one behind. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">One of my proudest possessions is the flag that the SEAL Team took with them on the mission to get bin Laden. On it are each of their names. Some may be Democrats. Some may be Republicans. But that doesn't matter. Just like it didn't matter that day in the Situation Room, when I sat next to Bob Gates - a man who was George Bush's defense secretary; and Hillary Clinton, a woman who ran against me for president. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">All that mattered that day was the mission. No one thought about politics. No one thought about themselves. One of the young men involved in the raid later told me that he didn't deserve credit for the mission. It only succeeded, he said, because every single member of that unit did their job - the pilot who landed the helicopter that spun out of control; the translator who kept others from entering the compound; the troops who separated the women and children from the fight; the SEALs who charged up the stairs. More than that, the mission only succeeded because every member of that unit trusted each other - because you can't charge up those stairs, into darkness and danger, unless you know that there's someone behind you, watching your back. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">So it is with <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region>. Each time I look at that flag, I'm reminded that our destiny is stitched together like those fifty stars and those thirteen stripes. No one built this country on their own. This Nation is great because we built it together. This Nation is great because we worked as a team. This Nation is great because we get each other's backs. And if we hold fast to that truth, in this moment of trial, there is no challenge too great; no mission too hard. As long as we're joined in common purpose, as long as we maintain our common resolve, our journey moves forward, our future is hopeful, and the state of our Union will always be strong. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the <place w:st="on"><country-region w:st="on">United States of America</country-region></place>. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div></span></b><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span>Magaliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12302647210642503347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6120844093614812903.post-25567359128804642632011-06-15T07:32:00.001-07:002011-06-15T07:32:58.815-07:00When Compromise Is ‘Going Soft’<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Douglas Graham/Roll Call</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Tea party activists are urging their members to write lawmakers and tell them to insist on a debt limit increase that’s paired with significant spending cuts. But some worry that if they aren’t flexible, Congressional conservatives may be left out of a final deal. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tea party activists are urging House Members to resist compromise in the debt limit debate, but too firm a stance by the conservative faction could marginalize the group rather than strengthen it when a final deal is cut. </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Conservatives saw this happen in the continuing resolution debate, when House GOP freshmen insisted on major spending cuts that ultimately were whittled down to satisfy Democrats in the Senate and White House. Outside groups are hoping to avoid a repeat of that March defeat, but some Members are trying to manage conservative expectations on the terms for raising the federal debt limit. "There's no doubt when you control one of the three levers of government it's very difficult to get 100 percent of what you want," Rep. <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/members/31487.html" title="http://www.rollcall.com/members/31487.html"><span style="color: #257095;">Tim Scott</span></a> said. "So to sell anyone on the fact that you're going to end up with all that you want or most of what you want, you're probably selling a bill of goods." The South Carolina Republican said he learned his lesson during the CR debate, when conservatives pushed for $100 billion in spending cuts and ultimately had to settle for $38.5 billion in a deal brokered by Speaker <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/members/379.html" title="http://www.rollcall.com/members/379.html"><span style="color: #257095;">John Boehner</span></a> (R-Ohio) and Senate Majority Leader <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/members/337.html" title="http://www.rollcall.com/members/337.html"><span style="color: #257095;">Harry Reid</span></a> (D-Nev.). Scott ultimately voted for the deal, but 54 of his GOP colleagues didn't because they said the cuts weren't deep enough. The CR easily passed the House, thanks to the support of 85 Democrats. The lesson, according to Scott: "Don't promise $100 billion." But not all of Scott's freshman colleagues are taking the same moderating tone. Rep. <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/members/30884.html" title="http://www.rollcall.com/members/30884.html"><span style="color: #257095;">Joe Walsh</span></a>, a tea party favorite from suburban <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Chicago</place></city>, said any debt limit deal should include a balanced budget amendment. The first-term Republican said his lesson from the CR deal, which he voted against, is just the opposite of what Scott learned. For Walsh, the message from his constituents was that they "don't want us at all to get soft on this one." "So we will push as hard as we can to get this town serious about spending," Walsh said in an interview. "And if voting not to raise the debt ceiling will do it, speaking for myself, I won't do it." Walsh predicted "there will be enough fiscally conservative Republicans" in the Conference to block a deal that doesn't sufficiently reduce spending in exchange for raising the debt limit, and grass-roots organizations throughout the country are working overtime to make sure that faction sticks together as bipartisan negotiations continue in the lead-up to the Aug. 2 deadline when the government is expected to begin defaulting on its debt payments. The challenge for Walsh and many of his more conservative colleagues is that if they won't compromise at all, House leaders may have to search for votes in other places. "Their refusal to consider a debt limit increase is bringing us to the negotiating table when we wouldn't otherwise have a seat," one Democratic aide said. "They'll keep their pride, but the eventual deal will be much weaker than the one they want." Tea party leaders maintain they are in no mood to compromise. Instead, they have focused on publicly opposing any increase. The Our Country Deserves Better political action committee, which backs Tea Party Express, launched a TV ad campaign to oppose the increase. As Chairwoman Amy Kremer put it, "Our message has not only been no, but hell no."</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Grassfire Nation, whose online membership of 1.8 million includes many tea partyers, has started a petition to the same end. And Mark Meckler, a national coordinator for Tea Party Patriots, had strong words for <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">Washington</city>, <state w:st="on">D.C.</state></place>, politicians who might waver on a debt limit vote. "We think Congress has spent decades acting like petulant teenagers, and we need to cut them off from the credit card," Meckler said. With pressure from outside groups, even those lawmakers who do not abide by the tea party agenda are working to keep from raising the movement's ire. Rep. <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/members/31495.html" title="http://www.rollcall.com/members/31495.html"><span style="color: #257095;">Trey Gowdy</span></a>, who was not a tea party candidate last year but represents a <place w:st="on"><state w:st="on">South Carolina</state></place> district with a strong presence, has taken care to engage those groups on controversial issues such as reauthorizing the USA PATRIOT Act. "I've never got the sense that they require me to be right 100 percent of the time," said Gowdy, a first-term Republican. "I think what they'd require is consistency with the platform with which you ran." Similar to Scott and Gowdy, who despite their more moderate tones are nevertheless pushing for deeper cuts in exchange for their support for a debt limit increase, some groups have also taken positions that allow for some flexibility. The leaders of American Conservative Union, Americans for Tax Reform and Let Freedom Ring recently sent a letter to Republican leaders in Congress urging them to use the debt limit increase as leverage for more spending cuts, rather than demanding any particular deal. Some activists acknowledged the odds are against them but insist they are taking the kind of principled stand that not all GOP lawmakers have this year, especially on the CR. They express frustration at seeing Republicans accept lukewarm deals and then expect praise. "From our side of the table, it's like, 'Really? Did you really just slap us across the face and call it a gift?'" said Christina Botteri, a member of the National Tea Party Federation. "We think it's a failure of vision on the part of the GOP leadership." Botteri said the tea party position has been misconstrued as impractical, charging that instead it comes from tea party members feeling like Republicans have been too soft in negotiations. Rep. <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/members/28868.html" title="http://www.rollcall.com/members/28868.html"><span style="color: #257095;">Jason Chaffetz</span></a> (R), who is eyeing a Senate bid in his home state of <place w:st="on"><state w:st="on">Utah</state></place>, noted it is a challenge to satisfy some tea party groups. "They have very high expectations because movement in this town has been so lethargic. There are people who want the budget balanced next Thursday. That's probably not going to happen," Chaffetz said. "It's got to be a very major change in order for the tea party to be pleased. They had high expectations with the CR only to find out that $38 billion may not have even been $38 billion. I think they were let down on that." Scott predicted that House GOP leaders will heed the calls of the freshman class, who account for a third of the Conference and who, despite having to settle for fewer cuts in the CR, drove that number up beyond original predictions. "There is a careful balance that has to be taken into consideration," Scott said, "but at the end of the day, you have to figure out where you're willing to die and stay there."</span></div>Magaliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12302647210642503347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6120844093614812903.post-60417846489162682672011-06-15T03:27:00.000-07:002011-06-15T03:27:34.784-07:00Senate Democrats — Minus Key Players — Signal Opposition to Medicaid Overhaul<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Senate Democrats announced they have enough votes to block a GOP effort to overhaul Medicaid, but the lack of support from several key players suggests that cuts to the health program for the poor could still be part of the negotiations over raising the debt limit. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV said that 41 Senate Democrats have signed letters to President Obama opposing drastic changes to Medicaid, including one that he sent with 36 others saying they would oppose federal caps on program spending. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said he hoped the Democrats’ coalition would help set terms for Medicaid in the ongoing debt ceiling negotiations. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“We’re counting on the White House to stand firm on our shared values here,” said Rockefeller. “Medicare and Social Security have been declared off the table in deficit negotiations, but Medicaid suddenly looks like the sacrificial lamb. I say absolutely no.”</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Conspicuously absent from the letters were the signatures of several Democratic leaders, including Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, Finance Chairman Max Baucus of Montana and Budget Chairman Kent Conrad of North Dakota. Aides did not immediately explain the members’ rationale, but the omission of the leaders’ names likely means they want to preserve their flexibility. It may also indicate they believe they may have to accept some changes to Medicaid — though likely less drastic ones than recommended in the House’s fiscal 2012 budget resolution (H Con Res 34). </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">That resolution proposes converting the federal share of Medicaid from an entitlement for certain low-income groups into a state block grant indexed to inflation and population growth. Republicans are demanding that changes to programs like Medicare and Medicaid be part of any final deal to raise the debt ceiling. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Irwin Redlener, president of the philanthropic group Children’s Health Fund, said that both parties should agree to cut services that are unnecessary, redundant or not cost-effective. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">While he said he supports preserving Medicare and Medicaid, Redlener added, “I’m also a big believer in the fact that we’re without doubt overspending in both of those programs, because we’re paying for services that are not necessary and are very, very costly without having discernable health benefits.” </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Republican governors, such as Haley Barbour of <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Mississippi</place></state>, say the block grant proposal would control federal spending and give governors flexibility to tailor the program to their states’ needs. Democrats counter that it would hurt seniors, the disabled and the poor, and shift costs onto local communities. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Redlener, also a professor at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, called the block grant proposal “short-term thinking in the extreme.”</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“The consequences will be both very harmful and dangerous to individuals and ultimately have an undesirable economic impact as uninsured people flood emergency rooms,” he said.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">A May poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 60 percent of Americans want to keep Medicaid as is, while 13 percent favor major cuts to the program as part of efforts to reduce federal spending. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">In addition to the Rockefeller letter, four Democratic senators have sent separate letters to President Obama opposing the block grant proposal for Medicaid: Dianne Feinstein of <state w:st="on">California</state>, Amy Klobuchar of <state w:st="on">Minnesota</state>, and Mark Udall and Michael Bennet of <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Colorado</place></state>. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Feinstein’s letter indicated that she would be open to accepting other changes to Medicaid.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“Balancing the budget by dismantling the long-standing health care program for low-income Americans is not the answer,” Feinstein wrote. “Changes to programs that serve the most vulnerable must be made with the utmost care.” </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">In their letter, the Colorado Democrats asked Obama to preserve the “foundational integrity” of Medicaid. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“We share your commitment to finding a comprehensive solution to our deficits. The road toward that goal will not be easy — everyone must be wiling to give a little,” the senators wrote. </span></div>Magaliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12302647210642503347noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6120844093614812903.post-16920592751977954162011-06-08T02:00:00.001-07:002011-06-08T02:00:42.756-07:00GOP Offers Alternative to Kucinich Resolution on U.S. Role in Libya<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-outline-level: 3; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: 10pt;">By Emily Cadei, CQ Staff</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">The House is set to rebuke President Obama for his handling of the conflict in <country-region w:st="on">Libya</country-region>, but probably with toned-down language that would not hamper the <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">U.S.</place></country-region> role in the mission there. The Republican caucus is rallying around a resolution sponsored by Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, that would require the White House to justify its strategy on Libya within two weeks time, but would stop short of declaring the administration in violation of the 1973 War Powers Act (PL 93-148) or calling for the administration to halt its participation in the NATO-led operation. Boehner’s resolution and the alternative — a measure (H Con Res 51) sponsored by Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, D-Ohio, calling for removal of U.S. forces from Libya — are both expected to be brought to the floor Friday. Republican leaders outlined the Speaker’s resolution (H Res 292) during a GOP conference Thursday. “I think ultimately the conference is likely to come down with the majority being in favor of Boehner,” Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, said, calling Boehner’s measure “more responsible” than the one offered by Kucinich, which demands the U.S. withdraw all forces within 15 days. What remains in question is how many members vote for both resolutions. It is unclear how much force of law either would carry, but at the very least they would put on record lawmakers’ sentiment about the U.S. role in Libya and Obama’s decision to involve the military in that nation’s conflict. Boehner issued a news release Thursday saying that his resolution “will enable members to clearly express the will of our constituents — in a responsible way that reflects our commitments to our allies and our troops.” He also warned members not to support the tougher resolution. “The Kucinich measure would have long-term consequences that are unacceptable, including a precipitous withdrawal from our role supporting our NATO allies in <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Libya</place></country-region> — which could have serious consequences for our broader national security,” he said. “It would undermine our troops in harm’s way and undercut our allies who have stood by us in <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Afghanistan</place></country-region> and other areas abroad. Regardless of how we got here, we cannot suddenly turn our backs on our troops and our NATO partners who have stuck by us for the last 10 years.” </span><span style="font-size: 10pt;">House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Thursday that she was opposed to both resolutions. “The resolutions by Speaker Boehner and Congressman Kucinich, as currently drafted, do not advance our efforts in the region and send the wrong message to our NATO partners,” she said in a news release. Kucinich’s resolution was up for a vote June 1 but was pulled from the floor at the last minute when it became apparent that a significant number of members were considering voting for it.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Irked Lawmakers</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Lawmakers have become disgruntled less by the state of the conflict — now in its third month — and more by the fact that Obama did not seek their authorization, both before and since committing forces to the effort. The <place w:st="on"><country-region w:st="on">United States</country-region></place> is now playing a supporting role in the NATO-led mission, which is aimed at protecting dissidents who have risen up against autocrat Muammar el-Qaddafi. “I’d certainly support the Speaker’s resolution, but what I have to figure out now is if I want to support Kucinich’s as well,” Tom Rooney, R-Pa., said after the conference. Rooney introduced his own resolution, with language very similar to Kucinich’s, but confirmed Thursday that it would not come up for a vote. Rooney said he expected most of his caucus “to support Boehner.” However, he said, there are still Republicans who” feel like the clock has run out on war powers,” referring to the law that requires that the president seek congressional authorization to maintain a fighting force in a conflict for more than 60 days. “Whether you agree with it or not, the Supreme Court hasn’t weighed in on it, so it is what we have to live by today,” Rooney said. “I think that you’re going to see a lot of people support both” resolutions, he added. Another initial backer of the Kucinich language, Dan Burton, R-Ind., said Thursday he had not made up his mind about whether he would vote for the Ohio Democrat’s measure. “The Speaker makes some very strong, valid points,” in urging the caucus to support his resolution and not Kucinich’s, <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Burton</place></city> said. “But at the same time we’ve got to send an extremely strong message to the president that we don’t want this to ever happen again without consulting with the United States Congress first.” The administration warned Thursday about the national security consequences of demanding a withdrawal. Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates “believes that for the <place w:st="on"><country-region w:st="on">United States</country-region></place>, once committed to a NATO operation, to unilaterally abandon that mission would have enormous and dangerous long-term consequences.” Freshman Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., said that was one of the reasons he would oppose the Kucinich resolution. Kinzinger, who said he believes <country-region w:st="on">Libya</country-region> “is in our national security interests,” worried about the impact of putting a timeline on withdrawal from <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Libya</place></country-region> without consulting with the military. </span><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Rooney also acknowledged Thursday that “the 15 days might be too hasty to move out of there.” However, he added, “We’re operating at almost the 90th day.” </span><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“There’s been ample opportunity, I think, for the president to come” seek authorization from Congress before it got to this point, Rooney said. In a sign that anger at the Obama administration <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Libya</place></country-region> is widespread in Congress, the House on Thursday narrowly rejected a measure that would bar any funding in the fiscal 2012 Homeland Security appropriations bill from being used to support operations in the North African country. The amendment to the measure (HR 2017) fell 208-213. Its sponsor, Brad Sherman, D-Calif., wrote in a letter to his colleagues that “The War Powers Resolution is the law of the land, and we should not facilitate or tolerate its violation, even for a purportedly worthy cause.” And <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Sherman</place></city> said he planned to offer a similar amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill when it reaches the floor in several weeks. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Alan K. Ota contributed to this story.</span></i><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-size: 10pt;">First posted June 2, 2011 1:41 p.m.</span></i><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div>Magaliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12302647210642503347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6120844093614812903.post-2139548350902262822011-06-08T01:59:00.000-07:002011-06-08T01:59:42.250-07:00Cantor Seeks to Deliver, Majority Leader insists his Debt talks are key<ul type="disc"><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">By <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/reporters/19.html" title="http://www.rollcall.com/reporters/19.html"><b><span style="color: #257095;">Anna Palmer</span></b></a> </span></li>
