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McCain, Obama go head to head in last debate HEMPSTEAD, New York (CNN) -- Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain and Democrat Sen. Barack Obama faced off at Hofstra University Wednesday night in their last debate before Election Day. Bob Schieffer of CBS was the moderator. Here is a transcript of the debate.
Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain debate face to face Wednesday night.
Schieffer: Good evening. And welcome to the third and last presidential debate of 2008, sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates. I'm Bob Schieffer of CBS News.
The rules tonight are simple. The subject is domestic policy. I will divide the next hour-and-a-half into nine-minute segments.
I will ask a question at the beginning of each segment. Each candidate will then have two minutes to respond, and then we'll have a discussion.
I'll encourage them to ask follow-up questions of each other. If they do not, I will.
The audience behind me has promised to be quiet, except at this moment, when we welcome Barack Obama and John McCain.
Gentlemen, welcome.
By now, we've heard all the talking points, so let's try to tell the people tonight some things that they -- they haven't heard. Let's get to it.
Another very bad day on Wall Street, as both of you know. Both of you proposed new plans this week to address the economic crisis.
Sen. McCain, you proposed a $52 billion plan that includes new tax cuts on capital gains, tax breaks for seniors, write-offs for stock losses, among other things.
Sen. Obama, you proposed $60 billion in tax cuts for middle- income and lower-income people, more tax breaks to create jobs, new spending for public works projects to create jobs.
I will ask both of you: Why is your plan better than his?
Sen. McCain, you go first.
McCain: Well, let -- let me say, Bob, thank you.
And thanks to Hofstra.
And, by the way, our beloved Nancy Reagan is in the hospital tonight, so our thoughts and prayers are going with you.
It's good to see you again, Sen. Obama.
Americans are hurting right now, and they're angry. They're hurting, and they're angry. They're innocent victims of greed and excess on Wall Street and as well as Washington, D.C. And they're angry, and they have every reason to be angry.
And they want this country to go in a new direction. And there are elements of my proposal that you just outlined which I won't repeat.
But we also have to have a short-term fix, in my view, and long- term fixes.
Let me just talk to you about one of the short-term fixes.
The catalyst for this housing crisis was the Fannie and Freddie Mae that caused subprime lending situation that now caused the housing market in America to collapse.
I am convinced that, until we reverse this continued decline in home ownership and put a floor under it, and so that people have not only the hope and belief they can stay in their homes and realize the American dream, but that value will come up.
Now, we have allocated $750 billion. Let's take 300 of that billion and go in and buy those home loan mortgages and negotiate with those people in their homes, 11 million homes or more, so that they can afford to pay the mortgage, stay in their home.
Now, I know the criticism of this.
Well, what about the citizen that stayed in their homes? That paid their mortgage payments? It doesn't help that person in their home if the next door neighbor's house is abandoned. And so we've got to reverse this. We ought to put the homeowners first. And I am disappointed that Secretary Paulson and others have not made that their first priority.
Schieffer: All right. Sen. Obama?
Obama: Well, first of all, I want to thank Hofstra University and the people of New York for hosting us tonight and it's wonderful to join Sen. McCain again, and thank you, Bob.
I think everybody understands at this point that we are experiencing the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. And the financial rescue plan that Sen. McCain and I supported is an important first step. And I pushed for some core principles: making sure that taxpayer can get their money back if they're putting money up. Making sure that CEOs are not enriching themselves through this process.
And I think that it's going to take some time to work itself out. But what we haven't yet seen is a rescue package for the middle class. Because the fundamentals of the economy were weak even before this latest crisis. So I've proposed four specific things that I think can help.
Number one, let's focus on jobs. I want to end the tax breaks for companies that are shipping jobs overseas and provide a tax credit for every company that's creating a job right here in America.
Number two, let's help families right away by providing them a tax cut -- a middle-class tax cut for people making less than $200,000, and let's allow them to access their IRA accounts without penalty if they're experiencing a crisis.
Now Sen. McCain and I agree with your idea that we've got to help homeowners. That's why we included in the financial package a proposal to get homeowners in a position where they can renegotiate their mortgages.
I disagree with Sen. McCain in how to do it, because the way Sen. McCain has designed his plan, it could be a giveaway to banks if we're buying full price for mortgages that now are worth a lot less. And we don't want to waste taxpayer money. And we've got to get the financial package working much quicker than it has been working.
Last point I want to make, though. We've got some long-term challenges in this economy that have to be dealt with. We've got to fix our energy policy that's giving our wealth away. We've got to fix our health care system and we've got to invest in our education system for every young person to be able to learn.
Schieffer: All right. Would you like to ask him a question?
McCain: No. I would like to mention that a couple days ago Sen. Obama was out in Ohio and he had an encounter with a guy who's a plumber, his name is Joe Wurzelbacher.
Joe wants to buy the business that he has been in for all of these years, worked 10, 12 hours a day. And he wanted to buy the business but he looked at your tax plan and he saw that he was going to pay much higher taxes.
You were going to put him in a higher tax bracket which was going to increase his taxes, which was going to cause him not to be able to employ people, which Joe was trying to realize the American dream.
Now Sen. Obama talks about the very, very rich. Joe, I want to tell you, I'll not only help you buy that business that you worked your whole life for and be able -- and I'll keep your taxes low and I'll provide available and affordable health care for you and your employees.
And I will not have -- I will not stand for a tax increase on small business income. Fifty percent of small business income taxes are paid by small businesses. That's 16 million jobs in America. And what you want to do to Joe the plumber and millions more like him is have their taxes increased and not be able to realize the American dream of owning their own business.
Schieffer: Is that what you want to do?
McCain: That's what Joe believes.
Obama: He has been watching ads of Sen. McCain's. Let me tell you what I'm actually going to do. I think tax policy is a major difference between Sen. McCain and myself. And we both want to cut taxes, the difference is who we want to cut taxes for.
Now, Sen. McCain, the centerpiece of his economic proposal is to provide $200 billion in additional tax breaks to some of the wealthiest corporations in America. Exxon Mobil, and other oil companies, for example, would get an additional $4 billion in tax breaks.
What I've said is I want to provide a tax cut for 95 percent of working Americans, 95 percent. If you make more -- if you make less than a quarter million dollars a year, then you will not see your income tax go up, your capital gains tax go up, your payroll tax. Not one dime.
And 95 percent of working families, 95 percent of you out there, will get a tax cut. In fact, independent studies have looked at our respective plans and have concluded that I provide three times the amount of tax relief to middle-class families than Sen. McCain does.
Now, the conversation I had with Joe the plumber, what I essentially said to him was, "Five years ago, when you were in a position to buy your business, you needed a tax cut then."
And what I want to do is to make sure that the plumber, the nurse, the firefighter, the teacher, the young entrepreneur who doesn't yet have money, I want to give them a tax break now. And that requires us to make some important choices.
The last point I'll make about small businesses. Not only do 98 percent of small businesses make less than $250,000, but I also want to give them additional tax breaks, because they are the drivers of the economy. They produce the most jobs.
McCain: You know, when Sen. Obama ended up his conversation with Joe the plumber -- we need to spread the wealth around. In other words, we're going to take Joe's money, give it to Sen. Obama, and let him spread the wealth around.
I want Joe the plumber to spread that wealth around. You told him you wanted to spread the wealth around.
The whole premise behind Sen. Obama's plans are class warfare, let's spread the wealth around. I want small businesses -- and by the way, the small businesses that we're talking about would receive an increase in their taxes right now.
Who -- why would you want to