</ul><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><shapetype coordsize="21600,21600" filled="f" id="_x0000_t75" o:preferrelative="t" o:spt="75" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" stroked="f"><stroke joinstyle="miter"></stroke><formulas><f eqn="if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0"></f><f eqn="sum @0 1 0"></f><f eqn="sum 0 0 @1"></f><f eqn="prod @2 1 2"></f><f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelWidth"></f><f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelHeight"></f><f eqn="sum @0 0 1"></f><f eqn="prod @6 1 2"></f><f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelWidth"></f><f eqn="sum @8 21600 0"></f><f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelHeight"></f><f eqn="sum @10 21600 0"></f></formulas><path gradientshapeok="t" o:connecttype="rect" o:extrusionok="f"></path><lock aspectratio="t" v:ext="edit"></lock></shapetype></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Tom Williams/Roll Call</span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">House Majority Leader <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/members/8910.html" title="http://www.rollcall.com/members/8910.html"><span style="color: #257095;">Eric Cantor</span></a> is determined his involvement in bipartisan debt limit talks won't be for naught. </span><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Despite public doubts expressed by none other than the Speaker that the group will not be able to meet the Aug. 2 deadline for raising the debt ceiling, the Virginia Republican said Thursday in an interview with Roll Call that he is playing an important role in laying the groundwork for a final deal. Cantor has a lot at stake in the negotiations, given his role as House Republicans' conservative standard-bearer in talks led by Vice President Joseph Biden. He maintained that the group has engaged in serious discussions, which have already pinpointed "well over $1 trillion" in cuts. "We've been very substantive in those discussions, trying to keep the politics out of it, because I think all of us understand the philosophical perspective we bring to the table," Cantor said. "I think they have been productive, and there's a lot of information that's being shared and a lot of potential for progress." The six-term lawmaker also continues to insist cutting Medicare remains a part of the discussion, despite calls from Senate Democrats who say reforming the entitlement program should not be a condition for raising the debt ceiling. Cutting Medicare isn't the only controversial decision under discussion. Cantor said Medicaid, non-health care mandatory programs, discretionary spending and other reforms must all be on the table. "None of it's easy when you're talking about reducing spending and changing the trajectory of a mandatory program or getting rid of it," Cantor said, adding that he believes there is a way forward by taking apart the federal budget piece by piece. Still, there is widespread acknowledgment that President Barack Obama and Speaker <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/members/379.html" title="http://www.rollcall.com/members/379.html"><span style="color: #257095;">John Boehner</span></a> (R-Ohio) will craft the ultimate agreement. Boehner last week cast doubt on the Biden group's ability to come to an agreement within the month, saying the slow pace of the talks threatened to create brinkmanship if they did not soon come to a resolution. Boehner also said he was ready to begin engaging directly with the White House, separate from the Biden negotiations. Cantor dismissed the notion that those talks would undercut him and said he supports higher-level discussions. "We hopefully will have the will to go ahead and force some consensus that's got to happen, but the thinking always was the Speaker and the president would have a discussion to sort of bring it all together," Cantor said. Boehner echoed Cantor's sentiments Friday, telling reporters he wants the talks to continue and that the Majority Leader has done "good work" as the House Republican's only representative at the table. In part, having Cantor engage with the bipartisan group instead of having the Speaker go it alone might be an important strategy for House Republican leaders to keep their rank and file on board with the final product. The Conference registered its displeasure earlier this year when top staff to Boehner and Senate Majority Leader <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/members/337.html" title="http://www.rollcall.com/members/337.html"><span style="color: #257095;">Harry Reid</span></a> (D-Nev.) reached a deal on the continuing resolution to fund the government. That agreement to cut $38.5 billion was met with broad criticism from conservatives in the House who felt it did not sufficiently cut spending and was crafted without their input. The House had passed a bill that cut $60 billion. "We've been pretty deliberate putting attention and focus on it so I can go to the Speaker and say, 'Look, here's where we are.' And we'll be able, I believe, to get to this point," Cantor said. "And if the administration and the vice president give a signal that they're willing to continue to talk along those lines, I can see a way that when the Speaker goes and talks to the president, these kinds of things will be on the table." That teamwork comes five months into the GOP's control of the House under a new roster of leaders who are still finding their way in their new roles. Cantor, long viewed as the attack dog among the leaders, acknowledged House Republicans' growing pains in their effort to change the culture of the chamber. "We're going to have an open process. We have open rules in the appropriations for the first time since 2007 ... and so a lot of this is taken getting used to," Cantor said, noting that he's gotten good feedback, even from Democrats, that there is a previously missing forum to air opinions on major legislation. Cantor was a major architect of overhauling the chamber's schedule to include more regular district work periods and in instituting strict time constraints for votes to avoid interruptions of committee business. There also have been hiccups with manning the House floor, including when House Republicans lost a major political vote on renewing the USA PATRIOT Act and when they decided to pull legislation that would overhaul unemployment insurance because Members were politically sensitive to taking a tough vote after having supported controversial changes to Medicare. </span><span style="font-size: 10pt;">House Republicans have also struggled to gain traction in their public relations campaign on job creation. Over the past several months, they've made several false starts on introducing different jobs initiatives, including Cantor's own "cut and grow" strategy and the more recent unveiling of a jobs package. Cantor defended those efforts and said GOP lawmakers have been making a consistent case on jobs. However, he acknowledged they haven't been able to capture the media's attention. "We talk about it every day," Cantor said. "You cover the back and forth of budget fights, CR fights, debt limit fights. Most people are like, 'Good lord, get this economy straight. Grow this economy.' They are looking for optimism."</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><a href="mailto:AnnaPalmer@rollcall.com" title="mailto:AnnaPalmer@rollcall.com"><span style="color: #257095;">AnnaPalmer@rollcall.com</span></a> | <a href="http://twitter.com/apalmerdc" title="http://twitter.com/apalmerdc"><span style="color: #257095;">@apalmerdc</span></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div>Magaliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12302647210642503347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6120844093614812903.post-54196139434543686782011-05-30T07:12:00.001-07:002011-05-30T07:12:21.842-07:00Obama Signs Expiring Patriot Act Provisions with Autopen<h3 style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">By Niels Lesniewski and Brian Friel, CQ Staff</span></h3><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">Minutes before the deadline for expiring provisions of the 2001 anti-terrorism law known as the Patriot Act, the White House said President Obama signed the four-year extension that the House cleared Thursday night.</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">The White House said the president, traveling in <place w:st="on">Europe</place>, would direct the use of the autopen to sign the bill (S 990) into law and thereby prevent the lapsing of the anti-terrorism authorities set to expire at 12:01 a.m. Friday.</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said the autopen would be used because the “failure to sign this legislation poses a significant risk to <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">U.S.</place></country-region> national security.” An autopen, frequently used by members of Congress for signing constituent correspondence and other letters, is a machine that generates a facsimile of an individual’s signature. </div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">The Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion in 2005 that confirms the president’s authority to direct a subordinate to put the president’s signature on an enrolled bill through autopen. </div><h2 style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">House Action </span></h2><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">The House concurred in the Senate amendment to the bill by a vote of 250-153, with 31 Republicans joining 122 Democrats to vote against the extension. Fifty-four Democrats voted for the bill. </div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">While Republican leaders urged their colleagues to clear the measure, calling it a “bipartisan and bicameral compromise,” opponents took time to make the case against the extension during House floor debate.</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">Democrats and Republicans against the measure said the death of Osama bin Laden had changed the intelligence climate and raised concerns that Congress was “once again” rushing to reauthorize the capabilities. </div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">“These provisions were given a sunset for a reason,” argued longtime Patriot Act opponent Dennis J. Kucinich, D-Ohio.</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">But supporters of the measure strongly disagreed with that conclusion. House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, insisted the provisions “continue to play a vital role in <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region>’s counterterrorism efforts.” </div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">Smith said Congress has done the necessary oversight and held numerous hearings on the provisions. He also stressed the administration’s support for the extension.</div><h2 style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Senate Action</span></h2><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">Earlier Thursday, before final adoption 72-23 of a motion to concur in an unrelated House measure (S 990) with substitute language, the Senate soundly rejected two amendments offered by Rand Paul, R-Ky.</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">The main stumbling block to passage was an amendment offered by Paul that would have barred government investigators from using the Patriot Act’s “business record” provision to obtain the background forms that gun buyers fill out when they purchase firearms from licensed gun dealers.</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">Republicans objected to the amendment, Paul said earlier in the day. Though the Senate often passes gun-rights measures, this one was easily defeated when the Senate voted to table it, 85-10. Montanans Max Baucus and Jon Tester were the only Democrats to support the amendment. The National Rifle Association (NRA) announced concerns with the amendment on Thursday. But the group took a neutral position on the vote, meaning it will not be used to rank senators in the group’s upcoming vote studies.</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">By a vote of 91-4, the Senate tabled, and thus killed, another Paul amendment that would restrict the collection of suspicious activity reports to requests from law enforcement.</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">The overall measure would grant a four-year extension on provisions that allow the government to seek orders from a special court for “any tangible thing” related to a terrorism probe; to obtain roving wiretaps on suspected terrorists who switch modes of communication; and to apply to a special court for surveillance orders on “lone wolf” terrorists who are not connected to any organization. </div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">The Obama administration issued a statement in support of the Senate-passed measure Thursday. </div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">The Senate voted 79-18 earlier Thursday to limit debate on the compromise extension measure. The language was agreed to last week by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and the top Republican in each chamber — House Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. wrote to Reid and McConnell on Wednesday warning of the security risks associated with delaying the extension of the three provisions.</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">“Should the authority to use these critical intelligence tools expire, our nation’s intelligence and law enforcement professionals will have less capability than they have today to detect and thwart terrorist plots against our homeland and our interests abroad,” Clapper wrote.</div><h2 style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Other Amendments Set Aside</span></h2><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">While much of the focus had been on a disagreement over Paul’s amendments, critics of the Patriot Act (PL 107-56) on the Democratic side had sought consideration of other amendments.</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., pressed throughout Thursday for consideration of his amendment restricting government surveillance powers, which was based on a measure (S 193) his committee approved earlier this year. Leahy ultimately relented after McConnell objected to a vote on the amendment.</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said she opposed Paul’s gun amendment but also said other senators were likely skittish about voting on it.</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">“Essentially, you’re saying you can’t get business records of terrorists who are buying guns, which is ridiculous,” Feinstein said. “I think people are concerned with how the NRA scores the vote. I’m not.”</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">On a separate amendment, Democrats Ron Wyden of <state w:st="on">Oregon</state> and Mark Udall of <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Colorado</place></state> wanted to make public the government’s legal interpretation of Patriot Act authorities. “There are two Patriot Acts in <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region>,” Wyden said. “There is the one that people read and it’s in front of them and say this is the text of it. And then there is the secret interpretation of the law.” </div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">Wyden and Udall dropped that amendment in return for a pledge from Feinstein to take up the matter in the Intelligence Committee. Reid also said he would allow a vote later in the year on the amendment if Wyden and Udall were unsatisfied with the Intelligence Committee’s handling of the matter. </div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><em>Frances Symes contributed to this story.</em> </div>Magaliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12302647210642503347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6120844093614812903.post-22577342214375199262011-05-24T06:03:00.000-07:002011-05-24T06:03:39.101-07:00Obama’s Speech on Middle East and North Africa<div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you very much. Thank you. Please, have a seat. Thank you very much. I want to begin by thanking Hillary Clinton, who has traveled so much these last six months that she is approaching a new landmark -- one million frequent flyer miles. (Laughter.) I count on Hillary every single day, and I believe that she will go down as one of the finest Secretaries of State in our nation’s history.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The State Department is a fitting venue to mark a new chapter in American diplomacy. For six months, we have witnessed an extraordinary change taking place in the Middle East and <place w:st="on">North Africa</place>. Square by square, town by town, country by country, the people have risen up to demand their basic human rights. Two leaders have stepped aside. More may follow. And though these countries may be a great distance from our shores, we know that our own future is bound to this region by the forces of economics and security, by history and by faith.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Today, I want to talk about this change -- the forces that are driving it and how we can respond in a way that advances our values and strengthens our security.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, already, we’ve done much to shift our foreign policy following a decade defined by two costly conflicts. After years of war in <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Iraq</place></country-region>, we’ve removed 100,000 American troops and ended our combat mission there. In <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Afghanistan</place></country-region>, we’ve broken the Taliban’s momentum, and this July we will begin to bring our troops home and continue a transition to Afghan lead. And after years of war against al Qaeda and its affiliates, we have dealt al Qaeda a huge blow by killing its leader, Osama bin Laden.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="DE" style="mso-ansi-language: DE; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Bin Laden was no martyr. </span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">He was a mass murderer who offered a message of hate –- an insistence that Muslims had to take up arms against the West, and that violence against men, women and children was the only path to change. He rejected democracy and individual rights for Muslims in favor of violent extremism; his agenda focused on what he could destroy -– not what he could build.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Bin Laden and his murderous vision won some adherents. But even before his death, al Qaeda was losing its struggle for relevance, as the overwhelming majority of people saw that the slaughter of innocents did not answer their cries for a better life. By the time we found bin Laden, al Qaeda’s agenda had come to be seen by the vast majority of the region as a dead end, and the people of the Middle East and <place w:st="on">North Africa</place> had taken their future into their own hands.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">That story of self-determination began six months ago in <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Tunisia</place></country-region>. On December 17th, a young vendor named Mohammed Bouazizi was devastated when a police officer confiscated his cart. This was not unique. It’s the same kind of humiliation that takes place every day in many parts of the world -– the relentless tyranny of governments that deny their citizens dignity. Only this time, something different happened. After local officials refused to hear his complaints, this young man, who had never been particularly active in politics, went to the headquarters of the provincial government, doused himself in fuel, and lit himself on fire.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">There are times in the course of history when the actions of ordinary citizens spark movements for change because they speak to a longing for freedom that has been building up for years. In <country-region w:st="on">America</country-region>, think of the defiance of those patriots in <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Boston</place></city> who refused to pay taxes to a King, or the dignity of Rosa Parks as she sat courageously in her seat. So it was in <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Tunisia</place></country-region>, as that vendor’s act of desperation tapped into the frustration felt throughout the country. Hundreds of protesters took to the streets, then thousands. And in the face of batons and sometimes bullets, they refused to go home –- day after day, week after week -- until a dictator of more than two decades finally left power.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The story of this revolution, and the ones that followed, should not have come as a surprise. The nations of the Middle East and <place w:st="on">North Africa</place> won their independence long ago, but in too many places their people did not. In too many countries, power has been concentrated in the hands of a few. In too many countries, a citizen like that young vendor had nowhere to turn -– no honest judiciary to hear his case; no independent media to give him voice; no credible political party to represent his views; no free and fair election where he could choose his leader.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">And this lack of self-determination –- the chance to make your life what you will –- has applied to the region’s economy as well. Yes, some nations are blessed with wealth in oil and gas, and that has led to pockets of prosperity. But in a global economy based on knowledge, based on innovation, no development strategy can be based solely upon what comes out of the ground. Nor can people reach their potential when you cannot start a business without paying a bribe.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In the face of these challenges, too many leaders in the region tried to direct their people’s grievances elsewhere. The West was blamed as the source of all ills, a half-century after the end of colonialism. Antagonism toward <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Israel</place></country-region> became the only acceptable outlet for political expression. Divisions of tribe, ethnicity and religious sect were manipulated as a means of holding on to power, or taking it away from somebody else.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But the events of the past six months show us that strategies of repression and strategies of diversion will not work anymore. Satellite television and the Internet provide a window into the wider world -– a world of astonishing progress in places like <country-region w:st="on">India</country-region> and <country-region w:st="on">Indonesia</country-region> and <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Brazil</place></country-region>. Cell phones and social networks allow young people to connect and organize like never before. And so a new generation has emerged. And their voices tell us that change cannot be denied.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Cairo</place></city>, we heard the voice of the young mother who said, “It’s like I can finally breathe fresh air for the first time.” </span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In Sanaa, we heard the students who chanted, “The night must come to an end.”</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Benghazi</place></city>, we heard the engineer who said, “Our words are free now. It’s a feeling you can’t explain.”</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Damascus</place></city>, we heard the young man who said, “After the first yelling, the first shout, you feel dignity.” </span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Those shouts of human dignity are being heard across the region. And through the moral force of nonviolence, the people of the region have achieved more change in six months than terrorists have accomplished in decades.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Of course, change of this magnitude does not come easily. In our day and age -– a time of 24-hour news cycles and constant communication –- people expect the transformation of the region to be resolved in a matter of weeks. But it will be years before this story reaches its end. Along the way, there will be good days and there will bad days. In some places, change will be swift; in others, gradual. And as we’ve already seen, calls for change may give way, in some cases, to fierce contests for power.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The question before us is what role <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region> will play as this story unfolds. For decades, the <country-region w:st="on">United States</country-region> has pursued a set of core interests in the region: countering terrorism and stopping the spread of nuclear weapons; securing the free flow of commerce and safe-guarding the security of the region; standing up for <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Israel</place></country-region>’s security and pursuing Arab-Israeli peace.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">We will continue to do these things, with the firm belief that <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region>’s interests are not hostile to people’s hopes; they’re essential to them. We believe that no one benefits from a nuclear arms race in the region, or al Qaeda’s brutal attacks. We believe people everywhere would see their economies crippled by a cut-off in energy supplies. As we did in the Gulf War, we will not tolerate aggression across borders, and we will keep our commitments to friends and partners.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Yet we must acknowledge that a strategy based solely upon the narrow pursuit of these interests will not fill an empty stomach or allow someone to speak their mind. Moreover, failure to speak to the broader aspirations of ordinary people will only feed the suspicion that has festered for years that the <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">United States</place></country-region> pursues our interests at their expense. Given that this mistrust runs both ways –- as Americans have been seared by hostage-taking and violent rhetoric and terrorist attacks that have killed thousands of our citizens -– a failure to change our approach threatens a deepening spiral of division between the <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">United States</place></country-region> and the Arab world.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">And that’s why, two years ago in <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Cairo</place></city>, I began to broaden our engagement based upon mutual interests and mutual respect. I believed then -– and I believe now -– that we have a stake not just in the stability of nations, but in the self-determination of individuals. The status quo is not sustainable. Societies held together by fear and repression may offer the illusion of stability for a time, but they are built upon fault lines that will eventually tear asunder.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">So we face a historic opportunity. We have the chance to show that <country-region w:st="on">America</country-region> values the dignity of the street vendor in <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Tunisia</place></country-region> more than the raw power of the dictator. There must be no doubt that the <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">United States of America</place></country-region> welcomes change that advances self-determination and opportunity. Yes, there will be perils that accompany this moment of promise. But after decades of accepting the world as it is in the region, we have a chance to pursue the world as it should be.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Of course, as we do, we must proceed with a sense of humility. It’s not <country-region w:st="on">America</country-region> that put people into the streets of <state w:st="on">Tunis</state> or <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Cairo</place></city> -– it was the people themselves who launched these movements, and it’s the people themselves that must ultimately determine their outcome. </span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Not every country will follow our particular form of representative democracy, and there will be times when our short-term interests don’t align perfectly with our long-term vision for the region. But we can, and we will, speak out for a set of core principles –- principles that have guided our response to the events over the past six months:</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">United States</place></country-region> opposes the use of violence and repression against the people of the region. (Applause.) </span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">United States</place></country-region> supports a set of universal rights. And these rights include free speech, the freedom of peaceful assembly, the freedom of religion, equality for men and women under the rule of law, and the right to choose your own leaders -– whether you live in Baghdad or Damascus, Sanaa or Tehran.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">And we support political and economic reform in the Middle East and <place w:st="on">North Africa</place> that can meet the legitimate aspirations of ordinary people throughout the region.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Our support for these principles is not a secondary interest. Today I want to make it clear that it is a top priority that must be translated into concrete actions, and supported by all of the diplomatic, economic and strategic tools at our disposal.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Let me be specific. First, it will be the policy of the <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">United States</place></country-region> to promote reform across the region, and to support transitions to democracy. That effort begins in <country-region w:st="on">Egypt</country-region> and <country-region w:st="on">Tunisia</country-region>, where the stakes are high -– as <country-region w:st="on">Tunisia</country-region> was at the vanguard of this democratic wave, and <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Egypt</place></country-region> is both a longstanding partner and the Arab world’s largest nation. Both nations can set a strong example through free and fair elections, a vibrant civil society, accountable and effective democratic institutions, and responsible regional leadership. But our support must also extend to nations where transitions have yet to take place.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Unfortunately, in too many countries, calls for change have thus far been answered by violence. The most extreme example is <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Libya</place></country-region>, where Muammar Qaddafi launched a war against his own people, promising to hunt them down like rats. As I said when the <country-region w:st="on">United States</country-region> joined an international coalition to intervene, we cannot prevent every injustice perpetrated by a regime against its people, and we have learned from our experience in <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Iraq</place></country-region> just how costly and difficult it is to try to impose regime change by force -– no matter how well-intentioned it may be.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But in <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Libya</place></country-region>, we saw the prospect of imminent massacre, we had a mandate for action, and heard the Libyan people’s call for help. Had we not acted along with our NATO allies and regional coalition partners, thousands would have been killed. The message would have been clear: Keep power by killing as many people as it takes. Now, time is working against Qaddafi. He does not have control over his country. The opposition has organized a legitimate and credible Interim Council. And when Qaddafi inevitably leaves or is forced from power, decades of provocation will come to an end, and the transition to a democratic <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Libya</place></country-region> can proceed.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">While <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Libya</place></country-region> has faced violence on the greatest scale, it’s not the only place where leaders have turned to repression to remain in power. Most recently, the Syrian regime has chosen the path of murder and the mass arrests of its citizens. The <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">United States</place></country-region> has condemned these actions, and working with the international community we have stepped up our sanctions on the Syrian regime –- including sanctions announced yesterday on President Assad and those around him.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The Syrian people have shown their courage in demanding a transition to democracy. President Assad now has a choice: He can lead that transition, or get out of the way. The Syrian government must stop shooting demonstrators and allow peaceful protests. It must release political prisoners and stop unjust arrests. It must allow human rights monitors to have access to cities like Dara’a; and start a serious dialogue to advance a democratic transition. Otherwise, President Assad and his regime will continue to be challenged from within and will continue to be isolated abroad.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">So far, <country-region w:st="on">Syria</country-region> has followed its Iranian ally, seeking assistance from <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Tehran</place></city> in the tactics of suppression. And this speaks to the hypocrisy of the Iranian regime, which says it stand for the rights of protesters abroad, yet represses its own people at home. Let’s remember that the first peaceful protests in the region were in the streets of <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Tehran</place></city>, where the government brutalized women and men, and threw innocent people into jail. We still hear the chants echo from the rooftops of <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Tehran</place></city>. The image of a young woman dying in the streets is still seared in our memory. And we will continue to insist that the Iranian people deserve their universal rights, and a government that does not smother their aspirations.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, our opposition to <country-region w:st="on">Iran</country-region>’s intolerance and <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Iran</place></country-region>’s repressive measures, as well as its illicit nuclear program and its support of terror, is well known. But if <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region> is to be credible, we must acknowledge that at times our friends in the region have not all reacted to the demands for consistent change -- with change that’s consistent with the principles that I’ve outlined today. That’s true in <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Yemen</place></country-region>, where President Saleh needs to follow through on his commitment to transfer power. And that’s true today in <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Bahrain</place></country-region>.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Bahrain</span></place></country-region><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> is a longstanding partner, and we are committed to its security. We recognize that <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Iran</place></country-region> has tried to take advantage of the turmoil there, and that the Bahraini government has a legitimate interest in the rule of law. </span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Nevertheless, we have insisted both publicly and privately that mass arrests and brute force are at odds with the universal rights of <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Bahrain</place></country-region>’s citizens, and we will -- and such steps will not make legitimate calls for reform go away. The only way forward is for the government and opposition to engage in a dialogue, and you can’t have a real dialogue when parts of the peaceful opposition are in jail. (Applause.) The government must create the conditions for dialogue, and the opposition must participate to forge a just future for all Bahrainis.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Indeed, one of the broader lessons to be drawn from this period is that sectarian divides need not lead to conflict. In <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Iraq</place></country-region>, we see the promise of a multiethnic, multisectarian democracy. The Iraqi people have rejected the perils of political violence in favor of a democratic process, even as they’ve taken full responsibility for their own security. Of course, like all new democracies, they will face setbacks. But <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Iraq</place></country-region> is poised to play a key role in the region if it continues its peaceful progress. And as they do, we will be proud to stand with them as a steadfast partner.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">So in the months ahead, <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region> must use all our influence to encourage reform in the region. Even as we acknowledge that each country is different, we need to speak honestly about the principles that we believe in, with friend and foe alike. Our message is simple: If you take the risks that reform entails, you will have the full support of the <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">United States</place></country-region>. </span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">We must also build on our efforts to broaden our engagement beyond elites, so that we reach the people who will shape the future -– particularly young people. We will continue to make good on the commitments that I made in <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Cairo</place></city> -– to build networks of entrepreneurs and expand exchanges in education, to foster cooperation in science and technology, and combat disease. Across the region, we intend to provide assistance to civil society, including those that may not be officially sanctioned, and who speak uncomfortable truths. And we will use the technology to connect with -– and listen to –- the voices of the people.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">For the fact is, real reform does not come at the ballot box alone. Through our efforts we must support those basic rights to speak your mind and access information. We will support open access to the Internet, and the right of journalists to be heard -– whether it’s a big news organization or a lone blogger. In the 21st century, information is power, the truth cannot be hidden, and the legitimacy of governments will ultimately depend on active and informed citizens.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Such open discourse is important even if what is said does not square with our worldview. Let me be clear, <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region> respects the right of all peaceful and law-abiding voices to be heard, even if we disagree with them. And sometimes we profoundly disagree with them.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">We look forward to working with all who embrace genuine and inclusive democracy. What we will oppose is an attempt by any group to restrict the rights of others, and to hold power through coercion and not consent. Because democracy depends not only on elections, but also strong and accountable institutions, and the respect for the rights of minorities.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Such tolerance is particularly important when it comes to religion. In <street w:st="on"><address w:st="on">Tahrir Square</address></street>, we heard Egyptians from all walks of life chant, “Muslims, Christians, we are one.” <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region> will work to see that this spirit prevails -– that all faiths are respected, and that bridges are built among them. In a region that was the birthplace of three world religions, intolerance can lead only to suffering and stagnation. And for this season of change to succeed, Coptic Christians must have the right to worship freely in <city w:st="on">Cairo</city>, just as Shia must never have their mosques destroyed in <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Bahrain</place></country-region>.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">What is true for religious minorities is also true when it comes to the rights of women. History shows that countries are more prosperous and more peaceful when women are empowered. And that’s why we will continue to insist that universal rights apply to women as well as men -– by focusing assistance on child and maternal health; by helping women to teach, or start a business; by standing up for the right of women to have their voices heard, and to run for office. The region will never reach its full potential when more than half of its population is prevented from achieving their full potential. (Applause.)</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, even as we promote political reform, even as we promote human rights in the region, our efforts can’t stop there. So the second way that we must support positive change in the region is through our efforts to advance economic development for nations that are transitioning to democracy. </span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">After all, politics alone has not put protesters into the streets. The tipping point for so many people is the more constant concern of putting food on the table and providing for a family. Too many people in the region wake up with few expectations other than making it through the day, perhaps hoping that their luck will change. Throughout the region, many young people have a solid education, but closed economies leave them unable to find a job. Entrepreneurs are brimming with ideas, but corruption leaves them unable to profit from those ideas. </span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The greatest untapped resource in the Middle East and <place w:st="on">North Africa</place> is the talent of its people. In the recent protests, we see that talent on display, as people harness technology to move the world. It’s no coincidence that one of the leaders of <street w:st="on"><address w:st="on">Tahrir Square</address></street> was an executive for Google. That energy now needs to be channeled, in country after country, so that economic growth can solidify the accomplishments of the street. For just as democratic revolutions can be triggered by a lack of individual opportunity, successful democratic transitions depend upon an expansion of growth and broad-based prosperity.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">So, drawing from what we’ve learned around the world, we think it’s important to focus on trade, not just aid; on investment, not just assistance. The goal must be a model in which protectionism gives way to openness, the reigns of commerce pass from the few to the many, and the economy generates jobs for the young. <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region>’s support for democracy will therefore be based on ensuring financial stability, promoting reform, and integrating competitive markets with each other and the global economy. And we’re going to start with <country-region w:st="on">Tunisia</country-region> and <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Egypt</place></country-region>.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">First, we’ve asked the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to present a plan at next week’s G8 summit for what needs to be done to stabilize and modernize the economies of <country-region w:st="on">Tunisia</country-region> and <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Egypt</place></country-region>. Together, we must help them recover from the disruptions of their democratic upheaval, and support the governments that will be elected later this year. And we are urging other countries to help <country-region w:st="on">Egypt</country-region> and <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Tunisia</place></country-region> meet its near-term financial needs.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Second, we do not want a democratic <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Egypt</place></country-region> to be saddled by the debts of its past. So we will relieve a democratic <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Egypt</place></country-region> of up to $1 billion in debt, and work with our Egyptian partners to invest these resources to foster growth and entrepreneurship. We will help <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Egypt</place></country-region> regain access to markets by guaranteeing $1 billion in borrowing that is needed to finance infrastructure and job creation. And we will help newly democratic governments recover assets that were stolen.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Third, we’re working with Congress to create Enterprise Funds to invest in <country-region w:st="on">Tunisia</country-region> and <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Egypt</place></country-region>. And these will be modeled on funds that supported the transitions in <place w:st="on">Eastern Europe</place> after the fall of the Berlin Wall. OPIC will soon launch a $2 billion facility to support private investment across the region. And we will work with the allies to refocus the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development so that it provides the same support for democratic transitions and economic modernization in the Middle East and North Africa as it has in <place w:st="on">Europe</place>.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Fourth, the <country-region w:st="on">United States</country-region> will launch a comprehensive Trade and Investment Partnership Initiative in the Middle East and <place w:st="on">North Africa</place>. If you take out oil exports, this entire region of over 400 million people exports roughly the same amount as <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Switzerland</place></country-region>. So we will work with the EU to facilitate more trade within the region, build on existing agreements to promote integration with <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">U.S.</place></country-region> and European markets, and open the door for those countries who adopt high standards of reform and trade liberalization to construct a regional trade arrangement. And just as EU membership served as an incentive for reform in Europe, so should the vision of a modern and prosperous economy create a powerful force for reform in the Middle East and North Africa. </span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Prosperity also requires tearing down walls that stand in the way of progress -– the corruption of elites who steal from their people; the red tape that stops an idea from becoming a business; the patronage that distributes wealth based on tribe or sect. We will help governments meet international obligations, and invest efforts at anti-corruption -- by working with parliamentarians who are developing reforms, and activists who use technology to increase transparency and hold government accountable. Politics and human rights; economic reform.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Let me conclude by talking about another cornerstone of our approach to the region, and that relates to the pursuit of peace.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">For decades, the conflict between Israelis and Arabs has cast a shadow over the region. For Israelis, it has meant living with the fear that their children could be blown up on a bus or by rockets fired at their homes, as well as the pain of knowing that other children in the region are taught to hate them. For Palestinians, it has meant suffering the humiliation of occupation, and never living in a nation of their own. Moreover, this conflict has come with a larger cost to the <place w:st="on">Middle East</place>, as it impedes partnerships that could bring greater security and prosperity and empowerment to ordinary people.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">For over two years, my administration has worked with the parties and the international community to end this conflict, building on decades of work by previous administrations. Yet expectations have gone unmet. Israeli settlement activity continues. Palestinians have walked away from talks. The world looks at a conflict that has grinded on and on and on, and sees nothing but stalemate. Indeed, there are those who argue that with all the change and uncertainty in the region, it is simply not possible to move forward now.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I disagree. At a time when the people of the Middle East and <place w:st="on">North Africa</place> are casting off the burdens of the past, the drive for a lasting peace that ends the conflict and resolves all claims is more urgent than ever. That’s certainly true for the two parties involved.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">For the Palestinians, efforts to delegitimize <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Israel</place></country-region> will end in failure. Symbolic actions to isolate <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Israel</place></country-region> at the United Nations in September won’t create an independent state. Palestinian leaders will not achieve peace or prosperity if Hamas insists on a path of terror and rejection. And Palestinians will never realize their independence by denying the right of <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Israel</place></country-region> to exist.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">As for <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Israel</place></country-region>, our friendship is rooted deeply in a shared history and shared values. Our commitment to <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Israel</place></country-region>’s security is unshakeable. And we will stand against attempts to single it out for criticism in international forums. But precisely because of our friendship, it’s important that we tell the truth: The status quo is unsustainable, and <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Israel</place></country-region> too must act boldly to advance a lasting peace.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The fact is, a growing number of Palestinians live west of the <place w:st="on">Jordan River</place>. Technology will make it harder for <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Israel</place></country-region> to defend itself. A region undergoing profound change will lead to populism in which millions of people -– not just one or two leaders -- must believe peace is possible. The international community is tired of an endless process that never produces an outcome. The dream of a Jewish and democratic state cannot be fulfilled with permanent occupation.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, ultimately, it is up to the Israelis and Palestinians to take action. No peace can be imposed upon them -- not by the <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">United States</place></country-region>; not by anybody else. But endless delay won’t make the problem go away. What America and the international community can do is to state frankly what everyone knows -- a lasting peace will involve two states for two peoples: Israel as a Jewish state and the homeland for the Jewish people, and the state of Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian people, each state enjoying self-determination, mutual recognition, and peace.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">So while the core issues of the conflict must be negotiated, the basis of those negotiations is clear: a viable <city w:st="on">Palestine</city>, a secure <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Israel</place></country-region>. The <country-region w:st="on">United States</country-region> believes that negotiations should result in two states, with permanent Palestinian borders with <country-region w:st="on">Israel</country-region>, <country-region w:st="on">Jordan</country-region>, and <country-region w:st="on">Egypt</country-region>, and permanent Israeli borders with <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Palestine</place></city>. We believe the borders of <country-region w:st="on">Israel</country-region> and <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Palestine</place></city> should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states. The Palestinian people must have the right to govern themselves, and reach their full potential, in a sovereign and contiguous state. </span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">As for security, every state has the right to self-defense, and <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Israel</place></country-region> must be able to defend itself -– by itself -– against any threat. Provisions must also be robust enough to prevent a resurgence of terrorism, to stop the infiltration of weapons, and to provide effective border security. The full and phased withdrawal of Israeli military forces should be coordinated with the assumption of Palestinian security responsibility in a sovereign, non-militarized state. And the duration of this transition period must be agreed, and the effectiveness of security arrangements must be demonstrated.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">These principles provide a foundation for negotiations. Palestinians should know the territorial outlines of their state; Israelis should know that their basic security concerns will be met. I’m aware that these steps alone will not resolve the conflict, because two wrenching and emotional issues will remain: the future of <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Jerusalem</place></city>, and the fate of Palestinian refugees. But moving forward now on the basis of territory and security provides a foundation to resolve those two issues in a way that is just and fair, and that respects the rights and aspirations of both Israelis and Palestinians. </span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, let me say this: Recognizing that negotiations need to begin with the issues of territory and security does not mean that it will be easy to come back to the table. In particular, the recent announcement of an agreement between Fatah and Hamas raises profound and legitimate questions for <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Israel</place></country-region>: How can one negotiate with a party that has shown itself unwilling to recognize your right to exist? And in the weeks and months to come, Palestinian leaders will have to provide a credible answer to that question. Meanwhile, the <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">United States</place></country-region>, our Quartet partners, and the Arab states will need to continue every effort to get beyond the current impasse.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I recognize how hard this will be. Suspicion and hostility has been passed on for generations, and at times it has hardened. But I’m convinced that the majority of Israelis and Palestinians would rather look to the future than be trapped in the past. We see that spirit in the Israeli father whose son was killed by Hamas, who helped start an organization that brought together Israelis and Palestinians who had lost loved ones. That father said, “I gradually realized that the only hope for progress was to recognize the face of the conflict.” We see it in the actions of a Palestinian who lost three daughters to Israeli shells in <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Gaza</place></city>. “I have the right to feel angry,” he said. “So many people were expecting me to hate. My answer to them is I shall not hate. Let us hope,” he said, “for tomorrow.”</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">That is the choice that must be made -– not simply in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but across the entire region -– a choice between hate and hope; between the shackles of the past and the promise of the future. It’s a choice that must be made by leaders and by the people, and it’s a choice that will define the future of a region that served as the cradle of civilization and a crucible of strife.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">For all the challenges that lie ahead, we see many reasons to be hopeful. In <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Egypt</place></country-region>, we see it in the efforts of young people who led protests. In <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Syria</place></country-region>, we see it in the courage of those who brave bullets while chanting, “peaceful, peaceful.” In <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Benghazi</place></city>, a city threatened with destruction, we see it in the courthouse square where people gather to celebrate the freedoms that they had never known. Across the region, those rights that we take for granted are being claimed with joy by those who are prying loose the grip of an iron fist.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">For the American people, the scenes of upheaval in the region may be unsettling, but the forces driving it are not unfamiliar. Our own nation was founded through a rebellion against an empire. Our people fought a painful Civil War that extended freedom and dignity to those who were enslaved. And I would not be standing here today unless past generations turned to the moral force of nonviolence as a way to perfect our union –- organizing, marching, protesting peacefully together to make real those words that declared our nation: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” </span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Those words must guide our response to the change that is transforming the Middle East and <place w:st="on">North Africa</place> -– words which tell us that repression will fail, and that tyrants will fall, and that every man and woman is endowed with certain inalienable rights. </span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">It will not be easy. There’s no straight line to progress, and hardship always accompanies a season of hope. But the <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">United States of America</place></country-region> was founded on the belief that people should govern themselves. And now we cannot hesitate to stand squarely on the side of those who are reaching for their rights, knowing that their success will bring about a world that is more peaceful, more stable, and more just.</span></div><div align="justify" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #fafafa; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Thank you very much, everybody. (Applause.) Thank you. </span></div>Magaliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12302647210642503347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6120844093614812903.post-2906486997063788072011-05-23T01:41:00.000-07:002011-05-23T01:41:07.634-07:00Conrad Delays Budget Markup in Deference to Ongoing Debt TalksBy Paul M. Krawzak, CQ Staff<!--After byline--> <div class="pagination" style="text-align: justify;">Senate Budget Chairman <person-ref name="S0682" personid="304">Kent Conrad</person-ref> said Thursday he is further delaying consideration of a fiscal 2012 budget resolution because any spending and tax blueprint for this year is likely to be swept up in broader deficit reduction talks surrounding the debt limit. </div><div class="pagination" style="text-align: justify;">The announcement comes more than a month after the traditional April 15 deadline for Congress to adopt a budget and following growing criticism of the delay from Senate Republicans. The House passed its fiscal 2012 budget (<bill-ref congress="112" number="HCONRES34">H Con Res 34</bill-ref>) last month and it is expected to come to a vote in the Senate next week.</div><div class="pagination" style="text-align: justify;">“Democrats on the Budget Committee are very close to an agreement,” Conrad said in a written statement. “We will have a budget. But, after broad consultation, we have decided to defer a budget markup because of the high-level bipartisan leadership negotiations that are currently underway.”</div><div class="pagination" style="text-align: justify;">The North Dakota Democrat said any proposals that emerge from bipartisan debt-reduction talks led by Vice President <person-ref name="S0150" personid="101">Joseph R. Biden Jr.</person-ref> “may need to be included in a budget resolution that would be offered in the weeks ahead.”</div><div class="pagination" style="text-align: justify;">Congress faces a late-summer vote to raise the nation’s $14.3 trillion debt limit, and Republicans are demanding major spending cutbacks in exchange for any vote to raise the cap. Many Democrats also want some spending constraints, along with increased taxes to help reduce the government’s budget deficit. </div><div class="pagination" style="text-align: justify;">Treasury Department officials say the nation could default on its debt obligations if the debt limit is not raised by Aug. 2. </div><div class="pagination" style="text-align: justify;">As precedent, Conrad pointed to budget agreements that were reached in 1990 under President George Bush and 1997 under President Bill Clinton where a budget resolution and reconciliation legislation were used to implement the agreements.</div><div class="pagination" style="text-align: justify;"><person-ref name="S0011" personid="12">Jeff Sessions</person-ref> of Alabama, ranking Republican on the Budget Committee, said Democrats are “desperately trying to avoid having to present a budget to the American people. They know that the big spenders in their caucus prevent them from bringing forward a credible plan that both their party and the country can support.”</div><h2 class="subhed" style="text-align: justify;">Redrafted Plan</h2><div class="pagination" style="text-align: justify;">In recent weeks, Conrad was forced to rework an earlier budget plan aimed at reducing the deficit by $4 trillion over a decade after Vermont independent <person-ref name="H4042" personid="509">Bernard Sanders</person-ref>, who caucuses with Democrats, charged that it favored the rich and threatened to block its approval in committee. </div><div class="pagination" style="text-align: justify;">Conrad rewrote the plan, generating more deficit reduction through tax increases and less through cuts to government programs.</div><div class="pagination" style="text-align: justify;">Reacting to Conrad’s announcement, Sanders reiterated his insistence that he would not support any budget unless it requires the wealthiest Americans “to pay their fair share of taxes, and unless we do away with loopholes and tax breaks which enable companies making billions of dollars in profits to evade paying any taxes at all.”</div><div class="pagination" style="text-align: justify;">He continued to shape his proposal after conversations with Democratic senators, aiming to produce a plan that would be acceptable to Sanders and other liberals as well as moderates like <person-ref name="S0543" personid="1247">Ben Nelson</person-ref>, D-Neb., who is opposed to any tax increases in the budget.</div><h1 class="headline-story" style="text-align: justify;">Conrad Delays Budget Markup in Deference to Ongoing Debt Talks</h1><div class="pagination" style="text-align: justify;">Sessions has issued a steady stream of statements slamming Democrats for not producing a budget this year and not adopting one last year. The Budget Committee approved a budget last year, but Senate leaders chose not to put it on the floor for a vote.</div><div class="pagination" style="text-align: justify;">Earlier Thursday, all 11 Republicans on the Budget Committee issued a statement criticizing the delay. “Democrats campaigned for the majority,” the statement said. “They asked for the job. To shut down the budget process is a deep disservice to the American electorate.”</div><div class="pagination" style="text-align: justify;">One Budget Committee Democrat, <person-ref name="H1661" personid="228">Benjamin L. Cardin</person-ref> of Maryland, agreed with Conrad that even though the budget is being delayed, Democrats are “pretty close” to reaching agreement on a plan. “I’m not aware of any major differences in our caucus,” he said.</div><div class="pagination" style="text-align: justify;">But Cardin said Democrats hope the Biden commission will produce a bipartisan deficit reduction plan that many also see as a potential vehicle for getting the votes to raise the debt ceiling. “We’re still looking to see whether there’s an opportunity for a bipartisan agreement coming out of the Biden talks, or the group of five and a half or whatever,” he said, referring to what used to be called the Gang of Six until <person-ref name="H3261" personid="394">Tom Coburn</person-ref>, R-Okla., quit the group in frustration earlier this week. </div><div class="pagination" style="text-align: justify;"><em>Brian Friel contributed to this story.</em> </div>Magaliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12302647210642503347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6120844093614812903.post-1504697058346712852011-04-18T05:56:00.000-07:002011-04-18T05:59:53.290-07:00GOP expected to back Medicare shiftFrom Congress.org<br />By CQ Staff<br /><br />House Republicans appeared likely Friday to adopt a budget resolution that calls for changing Medicare into a voucher program for future seniors — a step many consider political dynamite.<br /><br />Bucking conventional wisdom, GOP lawmakers are betting voters concerned about the nation’s debt may be willing to entertain changes to the popular social insurance program, especially if those affect only the next generation. Many say that by supporting House Budget Chairman Paul D. Ryan’s framework for the fiscal 2012 budget, they are showing they are serious about making the decisions necessary to put the nation’s fiscal house in order.<br /><br />“I think the country’s ripe for looking at renegotiating the Medicare promises for folks under 55,” said K. Michael Conaway, R-Texas.<br /><br />Request a free trial to CQ Today.<br /><br />But analysts say voting for the measure (H Con Res 34), which is as good as dead in the Democratic Senate, is a risky move for Republicans. Polls consistently show that Americans do not support transforming Medicare, and a USA Today/Gallup poll on April 11 found that two-thirds of Republicans oppose the governmemt making major changes to the program.<br /><br />“The Republicans are betting the whole store on that even though people don’t like particular changes, they want something big done about the deficit — and that they’re going to stick with them even though they don’t like the cuts and changes,” said Robert Blendon, professor of health policy and political analysis in the Harvard University School of Public Health.<br /><br />Democrats, meanwhile, see the Ryan plan as a political opportunity. They note that voters have rejected past GOP attempts to re-envision entitlement programs, including President George W. Bush’s attempt to change Social Security to a personal account system. And they are pledging to protect Medicare.<br /><br />“No plan to end Medicare as we know it will ever pass the Senate,” said Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y. “The debate is a debate we welcome. We’ve been waiting for it. It is a debate we will win.”<br /><br />Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., painted Ryan’s entire proposal as a way to end the program that provides health care for seniors.<br /><br />“It’s a smoke screen about balancing the budget. The real goal is to kill Medicare,” Murray said.<br /><br />A major part of the Republican 2010 campaign was hammering seniors with the message that Democrats were cutting Medicare and proposing “death panels” that might ration care through the health care overhaul (PL 111-148, PL 111-152).<br /><br />Observers say Republicans are vulnerable to a similar line of attack in the next election. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) already has announced plans to target potentially vulnerable House GOP members. A Roll Call rating shows that more than a third of House GOP freshmen are from toss-up or Democratic-leaning districts<br /><br />“If you supported that, you can expect a blizzard of mail and phone calls and emails into your district presenting you as somebody who wants to shut off the Medicare spigot,” said University of Virginia political analyst Larry Sabato.<br /><br />Still, House Republicans said late Thursday they felt confident in voting for a budget framework that calls for changing Medicare from a defined-benefit to a defined contribution plan in 2022. The GOP resolution calls for giving seniors and the disabled an annual stipend that would be used to buy private insurance plans of their choice and would increase over time based on the rate of inflation. Critics say the plan would shift a greater share of health care costs to seniors over time.<br /><br />Some Republicans think they can sell that as a way to preserve the program for future generations and to keep the country fiscally sound.<br /><br />GOP freshman Lou Barletta said seniors in his district “were more upset about their grandchildren and the debt we were leaving them than the fact of the assistance for themselves.”<br /><br />“They’re tough and they’ll handle the consequences to themselves, but don’t mess with their grandchildren,” added Barletta, who said his district has one of the biggest senior populations in Pennsylvania. Barletta is one of the Republicans on the DCCC’s list.<br /><br />Analysts said the crucial, and most challenging, step for Republicans would be convincing voters that the current path would lead to ruin. “They have to paint the picture of a troubled status quo that is no longer sustainable. . . . The status quo is like something on a fault line and we’re having all these earthquakes, and the big one’s going to come,” said Mike Franc, vice president of government studies at the conservative Heritage Foundation.<br /><br />Franc said that Republicans also must convince voters that there would be negative consequences for future generations if they do not act.<br /><br />“If they can paint that picture successfully, then they can win this,” Franc said.<br /><br />Republicans also must also underscore that Ryan’s plan would not change access to fee-for-service Medicare for existing seniors, only those born in 1957 or after.<br /><br />“If you say, ‘we are going to change the Medicare program to ensure its survival, but none of those changes will affect you,’ that’s a pretty powerful message,” said Republican pollster Whit Ayers.<br /><br />Of course President Obama refuted many of those arguments on April 13 when he argued the nation could honor its commitments at the same time it controls costs by taking steps to wring additional savings from Medicare.<br /><br />And some question whether voters will even entertain the idea of putting Medicare on the table, predicting Republicans might vote for the Ryan proposal but then walk away from some of its more far-reaching changes.<br /><br />“The whole idea of converting Medicare into a kind of voucher system is highly controversial with older voters,” Sabato said. “And it’s not a group you want to take lightly, especially if you’re a Republican.”<br /><br />Observers were divided on whether Obama’s defense of Medicare hurt or helped Republicans.<br /><br />Blendon argued the president offered a potentially more palatable proposal. “He gave them something that sounds like a big reduction in the deficit without those kinds of changes or cuts.”<br /><br />But Ayers contended Obama punted on the big issues.<br /><br />“The president’s complete unwillingness to address an obvious problem comes across as a blatant lack of leadership,” the GOP pollster said.<br /><br />Those on both sides agree that Ryan’s proposal all but ensures entitlements will be an important issue during the 2012 presidential campaign.<br /><br />“It’s going to be difficult for a Republican nominee not to have his or her own plan to address entitlements after the Ryan initiative,” Ayers said.<br /><br />Link: <a href="http://www.congress.org/news/2011/04/15/gop_expected_to_back_medicare_shift#src=db/">http://www.congress.org/news/2011/04/15/gop_expected_to_back_medicare_shift#src=db/</a>Jon S. Nielssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11450925394222760447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6120844093614812903.post-29158594533426792662011-04-14T02:32:00.000-07:002011-04-14T02:35:46.189-07:00Library of Congress Gets Hit Hardest With CutsLegislative Branch Spending Slashed Over 2010<br /><br />By Daniel Newhauser<br />Roll Call Staff<br />April 13 2011<br /><br />The fiscal 2011 spending agreement includes more than $103 million in cuts to Congress’ own budget, which may eventually necessitate some layoffs around Capitol Hill but not the drastic actions that would have been required by other House proposals.<br /><br />The Republican House has led the charge for spending reductions around the campus and is leading by example with this budget, as more than half of the legislative branch cuts would come from that chamber. The House budget would be reduced by $55 million from 2010 levels in accordance with a January resolution to slice 5 percent from the chamber’s operating costs for the remainder of the fiscal year.<br /><br />The Senate would abide a net $10 million budget decrease from fiscal 2010, which includes a 5 percent reduction from each office’s allocation.<br /><br />Around the Capitol campus, nearly every agency’s budget would be reduced, with the exception of the Capitol Police and the Congressional Budget Office.<br /><br />The police department would get a $12.5 million budget increase, raising their top-line total to $340.8 million to rectify a salary miscalculation that led to a multimillion-dollar budget shortfall last year.<br /><br />“We’re very happy,” said Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Terrance Gainer, who chairs the Capitol Police Board. “It corrects a mistake and doesn’t necessitate any reductions any place.”<br /><br />The CBO would get an additional <br />$1.7 million for salaries and expenses to avert layoffs and delays to budget proposals and analyses. Its budget would be $46.9 million. <br /><br />“In making difficult funding decisions, efforts focused on not requiring the Library of Congress, the Government Accountability Office, the Government Printing Office, and the Congressional Budget Office to furlough employees half way through the fiscal year,” according to a Senate summary of the legislative branch provisions of the bill.<br /><br />But the Library, which would be forced to absorb a $13.4 million cut from 2010 levels, would be hit the hardest and would likely have to reduce staff.<br /><br />“The level of funding provided in the [continuing resolution] proposal would require a hiring freeze with no new hires, and core services and products will be delayed as staff levels are reduced,” the Senate summary states. A Library spokeswoman said the agency will soon determine where the cuts will be absorbed.<br /><br />The Architect of the Capitol would be funded at $587 million, which would ensure Dome repairs would be finished before the 2013 presidential inauguration, according to the Senate release.<br /><br />The AOC would, however, take a $14.6 million rescission of Capitol Visitor Center construction funds that were not needed and thus not spent, which spokeswoman Eva Malecki said will not affect operations.<br /><br />The GPO would be cut by more than $12 million, but the bulk would come from the agency’s revolving fund, which spokesman Gary Somerset said will not affect operations. The agency would operate on a $135.3 million budget.<br /><br />The GAO would avoid layoffs, and with a $547.3 million budget — $9.5 million less than 2010 — it would not have to hand out furloughs either, spokesman Charles Young said.<br /><br />Link: <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/issues/56_110/Library-Congress-Hit-Hardest-Cuts-204894-1.html/">http://www.rollcall.com/issues/56_110/Library-Congress-Hit-Hardest-Cuts-204894-1.html/</a>Jon S. Nielssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11450925394222760447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6120844093614812903.post-27309750229846032292011-04-12T02:14:00.000-07:002011-04-12T02:17:56.297-07:00Deal poses problems for all sidesBy BRIAN FRIEL, Congress.org <br /><br />April 11 2011<br /><br /><br />The fiscal 2011 spending deal is done. Or is it?<br /><br />House and Senate leaders still have to persuade rank-and-file lawmakers to clear the agreement, and some will almost certainly find it difficult to swallow.<br /><br />The agreement reached late April 8 embodies a series of trade-offs that exacted deep domestic spending cuts opposed by Democrats and excluded many policy changes sought by Republicans.<br /><br />The deal covers more than a trillion dollars in federal programs and a raft of policy issues, so everyone will find something to dislike.<br /><br />House Republican Conference Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, applauded Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, for negotiating historic spending cuts, but said they amounted to “rounding errors,” in an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union.” On the other side, the top Budget Committee Democrat Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., appearing on ABC’s “This Week,” expressed doubt the deal would pass.<br /><br />Facing such challenges, it’s no surprise that both President Obama and Boehner sought to look beyond this week’s votes to even bigger budgetary battles ahead in urging lawmakers to vote for the spending deal. “This battle is just beginning,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., comparing the new dynamic to the fiscal and policy battles that dominated divided government in the mid-1990s.<br /><br />This year’s plan was unresolved until an hour and a half before the government was scheduled to begin shutting down. Overall, the package includes $37.7 billion in cuts from previous spending levels, lawmakers and aides said.<br /><br />Of that amount, $1.1 billion would come from an across-the-board cut spread across discretionary programs with the exception of Pentagon programs. The Defense Department is funded at $513 billion, about $2 billion less than Republicans had proposed. Democrats pushed for deeper cuts, but Republicans drew the line at that figure, an increase over last year’s levels.<br /><br />Roughly $20 billion of the deal’s cuts come from domestic discretionary programs. Obama accepted about $1.5 billion in cuts to one of his signature efforts, a high-speed rail grant program, but Democrats staved off $1.2 billion in proposed cuts to federal employees’ bonuses and pay beyond a salary freeze that the White House announced previously.<br /><br />Awaiting full details of the deal, Senate Appropriations Committee member Barbara A. Mikulski, D-Md., said expected cuts to education and health care programs “will have a significant negative consequence.”<br /><br />White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said April 9 the cuts included $13 billion from the Labor, Education and Health and Human Services departments, as well as $8 billion from foreign affairs programs. Pfeiffer noted small cuts such as $35 million from a crop insurance rebate program and $30 million from a job training program for student loan processors.<br /><br />But negotiators safeguarded funding for current enrollment levels in Head Start and current levels to maintain maximum awards for needy college students through Pell grants, Pfeiffer said. The National Institutes of Health was spared a $500 million cut to biomedical research, but a planned doubling of funding for research and development at the National Science Foundation and other agencies was scaled back.<br /><br />To limit the effect of cuts on such social safety-net programs, Democrats pressed for cuts to mandatory spending programs that typically are walled off from the annual appropriations process. A larger-than-expected $17.8 billion comes from such programs.<br /><br />To increase the top-line spending cuts to a level Boehner could accept, Democratic negotiators in the final hours agreed to more cuts as long as they came from mandatory accounts. It was a cut of $2.5 billion in transportation project funding that got negotiators to the finish line, a Senate Democratic leadership aide said.<br /><br />House Appropriations Chairman Harold Rogers, R-Ky., wanted to limit mandatory spending cuts to about double the $8.7 billion included in the fiscal 2011 legislation (HR 1) the House passed Feb. 19.<br /><br />The battle over the mix of spending cuts consumed Republican and Democratic negotiators. Democrats originally pushed for tightening tax breaks, particularly those benefiting the oil and gas industry, but Republicans rebuffed them. The final deal includes 53 percent discretionary and 47 percent mandatory spending cuts, a split that tracks with Democrats’ hopes.<br /><br />The spending fight was upstaged by a struggle over 65 provisions Republicans wanted to alter, and in some cases end, federal programs. Democrats fought nearly all of the so-called riders and mostly prevailed — a result Boehner will have to help his rebellious freshmen accept.<br /><br />The package includes no limits on the EPA’s regulatory powers, even though Republicans pressed to stop various restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions and mountaintop mining, among others.<br /><br />Holding a series of votes on April 6 in which similar restrictions failed to muster even a simple majority in the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., dealt a death blow to the requested EPA riders. The fight, though, is far from over with Republicans vowing to continue to try to curtail the agency’s regulations on businesses — an effort Democrats will continue to resist.<br /><br />Republicans were forced to concede their efforts to block funding for Planned Parenthood and the implementation of the 2010 health care overhaul law (PL 111-148, PL 111-152). After intense wrangling, Boehner agreed to exclude those provisions from the final bill in exchange for separate Senate votes on each issue.<br /><br />The test votes will require a 60-vote threshold, virtually guaranteeing that current funding for implementation of the health care overhaul law and Planned Parenthood will continue, a congressional aide said April 9.<br /><br />Reid and Obama refused to compromise on Planned Parenthood, and the standoff was a central reason negotiators concluded their work literally in the eleventh hour. The final deal did yield to Republicans on a prohibition on either federal or local funding of abortions in the District of Columbia — reversing a change made in the last Congress that had removed the restriction on local funding.<br /><br />The fight essentially was a draw, reverting to longstanding federal policy on matters related to the hot-button issue.<br /><br />On health care, Democrats gave Republicans a fig leaf: funding for various studies on the potential problems in implementing the overhaul. Republicans want ammunition to fight the law, with a study of the effects of the law’s mandates, its impact on insurance premiums, a review of waivers to various organizations from its rules and an examination of research comparing the effectiveness of different types of treatments that is funded in both the law and the 2009 economic stimulus measure (PL 111-5).<br /><br />House Republicans are just beginning to rev up attacks on last year’s rewrite of financial services (PL 111-203) passed largely with Democratic votes. Though Republicans sought to restrict the power of the law’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the spending deal directs the Government Accountability Office to study the bureau’s operations. As that law takes effect, look for Congress to try anew to resist financial oversight.<br /><br />On education, the spending deal revives a private school voucher program for District of Columbia students, a signature Boehner goal. That concession by Obama — who had sought to phase out the voucher program — could sour relations between the White House and teachers’ unions already wary of Obama’s embrace of changes to teacher pay and his priority education program to boost college graduation levels know as Race to the Top. His program was largely protected in the deal.<br /><br />Among other controversial issues addressed in the funding deal likely to meet vigorous resistance in Congress this week:<br /><br />• A ban on funding to hire more IRS agents to crack down on tax cheats and up revenue. House Republicans succeeded in their attempt to block funding for the administration’s initiative.<br /><br />• An end to spending for NPR and other public broadcasting services. Republicans lost their effort to block the funding.<br /><br />• An elimination of funding for a pilot “voucher” program allowing some people to turn down employer-sponsored health insurance in favor of coverage through health insurance exchanges created by the health overhaul. Wyden lambasted the deal for zeroing out funding for the program.<br /><br />• A curb on funding to put in place regulations dealing with the Federal Communications Commission’s “net neutrality” rules for broadband service providers. Democrats blocked the House Republicans’ proposed restrictions.<br /><br />• A ban on funding for Education Department rules affecting private for-profit colleges. Republicans wanted to block it, but Democrats won out.<br /><br />• A bar on funding for a U.N. population program and international family planning. Democrats successfully deflected the Republican drive to zero out the funding.<br /><br />• A bar on funding to transfer prisoners being held in the Guantánamo Bay detention facility to U.S. facilities for trials in U.S. courts. Republicans got to retain the provision that Democrats deemed “moot” after the Obama administration announced recently it would try detainees in military tribunals at the Cuba facility.<br /><br />Link: <a href="http://www.congress.org/news/2011/04/11/deal_poses_problems_for_all_sides/">http://www.congress.org/news/2011/04/11/deal_poses_problems_for_all_sides/</a>Jon S. Nielssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11450925394222760447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6120844093614812903.post-14601746797244693502011-04-11T07:27:00.000-07:002011-04-11T07:32:36.548-07:00Obama to Call for Broad Plan to Reduce DebtBy JACKIE CALMES, The New York Times<br /><br />WASHINGTON April 10 2011 — President Obama will call this week for Republicans to join him in writing a broad plan to raise revenues and reduce the growth of popular entitlement programs, as the battle over the nation’s financial troubles moves past Friday’s short-term budget deal and into a wider and more consequential debate over the nation’s long-term fiscal health. <br /><br />In a speech to be delivered at a university here on Wednesday, Mr. Obama will in effect come off the sidelines on the debate over reducing the nation’s debt, which is reaching dangerous heights as the population ages. <br /><br />After months of criticism that he has not led on budget talks, Mr. Obama will urge bipartisan negotiations toward a multiyear debt-reduction plan that administration officials said would depart sharply from the one proposed last week by House Republicans. <br /><br />The Republican plan includes a shrinking of Medicare and Medicaid and trillions of dollars in tax cuts, while sparing defense spending. Mr. Obama, by contrast, envisions a more comprehensive plan that would include tax increases for the richest taxpayers, cuts to military spending, savings in Medicare and Medicaid, and unspecified changes to Social Security. <br /><br />In his remarks, which come after Friday’s bipartisan deal to cut domestic spending by about $38 billion for the remainder of this budget year, Mr. Obama will not offer details but will set deficit-cutting goals, White House officials said. The numbers were still under discussion on Sunday. <br /><br />“He’ll lay out his approach this week in terms of the scale of debt reduction he thinks the country needs so we can grow economically and win the future — a balanced approach,” David Plouffe, the senior White House political strategist, said on “Fox News Sunday,” one of four talk shows on which he appeared Sunday. <br /><br />“Obviously, we need to look at all corners of government,” Mr. Plouffe said, adding, “We’re going to have a big debate.” <br /><br />Until now, Mr. Obama has avoided prescribing specific changes to entitlement programs like Medicare, beyond those contained in his health care overhaul. Indeed, few of the recommendations made by his own bipartisan fiscal commission were included in the budget he presented to Congress in February. <br /><br />What is more, while Mr. Obama proposed a five-year freeze on the growth of domestic spending, he recommended increases in education, research, infrastructure and clean-energy programs — emphasizing that although deficit reduction is important, so are investments to create jobs and skilled workers. <br /><br />The growing debate over federal spending and taxes is certain to ripple from the White House and Congress to the 2012 presidential campaign, helping to shape voters’ assessment of Mr. Obama’s record and challenging rivals for the Republican presidential nomination to respond, even as they court conservative voters who oppose any compromise with Mr. Obama. <br /><br />Whether anything tangible comes of the debate, it will contrast the parties’ visions of the role of government. <br /><br />Republicans reacted skeptically to word of Mr. Obama’s speech. “I sit here and I listen to David Plouffe talk about, you know, their commitment to cut spending and knowing full well that for the last two months we’ve had to bring this president kicking and screaming to the table to cut spending,” Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House majority leader, said on Fox. <br /><br />The timing of Mr. Obama’s remarks reflects a White House strategy devised late last year after Republicans won their House majority, together with the confluence of four events, two last week and two ahead. <br /><br />Friday night’s 11th-hour agreement on spending cuts, which averted a government shutdown, removed what had been a distraction for months over this year’s unfinished federal budget. Administration officials said they also hoped that the compromise helped build trust with the House speaker, John A. Boehner, that would carry over to the larger debates about long-term spending and the national debt. <br /><br />Some lawmakers said Sunday that they opposed the compromise, but leaders in both parties remain confident it will pass in the House and Senate this week. <br /><br />Also last week came a moment the administration had been awaiting for months: Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, the House Budget Committee chairman, outlined House Republicans’ long-term budget plan. <br /><br />Mr. Ryan said it would cut $6 trillion in the coming decade, though budget analysts questioned some of the claimed savings. The plan would turn Medicare into a voucher program for future generations and slash spending for the need-based Medicaid program and other domestic initiatives, while largely sparing the Pentagon and cutting $4 trillion more in corporate and high-income taxes. <br /><br />The White House settled on a strategy in December by which Mr. Obama would wait for the House Republicans to lay down their cards before he proposed major reductions in popular entitlement benefit programs, according to interviews with administration officials at the time. <br /><br />Mr. Obama’s budget waiting game, however, has helped to fuel widespread criticism by Republicans, pundits and some Democrats that he has failed to lead. <br /><br />Another impetus to Wednesday’s move is the White House’s belief that a bipartisan “Gang of Six” senators will announce this week that they have reached agreement on a debt-reduction package similar to that of the president’s fiscal commission. <br /><br />After months of private discussions, the tentative agreement among the three Republican and three Democratic senators would cut military and domestic programs and overhaul the tax code, eliminating popular tax breaks but using the new revenues to lower income-tax rates and reduce annual deficits. It would be the model, if not in all details, for Mr. Obama’s own goals, Democratic officials say. <br /><br />Perhaps the biggest prod for Mr. Obama to act, however, is the need for Congress to vote to raise the legal limit on the federal debt, now $14.25 trillion. The government will hit that limit on its borrowing authority in as few as five weeks, the Treasury Department has said. Without an increase by early July, the government cannot continue to make payments on its existing debt, potentially forcing it into an economy-shaking default. <br /><br />Speaking on Saturday in Connecticut, Mr. Boehner said Republicans would not agree to raise the cap “without something really, really big attached to it.” <br /><br />Unlike the recent spending-cut negotiations, in which Mr. Obama was not active until the final days, “he knows he has to take a greater role from the beginning” on the debt-limit measure and any companion plan for reducing debt, said an adviser who spoke on the condition of anonymity. <br /><br />Several presidential advisers interviewed in recent weeks said Mr. Obama has been torn between wanting to propose major budget changes to entice Republicans to the bargaining table, including on Social Security, and believing they would never agree to raise revenues on upper-income Americans as part of a deal. <br /><br />Three House Republican leaders, including Mr. Ryan, were on the fiscal commission; unlike the three Senate Republicans, they opposed the recommendations because they raised revenues and did not cut enough from health care. <br /><br />The risk to Mr. Obama includes further alienating liberals in his own party. Progressive groups have formed coalitions to oppose any changes to Social Security, for instance.<br /><br />Link: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/11/us/politics/11deficit.html/">http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/11/us/politics/11deficit.html/</a>Jon S. Nielssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11450925394222760447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6120844093614812903.post-4659785472271662392011-04-11T01:28:00.000-07:002011-04-11T01:32:51.484-07:00Ryan’s Budget: Hard to Imagine Something Equally as ExtremeBy JOSEPH WHITE, The Fiscal Times April 7, 2011<br /><br />Rep. Paul Ryan's, R-Wisc., draft budget resolution is very important, but not because there is any chance it could be adopted. It is so extreme that Senate Democrats appear strongly opposed to it, and there will surely be very little public pressure to eviscerate Medicare and Medicaid, cut taxes even more for higher-income Americans, fast-track cuts to Social Security, and otherwise follow Ryan's new "roadmap" to 19th century robber-baron capitalism.<br /> <br />Instead, the Ryan plan is important for what it reveals about the attitudes influencing the budget debate, and how it structures the pressures on legislators going forward.<br /> <br />First, it appears that Ryan, and the vast majority of Congressional Republicans, seriously believe in his budget plan. People should understand how stunning that is. In the 1980s the conservative dream was a constitutional amendment that would limit government spending to no more than 21 percent of GDP, but today that is considered "big government" to Ryan and his colleagues. Additionally, in the 1980s President Reagan would contemplate tax hikes to deal with deficits, but now Republicans believe deficit reduction should be accompanied by tax cuts, even when the deficits are twice as large as a share of the economy. And finally, in the 1980s, the Reagan administration and Republican Senate leaders worked for a balanced plan to improve Social Security's finances and build up the trust fund, but now Republicans reject any revenues and claim the trust fund is fake.<br /> <br />In short, current Republicans make Ronald Reagan look like Lyndon Johnson -- or, at least, Nelson Rockefeller. This is not a matter of the 'Tea Party." Ryan was the GOP's bright new budget star before the Tea Party hype began. For some reason, this does not yet appear to be fully understood within the press. But imagine the comparable "Democratic" budget plan.<br /> <br />Actually, it's hard to think of something equally extreme. But I guess it would involve massive taxes on upper incomes and especially on financial manipulation. Instead of eliminating government guarantees for medical care it would replace the U.S. health care system with Medicare-for-all and a budget cap mechanism. It would provide a guaranteed annual income (as we might as well give away some extra money to the poor, in response to Ryan's giveaways to high income, in the name of "deficit reduction"). It would cut the defense budget in half with a mindless automatic formula, regardless of need (as opposed to slashing domestic discretionary the same way). <br /> <br />I seen no sign of something like this being proposed by Democratic leaders, and that shows the lopsided nature of the debate. Yet think of the reaction to Ryan. Sure his plan has been criticized. But it also has been widely praised for its "courage" and "honesty" in addressing the deficit problem. Personally, I don't find making up economic projections, making up assumptions about the effects of vouchers, and making up assumptions about the effects of block grants "honest.” The key point is that even the most radical conservative proposal can be treated as a serious alternative among Washington's budget mavens. Yet if the Democrats proposed a "left" equivalent I doubt that the Washington Post would praise them for the "courage" to take on the medical establishment, the military industrial complex and Wall Street. Somehow it is "serious" to want to cut "entitlements," but not as serious to want to have taxes to reverse the huge increases in inequality over the past four decades, or use government's power to control health care costs, or rethink America's role in the world.<br /> <br />There is another aspect of the current debate that makes me yearn for the 1980s. Back then, centrists talked about the need for a "three-legged stool" of deficit reduction, including defense, domestic spending and taxes. This was particularly common from moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats. In their recent statement of "principles" for deficit reduction, however, the Blue Dog Coalition only referred to "tax reform." This reflects a similar skittishness among many Democrats. Senate Democrats, after all, were not even willing to go to stand up last fall and let the Bush tax cuts for higher incomes expire. Nor has President Obama exercised any leadership to set the stage for higher revenues.<br /> <br />What this means, then, is the Democrats do not think they can hold their ranks to propose even a much more moderate, but clearly "Democratic" plan, for substantial deficit reductions. The public opinion evidence does not appear to support any claim that Ryan's approach actually is more popular than a Democratic alternative with some higher taxes on Americans below the $250,000 line. But Republican politicians, being true believers, are far more willing to take risks. The imbalance is true even at the level of mass opinion, with polls showing that the Democrats are more willing than Republicans to compromise.<br /> <br />Enter Bowles-Simpson. As Henry Aaron and I both explained at the time it was released, the plan drafted by the chairs of the President's fiscal responsibility commission is extremely flawed. A short list (with not all of which Henry might agree) would include that Bowles-Simpson "merely" echoes conservative dreams about spending limits from the 1980s, rather than exceeding them. It involves unrealistic caps on spending categories. It only pretends to have health care savings policies. It emphasizes cutting middle class tax preferences rather than raising rates on the people who have, as Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson emphasize in their recent book, benefited from three decades of "winner take all politics." Yet some in the media, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, and other voices have taken the opportunity to argue that Ryan shows how moderate Bowles-Simpson is. <br /> <br />In this context, Senate moderate Democrats who really care about deficits seem even more likely to decide that the Bowles-Simpson plan is the "moderate," "responsible" thing to do. Never mind the facts or the consequences. What matters in politics is images and positioning. One of the things about “centrists” is they keep trying to figure out where the center is. They look at other politicians and press clippings to figure that out. As the Republicans have moved steadily right, so has the center – and the Ryan budget looks like it could be another stage in that dynamic. The Ryan budget is pushing the political system towards what would have been a conservative triumph in 1985 -- and the only hope for those like myself who feel it is terrible policy, I suspect, may be that the Republicans will be too extreme to realize it.<br /><br />Joseph White is Director of the Center for Policy Studies at Case Western Reserve University. <br /><br />To visit the Capital Exchange homepage click following link:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Blogs/Capital-Exchange.aspx/">http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Blogs/Capital-Exchange.aspx/</a>Jon S. Nielssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11450925394222760447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6120844093614812903.post-22405986662901092152011-04-05T01:28:00.000-07:002011-04-05T01:35:10.587-07:00House aims for change in entitlementsBy <em>CQ Staff</em> April 4, 2011. Congress.org<br /><br />House Republicans are set to release their fiscal 2012 budget resolution this week, and the plan is expected to call for major changes, including new caps on mandatory and discretionary spending.<br /><br />The budget document also will lay out the Republican fiscal agenda for the year, calling for deep rollbacks for many discretionary programs, including some reductions for the Pentagon, and other cost-saving changes to entitlement programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.<br /><br />With Senate Democrats and House Republicans still far apart on fiscal priorities, the House blueprint has little hope of winning favor in the Senate. But it is expected to provide a clear picture of a new conservative House majority intent on reordering the nation’s fiscal affairs and continuing a campaign to slice large chunks out of the government’s bankroll.<br /><br />At the same time, a budget measure including tight spending controls could provide political cover to House conservatives already wary of compromising on funding cuts in the ongoing fight over fiscal 2011 appropriations.<br /><br />Although details are still scarce, congressional sources said the new spending caps expected to be called for in the House resolution would be similar to legislation backed by Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. Their bill (S 245) would reduce spending on discretionary and mandatory programs to 20.6 percent of the economy over 10 years, down from the current level of 24.7 percent.<br /><br />If Congress did not meet that goal, the Senate bill would call for automatic cuts to government programs until the cap levels are met. Congress could override the new limits with a two-thirds vote.<br /><br />Although the budget resolution would account for the new spending caps, lawmakers would have to clear separate legislation to make the new limits law.<br /><br />Conservative analysts have argued for years that such a fiscal restraint is needed to rein in Congress’ propensity to spend more than Washington collects in revenues.<br /><br />“Runaway spending is what’s driving the deficit,” said Brian Riedl, a budget analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “And it’s very tough to enact the spending reforms needed unless there’s a framework in place capping spending.”<br /><br />Calling for a statutory cap on federal spending may reflect House Budget Chairman Paul D. Ryan’s recognition that any changes to entitlement programs will require bipartisan support.<br /><br />So far, McCaskill is the only Democratic sponsor of her bill with Corker. But similar proposed caps have drawn strong bipartisan support in the Senate in the past, though not enough to pass. Other cosponsors of the plan include Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., who is working to draft a comprehensive bipartisan deficit reduction plan with a handful of other budget-conscious senators.<br /><br />The budget resolution will kick off the next round of rhetorical battles over the more than $1 trillion deficit and growing $14 trillion national debt.<br /><br />Although Ryan, R-Wis., has kept a tight lid on details, lawmakers and others who have been told about the budget resolution say it will aim to scale back some domestic programs to fiscal 2006 spending levels, include some cuts to Defense spending and call for cost savings in mandatory spending programs including Medicaid and Medicare.<br /><br />The budget resolution is expected to reflect plans to replace the current formula-based Medicaid program, which provides health care to the poor, with a block grant system in which the states receive a set amount of funding from Washington and have greater latitude to design their own programs and determine who is eligible for Medicaid.<br /><br />Combined with the assumed repeal of the health care law (PL 111-148, PL 111-152) enacted last year, using block grants for the program could save more than $700 billion over a decade, based on an analysis of projections from the Congressional Budget Office.<br /><br />The budget is also expected to address Medicare, the health care program for seniors and the disabled, with a call for a “modified” version of a proposal by Ryan and Alice Rivlin, who was budget director under President Bill Clinton.<br /><br />The Rivlin-Ryan plan, which was drawn up when the two served on the president’s fiscal commission last year, would replace the current Medicare fee-for-service system with vouchers that recipients would use to buy private health insurance.<br /><br />Although the budget is not expected to contemplate major changes to Social Security, the resolution will suggest some procedural tweaks that could open the way for further modification of Social Security in the future.<br /><br />“I think the most important test for this is, how serious is it on entitlement reform, and what kind of response does it get from Democrats who presumably won’t love all the details that are presented,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.<br /><br />Scott Lilly, a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress, said the Ryan budget could be the start of a conversation about how to address the real drivers of the rising debt.<br /><br />“We have programs that are relatively generous to retirees, and we’re not willing to, at this point, pay the taxes that are necessary to support them,” he said. “And I think it’s useful that Chairman Ryan is showing us how we can do it without raising revenues.”<br /><br />Many House Republicans are awaiting the budget with enthusiasm. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, a member of the Budget Committee, lauded the plan for being “a major contrast to where the president is.”<br /><br />Some conservatives, however, may be disappointed that it does not call for a balanced budget in 10 years, a goal of many freshmen. During listening sessions with House members, Ryan was reported to have said that ending the deficit in a decade would require disruptive benefit cuts to current recipients of entitlement programs such as Medicare. The GOP plan seeks to phase in changes, exempting those who are 55 and older.<br /><br />The plan has already drawn fire from Democrats. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, ranking member on the House Budget Committee, attacked the idea of turning Medicaid into a block grant program, which he described as “simply code for slashing health care support for seniors, people with disabilities and others.”<br /><br />-- Paul M. Krawzak, CQ Staff<br /><br />Link: <a href="http://origin-www.congress.org/news/2011/04/04/house_aims_for_change_in_entitlements/">http://origin-www.congress.org/news/2011/04/04/house_aims_for_change_in_entitlements/</a>Jon S. Nielssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11450925394222760447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6120844093614812903.post-28306860565706940212011-04-05T01:23:00.000-07:002011-04-05T01:34:35.609-07:00An effort to keep EPA authorityBy <em>Geoff Koss</em> April 4, 2011. Congress.org<br /><br />California Democrat Barbara Boxer tugged hard at the heartstrings last week, when she took to the Senate floor to defend the EPA’s efforts to reduce emissions of the pollutants that are warming the earth.<br /><br />Pointing to oversized posters of young children wearing breathing masks and using asthma inhalers, she argued that legislative efforts to strip the agency of its authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions pose a threat to public health.<br /><br />“This is what is happening in this country because of the polluters who will not clean up their mess,” Boxer said, gesturing to one of the placards. “Here is another beautiful child. We all love children. How many speeches have we had on this floor — we love children, children are our future, we will fight for our children. Do we want their future to look like this, breathing through a device?”<br /><br />Although breathing carbon dioxide is not directly responsible for respiratory difficulties except in small enclosed spaces, Boxer’s emphasis on public health highlights a theme that environmentalists, their Democratic supporters in Congress and the Obama administration have adopted as they regroup after their failure to enact a climate change bill in the last Congress.<br /><br />The new Democratic strategy will be put to an early test when the Senate votes, probably this week, on up to four amendments designed to roll back the EPA’s regulatory authority.<br /><br />In 2009, Democrats test-drove several themes — including the threats of global warming to national security and the promise of “green” jobs — without really settling on anything during their failed campaign to sell legislation that would cap emissions.<br /><br />At that time, Republicans waged a relentless messaging war to defeat the climate change bill. “Cap and trade” proposals were dubbed “cap and tax” and called a “light-switch tax.” A release of embarrassing e-mails lifted from climate scientists was labeled “Climategate.” Global warming talks collapsed in the Senate, and triumphant Republicans turned their attention to a new target: the EPA.<br /><br />But as Democrats move to a defensive posture, they may have finally found their voice. The basis for EPA legal authority to regulate emissions is a finding that global warming endangers public health and welfare and thus falls under the authority of the Clean Air Act. Armed with that position and bolstered by a Supreme Court decision, Democrats and environmentalists are presenting the GOP effort to rein in the EPA as an assault on the 40-year-old Clean Air Act and a direct threat to public health, a theme that has served them well in past fights over clean air and clean water.<br /><br />“Defense is almost always easier to play than offense because we’re defending the status quo now, which is EPA setting pollution reduction standards to protect public health,” says Daniel Weiss, a climate expert at the liberal Center for American Progress Action Fund. “Last year, we were trying to change the status quo. That’s always harder.”<br /><br />Weiss says the message reinforces the stereotype that Republicans put business interests ahead of the general public’s. “It makes them seem like they’re calloused to concerns about public health in order to make profits for companies that then turn around and give them lots of money.”<br /><br />GOP strategist Frank Luntz — who famously advised Republicans in 2003 to avoid the phrase “global warming” in favor of the more benign “climate change” — warned in the same memo that health is a bigger priority for the public than concern about burdensome regulation.<br /><br />“The public does not approve of the current regulatory process, and Americans certainly don’t want an increased regulatory burden,” he wrote. “But they will put a higher priority on environmental protection and public health than on cutting regulations.”<br /><br />When congressional Democrats struggled to sell the public on an urgent need to regulate a ubiquitous gas like carbon dioxide, they downplayed the environmental and health justifications in favor of arguments that capping emissions would foster the explosive growth of low-carbon energy industries and create millions of green jobs. Framing the debate in economic terms, however, played into the hands of Republicans, who drowned out the “green jobs” message by stoking fears of higher energy costs and an exodus of blue-collar jobs.<br /><br />Recent polling illustrates why Democrats have decided to play up fears about air pollution and public health and to play down global warming.<br /><br />A Gallup Poll released last week asked respondents to rank their concerns about nine environmental issues. Only 51 percent said they worry a great deal or a fair amount about global warming — last on the list of issues. By contrast, 72 percent expressed worry about air pollution.<br /><br />The League of Conservation Voters and the American Lung Association assert that recent research they commissioned shows broad public support for EPA regulation of carbon dioxide pollution, although conspicuously absent from the polling data is any mention of “global warming” or “climate change.”<br /><br />The American Lung Association last month took that message straight to the Michigan district of House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton, the lead sponsor of a GOP bill that would block the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases entirely. On a large billboard featuring a girl wearing a breathing mask, the girl implored him to “protect our kids’ health. Don’t weaken the Clean Air Act.”<br /><br />Upton felt compelled to respond with an opinion column in a local newspaper defending his bill. “It does not limit EPA’s ability to monitor and reduce pollutants like lead and ozone that damage public health,” Upton wrote. “This legislation restores the Clean Air Act to its original purpose — protecting families from harmful smog, particulate matter and chemical pollution.”<br /><br />The argument that Congress never intended the Clean Air Act to regulate unconventional pollutants such as carbon dioxide is at the heart of the EPA fight. In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that greenhouse gases fell within the purview of the law. That prompted a scientific review that culminated with the release of an “endangerment” determination in 2009.<br /><br />Compiled by agency scientists, the finding lists a host of human health risks associated with a warmer climate caused by carbon dioxide, including an increased likelihood of deaths from heat waves and other extreme-weather-related events, as well as evidence that warming will increase the prevalence of disease. Significantly, the finding also cited an increased risk of ambient ozone — smog — which can cause a number of adverse respiratory and cardiovascular effects, especially in children.<br /><br />That’s the basis for arguments like the emotional appeal that Boxer made on the Senate floor. Likewise, EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, in her frequent appearances this year before Republican-led House committees, has doggedly stuck to the public-health line in justifying her agency’s regulatory efforts.<br /><br />Republican energy consultant Mike McKenna says the health argument could yield diminishing returns for Democrats if widespread public sentiment shifts against the notion that carbon dioxide, a gas that humans breathe every day, “is really a killer pollutant.”<br /><br />McKenna acknowledges that the health argument is “always the environmental community’s strongest one, no matter what the issue.” But he also says Republicans have learned how to counterpunch. “That’s a pretty standard line of attack, and every Republican operative has seen it a hundred times and knows what to do about it,” he says.<br /><br />He suggested that the argument may be problematic for Democrats from conservative or coal-dependent states, who face criticism from the right if they support President Obama’s environmental policies but risk alienating their Democratic base — and inviting primary challenges — if they distance themselves from the administration.<br /><br />One such Democrat — Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania — says such concerns are overblown. Although some constituents in his coal-producing state do gripe about EPA overreach, he says, such complaints are far outpaced by broader economic concerns.<br /><br />“Sometimes the lines that are connected here in Washington aren’t necessarily reflective of the way people at home analyze an issue like that,” he says. “And sometimes our discussions here can be remote from the real world.”<br /><br />In the latest round of the battle set for this week, one proposal offered by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky would rescind outright the EPA’s legal authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Three milder alternatives offered by moderate Democrats would either delay or limit EPA regulation. None is expected to get the necessary 60 votes.<br /><br />But McKenna, the GOP consultant, predicts that the outcome of the amendment votes will nullify any potential backlash against Republicans.<br /><br />“At the end of the day, if you have 70 to 75 senators who are willing to go on record as saying, ‘I’m not really wild about what the agency is doing,’ that’s a pretty solid judgment from a pretty wide cross section of people that, you know what, there is zero risk in coming out against EPA on this thing,” he says.<br /><br />Link: <a href="http://www.congress.org/news/2011/04/04/an_effort_to_keep_epa_authority/">http://www.congress.org/news/2011/04/04/an_effort_to_keep_epa_authority/</a>Jon S. Nielssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11450925394222760447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6120844093614812903.post-13519013092560451042011-03-30T04:36:00.000-07:002011-03-30T05:39:24.040-07:00Amid acrimony, negotiators carry on<em>By Kerry Young, Congress.org </em><br /><br />Spending talks among the Obama administration, Democrats and top House Republicans are continuing, despite another round of finger-pointing and heated rhetoric between the two parties. <br /><br />Even with negotiators pressing ahead, the two sides must deal with the same issue that has bogged down talks on fiscal 2011 appropriations for weeks — finding a level of spending rollbacks that leaders can sell in both chambers. <br /><br />Republicans are sticking by their demands for $61.5 billion in discretionary cuts from current spending, and Democrats continue to balk at that number. <br /><br />A recent compromise, floated by the White House, would cut current spending by $20 billion beyond the $10 billion in reductions Congress already has made in the latest two continuing resolutions. But it won little praise Monday, particularly from House conservatives. <br /><br />With the two sides separated by more than $30 billion in cuts, and many House Republicans eager to put their stamp on government spending, a compromise could be hard to reach in the two weeks before the current stopgap spending law (PL 112-6) expires. <br /><br />In fact, wide circulation of the White House number brought another round of partisan barbs. Both parties tried to pre-emptively lay blame for a government shutdown on the other side. <br /><br />Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Republicans tied to the tea party movement were responsible for upending a recent round of talks. <br /><br />“Apparently these extremists would rather shut down the government and risk sending our economy back into a recession than work with Democrats or even their own leadership to find a responsible compromise,” Reid said. <br /><br />Republicans wasted little time responding, saying Democrats were threatening a shutdown by refusing to allow what the GOP considers reasonable reductions to the nation’s more than $1 trillion in annual discretionary spending. <br /><br />“In the scope of our debt crisis, if Sen. Reid and Sen. [Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y.] force the government to partially shut down over these sensible spending cuts, Americans will hold them accountable,” said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia. <br /><br />House GOP leaders have scheduled a press conference Tuesday to decry what they see as the Senate’s “failure” to pass a long-term fiscal 2011 bill. <br /><br />On Monday, Senate Democrats tried to cast a favorable light on the $20 billion cut figure, suggesting that more moderate Republicans might support such a plan. <br /><br />“The Republicans have to resolve their own deep disagreements before we can find a middle ground between the two parties,” Reid said on the Senate floor. “We have tried to wait patiently for them and do that, but our patience and the American people’s patience is wearing very, very thin.” <br /><br />But Alabama Republican Jeff Sessions, the ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee, was not buying that argument. Sessions noted that House Republicans were adamant in their calls for $61.5 billion in fiscal 2011 cuts, and accused Reid of inventing Republican support. <br /><br />“That’s Sen. Reid trying to create a split,” Sessions said. <br /><br />Instead, Sessions fired back that many Senate Democrats, if left to make their own decisions, would back the House GOP position. <br /><br />“Assuming that they were left free, I believe that there would be more than enough Democratic votes,” Sessions said. But, “apparently, they are under pressure” to protest the $61.5 billion in cuts, he said. <br /><br />Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, pointed to the bipartisan House vote on the latest continuing resolution as a sign that a compromise could be reached. <br /><br />Harkin said it was encouraging that Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, relied on Democrats to get past the “tea party vigilantes” to pass the measure. <br /><br />Although 54 Republicans voted against the three-week bill, 85 Democrats supported it, allowing it to pass, 271-158. <br /><br />“I thought that gave us hope that Boehner was willing then to work with those Republicans and us over here to strike a deal, even though he couldn’t get the tea party people on board,” Harkin said. “But, I don’t know. Maybe that’s out the window now.” <br /><br />Six rounds of stopgap funding have been enacted, with the current one set to expire April 8. That series of extensions has left much of the government in a long-term budgetary limbo, a situation that is particularly difficult for the Pentagon and its multifront deployments in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. <br /><br />Members of both parties have said the latest stopgap measure will be the last for this fiscal year.<br /><br />Like many Democrats, Maryland’s Chris Van Hollen, the ranking member on the House Budget Committee, says GOP demands to slash discretionary spending would damage the fragile economy. <br /><br />On a Monday television appearance, Van Hollen argued that changes to the tax code need to be considered as part of a fiscal overhaul. He suggested that the federal government could return to the tax rates seen under the Clinton administration, bringing in additional revenue to reduce borrowing. <br /><br />But bringing tax changes into the debate probably would be anathema for Republicans and would draw heavy fire from conservative groups such as Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform. <br /><br />A coalition of tea party groups plans a rally March 31 in Washington to remind Republicans of the desire for deep fiscal 2011 cuts. Still, even the cuts envisioned by House Republicans would do little to immediately curb the gap between annual federal spending and revenue — or the deficit. <br /><br />“Instead of having the Speaker whip his caucus, the tea party element is whipping the Speaker,” Van Hollen said. “You have a lot of Republicans in the House who are more afraid of Grover Norquist than they are of the deficit.” <br /><br />The current spending impasse could serve as prelude to even more difficult budget battles later this year, including a vote to raise the nation’s debt limit. <br /><br />Republican Sen. Jerry Moran, a freshman from Kansas, on Monday announced he would not support an increase in the debt limit unless President Obama becomes more directly involved in efforts to overhaul federal finances. <br /><br />The overwhelming majority of federal debt is subject to a congressionally imposed limit, which now stands at $14.294 trillion. As of March 25, the debt subject to the limit stood at $14.159 trillion. <br /><br />The Treasury has estimated that the debt limit will be reached between April 15 and May 31. It may soon update this estimate. <br /><br />“To date, you have provided little or no leadership on what I believe to be the most important issue facing our nation — our national debt,” Moran said. “With no indication that your willingness to lead will change, I want to inform you I will vote ‘no’ on your request to raise the debt ceiling.” <br /><br />Link: <a href="http://www.congress.org/news/2011/03/29/amid_acrimony_negotiators_carry_on/amid_acrimony_negotiators_carry_on">http://www.congress.org/news/2011/03/29/amid_acrimony_negotiators_carry_on/amid_acrimony_negotiators_carry_on</a>Jon S. Nielssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11450925394222760447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6120844093614812903.post-32962279368818157812011-03-29T04:55:00.000-07:002011-03-29T05:03:24.688-07:00Durbin’s Role a Third Rail Among Democrats<strong>With Schumer Leading Democrats’ Messaging, Senate Whip Still Finds Relevance in Being Attack Dog</strong><br /><br /><em>By David M. Drucker, Roll Call </em><br /><br />Sen. Dick Durbin’s leadership role in the Democratic Conference is a sensitive topic.<br /><br />The Majority Whip is described by colleagues as an indispensable leader who performs the pivotal function of driving the Democratic message and providing a relentless, articulate defense of both Conference and White House policies from Republican attacks. Some of Durbin’s most ardent fans within the Conference, in fact, are Senators far more centrist in their politics than the committed Illinois liberal.<br /><br />But in offering praise, some Democratic Senators acknowledged that questions have arisen about where Durbin fits in in the wake of Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.) assuming command of the Conference’s messaging and policy operations under the auspices of the Democratic Policy and Communications Center — a combination of Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (Nev.) old communications war room and the Democratic Policy Committee.<br /><br />“They had this so-called, it wasn’t a brush up — with Schumer and Durbin — but I think that each of them is fitting into a perfect spot,” said Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), a self-described “hard-core Durbin loyalist.” “The Schumer strengths we really needed; the Durbin, kind of, street loyalty — street call of core Democratic <br />values we absolutely need. I just think the world of him.”<br /><br />Rockefeller agreed that Durbin’s role has changed somewhat since Schumer, with the assistance of Sen. Debbie Stabenow (Mich.), launched the DPCC. But the West Virginian said the change has been positive, both for the Conference and for Durbin. “It’s just a different role. There are things that Dick Durbin can do that nobody else can do.”<br /><br />Durbin might not be tasked with developing the Democratic message — although he does have a hand in that effort. But many of his fellow Democratic Senators said there is no one better at carrying it, either on the floor, where the Majority Whip is a ubiquitous presence, or in public.<br /><br />In the 14 weeks since Thanksgiving, Durbin has appeared on a Sunday morning news show 10 times, including a handful of guest spots on “Fox News Sunday.” Additionally, he used the Presidents Day recess period to travel Illinois and test market a counter message to the House Republican budget plan for the remainder of fiscal 2011 that would have cut $61 billion if fully implemented. Durbin pushed that message in Republican House districts.<br /><br />The local news coverage Durbin generated was deemed so successful that Reid asked him to make a presentation to the Conference during a subsequent caucus lunch, and about a dozen Senate Democratic offices later called and asked how they could plan similar in-state events. The message was also discussed at a regular meeting of Senate Democratic press strategists. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), a Durbin ally, described him as an “effective national spokesman” for the Conference.<br /><br />“I think that he’s very, very focused on where our party should make its stand and the communications part of it, because that’s key to us,” Boxer said. “We have to take our message to the people outside the Beltway. It’s his great strength.”<br /><br />In a brief interview Thursday, Durbin appeared hesitant to promote his leadership role, and he dismissed any suggestion that there has been tension or confusion within the leadership team since Schumer was granted expanded authority.<br /><br />Democratic Senators have conceded that there has been some friction in the caucus as Members adjust to the new DPCC. The view of a strain among the leadership is partly a hangover from the last election cycle, when Durbin and Schumer were preparing to run against each other for Majority Leader in the event that Reid lost re-election.<br /><br />“I sit in the leadership meetings with Harry, and we develop our tactics and strategy, and I try to execute them on the floor, and some of my work [I] bring back to the caucus, and some of them decide it’s worthy,” Durbin said of his responsibilities. In discussing the new DPCC and how it has affected him, Durbin said, essentially, that it has not.<br /><br />“The war room was originally Harry’s creation, and now Chuck and Debbie play a major role in that with Harry and I think they do a great job, and I’m glad they’re doing it,” he explained. “We’ve had no problems along those lines. We’re going to disagree on an issue from time to time. But in terms of the message and thrust of the caucus, we’re unified.”<br /><br />One Democratic operative who monitors the Senate said Durbin’s influence has not diminished so much as Schumer’s role has increased.<br /><br />This individual said Durbin’s nature as an outspoken and unabashed liberal could hamstring him in any future battles for influence with Schumer, who is similarly liberal in his personal politics but viewed as more pragmatic and flexible. The loyalty Schumer might have developed in helping elect the 14 Democrats who won in 2006 and 2008 might also give Schumer an advantage in intra-caucus politics.<br /><br />“Durbin is a go-to champion on the issues many Democrats care about,” said the Democratic operative, who is based in Washington, D.C. “But he tends to be more of a true believer and it’s hard to be effective in leadership when you’re a true believer, whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican.”<br /><br />However, Durbin has admirers among centrist Democrats. Some are particularly impressed with his work on President Barack Obama’s deficit reduction commission and his willingness to support the group’s final recommendations despite the whack it would take to government expenditures that have long been sacred to Congressional Democrats.<br /><br />“He is a voice of reason; he is obviously very smart and is a very gifted communicator,” said Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), a moderate. “On the political spectrum, he’s over on the left-end side of spectrum down there somewhere. But he just brings — I think people really respect the things he says and he stands for.”<br /><br />Link: <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/issues/56_100/dick-durbin-senate-democratic-leadership-204342-1.html">http://www.rollcall.com/issues/56_100/dick-durbin-senate-democratic-leadership-204342-1.html</a>Jon S. Nielssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11450925394222760447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6120844093614812903.post-68136906663664230022011-03-11T06:08:00.000-08:002011-03-11T06:09:53.376-08:00Suspect Charged in Attempted MLK Day Bombing<em>By WILLIAM YARDLEY</em><br /><br />SEATTLE — A man suspected of planting a sophisticated bomb along the route of a march honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Spokane, Wash., was arrested early Wednesday, law enforcement officials said. <br /><br />A swarm of federal agents arrested the suspect, Kevin W. Harpham, 36, near his home outside rural Colville, Wash., and searched the property. A law enforcement official said it was not clear whether the accused had acted alone. <br />The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation, said Mr. Harpham was not someone investigators had tracked before this case. <br />A cleanup crew first found the bomb in a backpack left on a bench in downtown Spokane on Jan. 17, shortly before a march celebrating the King holiday that day. Investigators called the device very sophisticated and capable of causing multiple casualties. <br /><br />Investigators said the timing of the incident suggested a racial motive, and the case has stirred fears in the inland Northwest, a region with a history of white supremacy and racially motivated crimes. The case has been investigated as domestic terrorism. <br /><br />Law enforcement officials would not say whether Mr. Harpham had links to extremist groups. But the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks such groups, said that its research showed that Mr. Harpham was a member of the National Alliance as recently as 2004. <br /><br />In a blog post on Wednesday, the center described the National Alliance as a once prominent neo-Nazi group that “has fallen on hard times since the 2002 death of its founder, William Pierce.” Mr. Pierce is the author of “The Turner Diaries,” a novel noted for having inspired Timothy J. McVeigh’s bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995. <br /><br />Mr. Harpham served in the Army for several years. From June 1996 to February 1999, he was a fire support specialist in the First Battalion, 37th Field Artillery Regiment, at what is now called Joint Base Lewis-McChord, south of Seattle. <br />He is charged with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and possession of an unregistered explosive device. More charges could be filed. <br /><br />Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/10/us/10bomb.html?_r=1&src=un&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjson8.nytimes.com%2Fpages%2Fnational%2Findex.jsonpJon S. Nielssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11450925394222760447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6120844093614812903.post-74816778702242561312011-03-11T05:51:00.000-08:002011-03-11T06:08:06.441-08:00Illinois Governor Signs Capital Punishment Ban<em>By John Schwartz and Emma G. Fitzsimmons, New York Times.</em><br /><br />Illinois became the 16th state to ban capital punishment as Gov. Pat Quinn on Wednesday signed an abolition bill that the state legislature passed in January.<br /><br />“Since our experience has shown that there is no way to design a perfect death penalty system, free from the numerous flaws that can lead to wrongful convictions or discriminatory treatment, I have concluded that the proper course of action is to abolish it,” Mr. Quinn said in a statement.<br />At a news conference at the Capitol in Springfield, Mr. Quinn said that signing the bill was the most difficult decision he had made as governor. “I have concluded, after looking at all the information that I have received, that it is impossible to create a perfect system — one that is free of all mistakes,” he said.<br /><br />Mr. Quinn, a Democrat who became governor in 2009 and was elected to a full term in November, said during the 2010 campaign that he supported the death penalty when applied “carefully and fairly,” but added, “I am deeply concerned by the possibility of an innocent person being executed.” He had kept the question of whether he would sign the bill unanswered since it passed on Jan. 11.<br /><br />Those on death row will have their sentences commuted to life without the possibility of parole. The law also dedicates funds to law enforcement and services for victims’ families.<br />The heated debate over the bill had focused on more than a dozen death row prisoners who were found to have been wrongfully convicted — including one man who came within 50 hours of execution. Lawmakers also debated the costs of imposing the death penalty.<br />As Mr. Quinn approached his announcement, he was lobbied by death penalty supporters, including family members of some victims, and by opponents, including the South African anti-apartheid leader Desmond Tutu, the death penalty opponent Sister Helen Prejean and the actor Martin Sheen.<br /><br />The state’s death penalty machinery had been halted since 2000, when the governor at the time, George Ryan, called the system “broken” and declared a moratorium on executions. Before leaving office in 2003, Mr. Ryan, a Republican, commuted the sentences of 167 death row prisoners to life and pardoned four inmates.<br /><br />Fifteen prisoners have been placed on the state’s death row since then. The state has formed commissions to study the death penalty and has made some changes, but those favoring abolition argued that the system could not be tweaked into fairness.<br /><br />“Illinois’ experience of trying to fix the death penalty, and finding it can’t be done, sends a real message to other states that are also grappling with the same problems,” said Shari Silberstein, executive director of Equal Justice USA, a group that opposes capital punishment. “It’s a real turning point in the conversation about the death penalty in the United States.”<br /><br />But Kent S. Scheidegger, legal director for the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, a group that supports the death penalty, called the governor’s action “a double-cross of the voters of Illinois.” “If he had honestly told the voters he would sign a repeal bill” during the campaign, Mr. Scheidegger said, “he would not be governor now.”<br /><br />Some Democrats in the state had disagreed with a ban, including Lisa Madigan, the state’s attorney general, who argued that the death penalty should be available as a punishment for the worst crimes. Anita Alvarez, the Cook County state’s attorney and a Democrat, said she was disappointed by the governor’s decision, and called it “a tremendously disappointing day for murder victims and their families.”<br /><br />Dozens of family members of victims had signed a letter to the legislature supporting the bill, arguing that capital trials and appeals “drag victims’ loved ones through an agonizing and lengthy process, which often does not result in the intended punishment.”<br /><br />The current and future mayors of Chicago took different sides, with Mayor Richard M. Daley supporting capital punishment, and Rahm Emanuel, who will became mayor this spring, saying the ban was the right thing to do.<br /><br />Illinois joins a wave of states that have reconsidered capital punishment. New Jersey abolished the practice in 2007. The New Mexico Legislature ended the death penalty in 2009. New Mexico’s newly elected governor, Susana Martinez, a Republican, has asked the Legislature to reinstate it, though bills to do so have stalled. The Connecticut legislature voted to abolish the penalty last year, but the governor at the time, M. Jodi Rell, a Republican, vetoed the measure.<br />Ronald J. Tabak, a lawyer in New York who has argued death penalty cases, said that legislators were coming to understand that they could vote to abolish the death penalty without losing their next election, so long as they avoided moralistic arguments and focused instead on factors like accuracy, fairness and cost. “At least outside of the South, it is not the political death sentence, as often perceived by politicians, to be willing to vote for or be willing to sign into law an abolition bill,” Mr. Tabak<br /><br />Link: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/10/us/10illinois.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/10/us/10illinois.html</a>Jon S. Nielssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11450925394222760447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6120844093614812903.post-47296691367994058142011-02-25T03:02:00.000-08:002011-02-25T03:02:52.940-08:00AmCham EU presents the Recommendations to the Hungarian Presidency of the Council of the European Union<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">On 1 January 2011, Hungary took over the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union. This is Hungary’s first time at the helm and has proposed an ambitious programme outlining several key priorities to meet the EU 2020 objectives. According to the Hungarian presidency website the Hungarian Presidency of the Council of the European Union wishes to build its political agenda around the human factor, focusing on four main topics: growth and employment for preserving the European social model; stronger Europe; citizen friendly Union; enlargement and neighbourhood policy.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">After initial outreach meetings in Brussels with key Hungarian stakeholders and the Permanent Representation and a delegation visit to Budapest AmCham EU is happy to release the <u>Recommendations to the Hungarian Presidency of the Council of the European Union</u>. In the report AmCham EU highlights the top business priorities for ongoing dossiers at the Council. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Please click on the link below to see the e-version of the Recommendations.</span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.amchameu.eu/Portals/0/2011/e-books/hungarian_presidency/index.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">http://www.amchameu.eu/Portals/0/2011/e-books/hungarian_presidency/index.html</span></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div></div></div>Magaliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12302647210642503347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6120844093614812903.post-15796742718104224432011-02-15T02:35:00.001-08:002011-02-15T02:35:27.070-08:00U.S. tries to line up aid to help stabilize Egypt<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">By Paul Richter, <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Los Angeles</place></city> Times</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Reporting from <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Washington</place></state></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">As anti-government protests threaten additional change across the Middle East, the Obama administration and its allies have been quietly collaborating on plans to shore up <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Egypt</place></country-region>'s fragile transition government with a transfusion of economic aid. U.S. officials, eager to demonstrate they are helping stabilize a country that has been a bulwark of American interests in the region, are soliciting contributions to an emergency financial package for Egypt, fearing that further strains on its overtaxed economy could kill the fledgling reform effort and lead to a new round of chaos. In the four days since <a href="http://lat.ms/eDRAAF" title="http://lat.ms/eDRAAF">President Hosni Mubarak stepped down</a> in the face of a public uprising, <country-region w:st="on">U.S.</country-region> officials who helped facilitate his exit have been working to put together a package that will probably total several hundreds of millions of dollars, as well as funds to help build political parties and other institutions, <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">U.S.</place></country-region> and foreign diplomats say. The <country-region w:st="on">United States</country-region> currently gives <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Egypt</place></country-region> about $1.5 billion per year, most of it going to the Egyptian military, the most respected institution in the nation. Public anxiety over <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Egypt</place></country-region>'s struggling economy, including high unemployment and rising prices, was one of the key forces driving the 18-day uprising that toppled former Mubarak. Now that the authoritarian leader is gone, analysts say Egyptians may be overly optimistic in expecting rapid economic improvements. Michele Dunne, a Middle East specialist who has advised the Obama administration on <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Egypt</place></country-region> in recent weeks, said the economy is "one of the greatest vulnerabilities for a country that's in a transition like this." The Egyptian Finance Ministry has estimated that the unrest cost the economy about $310 million a day, and some private analysts have estimated that investors have been withdrawing funds at a rate of about $1 billion a day. Before the protests, <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Egypt</place></country-region> was expected to have 5% annual economic growth; now the consensus is closer to 1%. Dunne, with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said if Egyptians have high expectations about economic opportunities and instead conditions worsen, "it could really sour relations between people" and the transitional government. <country-region w:st="on">U.S.</country-region> officials, who have been consulting widely on <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Egypt</place></country-region> in recent days, declined to discuss their aid goals in details, saying they were in the early stages of discussions. They said they expect international development banks may also play a part in the effort. The push for more aid comes at a difficult time for the <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">United States</place></country-region> and many allies, who are already struggling with severe austerity budgets. The Obama administration is trying to prevent Republicans from imposing steep cuts on foreign aid. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met with House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) on Monday and expressed her concern about proposed reductions for the State Department and aid programs. <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">Clinton</city></place> said she hoped that as Congress considers "the national security and economic consequences of these cuts, they will chart a different course." The <country-region w:st="on">United States</country-region> must promote stability in countries such as <country-region w:st="on">Egypt</country-region> or "we will pay a higher price later in crises that are allowed to simmer and boil over into conflicts," <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Clinton</place></city> said. Mubarak's overthrow has been welcomed by Democrats and Republicans, and some analysts predict there will be bipartisan support for at least some increase in <country-region w:st="on">Egypt</country-region>'s aid, to ensure its stability as well as that of neighbour <country-region w:st="on">Israel</country-region> and other <place w:st="on">Middle East</place> states. "I think they'll feel this cause is worth it," said Stephen McInerney, executive director of the Project on Middle East Democracy. Congressional Republicans, and especially those in the House, have made it clear they intend to target overall foreign aid for reductions, at a time when both parties are looking for ways to reduce the projected $1.6 trillion federal deficit. Clinton wrote a letter Monday to Republican Rep. Harold Rogers of Kentucky, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, complaining that the committee's proposal for foreign affairs funding for the next fiscal year was would reduce the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development budget by 19% from the amount sought by the administration, and would reduce funding for humanitarian aid by 41% from 2010 spending. She wrote that such cuts would be "devastating to our national security" and would damage <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">U.S.</place></country-region> leadership around the world. However, there remains considerable Republican support for a number of <country-region w:st="on">U.S.</country-region> national security missions overseas, including those in <country-region w:st="on">Afghanistan</country-region> and <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Pakistan</place></country-region>, and lawmakers say it is unclear how much Republicans would want to cut the civilian aid related to those efforts. A spokeswoman for Catherine Ashton, the European Union's foreign affairs chief, said the EU is considering aid for <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Egypt</place></country-region>, perhaps through loans by the European Investment Bank, an EU international finance arm. President Obama, in a statement last weekend, said the <country-region w:st="on">United States</country-region> was committed to offering aid to <place w:st="on"><country-region w:st="on">Egypt</country-region></place> "to pursue a credible and orderly transition to democracy, including by working with international partners to provide financial support." The aid discussions have come at a time when the administration has been reaching out to allies in the Middle East, Europe and elsewhere, trying to work out a common position on how to encourage democratic change in <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Egypt</place></country-region>. <country-region w:st="on">U.S.</country-region> officials and allies have been closely watching <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Cairo</place></city>'s new military leadership take a series of steps, including some that have raised concerns among the Egyptian protesters. The military leaders have resisted pressure to lift the emergency law that limits rights, and they have given mixed signals about how long they would retain Cabinet members who were part of the Mubarak regime. Some demonstrators have been upset that the military has sought to clear out the remaining protesters from central <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Cairo</place></city>. But <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Clinton</place></city> praised the military leaders and offered a strong endorsement of their actions to date, which include announcements that they would dissolve the parliament, draft amendments to the constitution, and set elections within six months. In an appearance on Capitol Hill with Boehner, <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Clinton</place></city> said "the steps they have taken so far are reassuring," and that "thus far they've demonstrated a seriousness of purpose and a commitment to pursuing the kind of transition that we hope will lead to free, fair elections."<br />
<a href="mailto:paul.richter@latimes.com" title="mailto:paul.richter@latimes.com">paul.richter@latimes.com</a></span></div>Magaliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12302647210642503347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6120844093614812903.post-7351113842699445362011-02-15T02:34:00.002-08:002011-02-15T02:34:53.639-08:00Early, Long Whip Race Will Test GOP Cohesion<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">By <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/reporters/12.html" title="http://www.rollcall.com/reporters/12.html"><b><span style="color: #257095;">David M. Drucker</span></b></a> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will not endorse in the Minority Whip race between GOP Sens. John Cornyn (second from left) and Lamar Alexander (right). </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">What has been a remarkably cohesive and collegial Senate Republican leadership team threatens to be torn asunder over the next 18 months by a potentially divisive race for Whip and additional jockeying for other top Conference posts. Aides to Sens. <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/members/7122.html" title="http://www.rollcall.com/members/7122.html"><span style="color: #257095;">Lamar Alexander</span></a> (Tenn.) and <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/members/14833.html" title="http://www.rollcall.com/members/14833.html"><span style="color: #257095;">John Cornyn</span></a> (Texas) insist that the close personal friendship shared by the two Republican leaders will prevent their competition to succeed Sen. <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/members/27.html" title="http://www.rollcall.com/members/27.html"><span style="color: #257095;">Jon Kyl</span></a> (Ariz.) as Whip from becoming bitter. Similarly, Sen. <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/members/1478.html" title="http://www.rollcall.com/members/1478.html"><span style="color: #257095;">Mike Johanns</span></a> (<place w:st="on"><state w:st="on">Neb.</state></place>), bidding to replace Alexander as Conference chairman, predicted little negative fallout from the leadership contests. But with nearly the entire 112th Congress to fight it out and the high stakes involved, the professional and personal relationships of a Republican team often described as close-knit and complementary will undoubtedly be tested, as will the group’s ability to deliver for rank-and-file Members. Alexander, Johanns and Cornyn, the National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman, all hit the phones looking for votes within an hour of Kyl’s Thursday announcement that he won’t seek re-election in 2012.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“One of the key areas to watch will be the activity during leadership meetings and how they work together,” a former Senate Republican leadership aide said. “It’s going to matter around the leadership table and how they showcase themselves.” This former aide predicted the first year could see a “quieter” campaign and added, “It’s going to be the election year where the intensity will ratchet up.” On the House side, a long and bitter campaign for Democratic Whip between Reps. <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/members/35.html" title="http://www.rollcall.com/members/35.html"><span style="color: #257095;">Nancy Pelosi</span></a> (<state w:st="on">Calif.</state>) and <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/members/230.html" title="http://www.rollcall.com/members/230.html"><span style="color: #257095;">Steny Hoyer</span></a> (<place w:st="on"><state w:st="on">Md.</state></place>) years ago kept tension high. Pelosi won the 2001 vote, and their frayed relationship never was fully repaired. Alexander and Cornyn going head-to-head for the No. 2 Whip slot, and Johanns running in a so-far-uncontested race for the No. 3 Conference chairman position might only be the beginning of a wider leadership shake-up as Republican Senators seek promotions. Policy Committee Chairman <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/members/444.html" title="http://www.rollcall.com/members/444.html"><span style="color: #257095;">John Thune</span></a> is considering a run for Whip as well, should he decide against running for president — the South Dakota Republican and fourth-ranking leader plans to reveal his plans by month’s end. Meanwhile, Conference Vice Chairman <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/members/2484.html" title="http://www.rollcall.com/members/2484.html"><span style="color: #257095;">John Barrasso</span></a> (<place w:st="on"><state w:st="on">Wyo.</state></place>), who ranks fifth and only entered leadership last fall, is eyeing Thune’s position as well as the NRSC. Johanns expressed confidence in an interview Friday that the multiple intra-Conference campaigns would not sow caucus disunity. “We’re all on the same team,” he said. Senate Minority Leader <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/members/202.html" title="http://www.rollcall.com/members/202.html"><span style="color: #257095;">Mitch McConnell</span></a> (R-Ky.) does not endorse in leadership races as a matter of policy and is not expected to discuss the matter publicly. However, McConnell has been friends with Alexander for four decades, and the two are confidants. The votes will not occur until after the 2012 elections. Any new Senators elected would have votes, potentially giving Cornyn the advantage given his position at the NRSC.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Whom Republicans favor as an eventual successor to McConnell could be a factor in the outcome of the Whip contest. Should Cornyn or Thune replace Kyl as the No. 2, either might be seen as having an advantage toward becoming the Republican Leader whenever McConnell retires. The Kentuckian is up for re-election in 2014. He’s said he plans to run. If Senate Republicans want to leave their options open, Alexander might appeal as a placeholder who is unlikely to run for Leader, depending on the Tennesseean’s ambitions. “Whoever wants to replace McConnell would be pleased to have Lamar in the second slot,” a Republican lobbyist with Senate relationships said. “If you allow Cornyn or Thune to replace Kyl, you are probably signaling who the next Leader is. This makes vote-counting hard because some of your competitors will vote for Lamar to keep their pathway cleared.” The Senate campaign in <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Arizona</place></state> to succeed Kyl could also be competitive and contentious, although the Republicans appear more organized in their efforts to hold the open seat in a state that leans Republican. However, the Democrats are optimistic about their prospects and believe recent population gains benefit their side. President Barack Obama briefly considered making a campaign push in <place w:st="on"><state w:st="on">Arizona</state></place> in the 2008 presidential race but opted against it when Arizona Sen. <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/members/26.html" title="http://www.rollcall.com/members/26.html"><span style="color: #257095;">John McCain</span></a> (R) became the nominee. Considered a frontrunner at the outset and expected to announce his candidacy soon is Rep. <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/members/7588.html" title="http://www.rollcall.com/members/7588.html"><span style="color: #257095;">Jeff Flake</span></a> (R). Former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, beaten badly by McCain in the 2010 GOP Senate primary, is interested in running again in 2012. Rep. Trent Franks (R) is examining a bid but is not expected to jump in, and freshman Rep. <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/members/32400.html" title="http://www.rollcall.com/members/32400.html"><span style="color: #257095;">Ben Quayle</span></a> (R) has been floating his name. But Quayle’s father, former vice president and Indiana Sen. Dan Quayle (R), is telling people he would prefer that his son wait and run for McCain’s seat when <state w:st="on">Arizona</state>’s senior Senator calls it quits, according to a Republican strategist based in the <place w:st="on"><placename w:st="on">Grand Canyon</placename> <placetype w:st="on">State</placetype></place>. None of the current statewide GOP officeholders are expected to run at this point, including the governor, attorney general and treasurer. State Senate President Russell Pearce is out, but he plans to run for Flake’s House seat and was on the phone making endorsement calls Thursday evening. One notable Republican who is thinking of running is Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has made national headlines over the years for his tough stance on crime and illegal immigration. Arpaio has hinted he might be more interested in national office. Among Democrats, several names are being discussed, but it remains unclear who is giving serious consideration to running. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, former <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Arizona</place></state> governor and state attorney general, has made calls over the past few weeks to gauge support for a Senate bid. She could emerge as the early frontrunner. Wealthy businessman Jim Pederson, who challenged Kyl in 2006, isn’t saying no, and Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon could run. Rep. <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/members/25915.html" title="http://www.rollcall.com/members/25915.html"><span style="color: #257095;">Gabrielle Giffords</span></a> — currently recovering from an attempted assassination — could enter the race as late as April 2012 and still raise enough money to be competitive. Democrats in the state have told reporters that Giffords should have the “right of first refusal” to run for the seat. “Things are moving fast,” the Arizona Republican strategist said.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Roll Call Politics rates this race Leans Republican.</span></div>Magaliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12302647210642503347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6120844093614812903.post-48625988072682593522011-02-15T02:34:00.000-08:002011-02-15T02:34:04.242-08:00Tea party: The next generation?<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">By <a href="http://www.congress.org/community/profile/63785104" title="http://www.congress.org/community/profile/63785104"><span style="color: #d85202;">Ambreen Ali</span></a> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Despite the tea parties' <a href="http://exceptionmag.com/society/advocacy/0002047/tea-party-and-younger-adults" title="http://exceptionmag.com/society/advocacy/0002047/tea-party-and-younger-adults"><span style="color: #d85202;">efforts to recruit the next generation</span></a>, many young conservatives are steering clear. The grassroots conservative movement is too radical for some, and not enough so for others. But the main divide appears to be on tactics: Young people at the Conservative Political Action Conference in D.C. this week said they prefer volunteering on campaigns to holding protest signs. "Going to protests and trying to get on the news, that's not really for me," Adam Paul, a senior at <place w:st="on"><placename w:st="on">Western</placename> <placename w:st="on">Michigan</placename> <placetype w:st="on">University</placetype></place>, said. "They represent most of the same things that I do, but I'm more focused on trying to get people elected." Even the leaders of high school and college tea-party chapters say they focus more on volunteering and positivity than the larger movement. Students standing in the CPAC registration line with Paul shared his skepticism. "I think a lot of the people who go [to tea-party events] are more radical than I am," Kelsey Shawl, a senior at <placename w:st="on">Agnes</placename> <placename w:st="on">Scott</placename> <placename w:st="on">College</placename> in <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Atlanta</place></city>, said. Justin Doherty, 21, and Shane Alan, 22, students at <state w:st="on">Massachusetts</state>' <place w:st="on"><placename w:st="on">Northern</placename> <placename w:st="on">Essex</placename> <placetype w:st="on">Community College</placetype></place> said they share the tea parties' concerns about government bailouts, but they prefer their college group. Across the hall, Kevin DeAnna offered a different reason for not being a tea partyer. Though he has attended rallies, the 27-year-old founder of the anti-immigration Youth for Western Civilization said the tea parties should take tougher stances. "As far as whether the tea party is too right wing, if only," he said. Such sentiments among CPAC's young participants contrasted with last year's conference, when tea partyers seemed to be the stars of the show. In 2010, tea partyers used the event as a platform to launch their fiscally minded Contract From America. Colonial outfits and "Don't Tread on Me" flags announced their presence. This time around, tea partyers were less visible at the 11,000-person event. The conservative lollapalooza, which draws young conservative leaders from across the nation, was a mishmash of groups instead, some with conflicting ideals. It was the sort of place where a man with a "No mosques" T-shirt could walk by a Muslims for <place w:st="on"><country-region w:st="on">America</country-region></place> booth, where activists proudly wore anti-war stickers and pot legalization shirts while mingling with more mainstream Republicans. Some celebrated the diversity. Blayne Bennett, a recent <place w:st="on"><placename w:st="on">Arizona</placename> <placetype w:st="on">State</placetype> <placetype w:st="on">University</placetype></place> graduate, said she wasn't concerned that tea partyers and students have not joined forces. "It might be okay to have each separate demographic doing their own thing," Bennett, a communications manager for Students for <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Liberty</place></city>, said. She speculated that college students might not be joining tea parties because their campuses already have thriving conservative groups that better address their concerns. "Student groups are so effective because they are where the students are," she said. But she credited the tea parties with making students more aware of the nation's fiscal standing. Brandon Greife, national director of the College Republicans National Committee, agreed, saying that his group's members share the tea parties' concerns—just not their anger. "Young conservatives are growing up at a time when conservatism is on the rise versus a lot of tea-party members who feel the need to fight back in the space," he argued. So, younger activists prefer to make phone calls and knock on doors during elections, where "they see tangible results." The leaders of student tea-party groups also differentiate what they do from the larger movement. "While we believe in the same values, we have different life experiences and we have different needs," said Douglas Smith, president of the Conservative Society of America's Next Generation in <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">New York</place></state>. The group of 400 bills itself as the nation's first youth tea-party organization. "We bring a different vibe," Smith said, saying his group focused on voter registration drives during the elections. "We try to reach out to people our age." Across the country, a high school student has the same goal. Tessa Wade, 16, started The Founding Children Tea Party in <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">Mesa</city>, <state w:st="on">Ariz.</state></place>, last month. Inspired by her grandmother's involvement in the movement, Wade said she wanted to create a space for learning where anyone can come – even her liberal friends who back President Obama's health care overhaul. "I'd like it to be about principle, not parties," she said.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">About two-dozen teenagers gathered at Wade's meeting last week, where they played games designed to teach them about the Constitution. They might hold a rally in the future, Wade said, but she wants to avoid protests. "I am just trying to get them to love their country," she said.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Back at CPAC, at least one group expressed gratefulness for the tea parties. Jeff Frazee of Young Americans for <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">Liberty</city></place> — which supports Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) and is part of the tea-party movement — said he remembers the cool reception his concerns about limited government received at CPAC several years ago. "During the Bush years, I felt very much alone," he said, crediting the tea parties for changing the conservative movement's priorities. "The difference is light and day."</span></div>Magaliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12302647210642503347noreply@blogger.com0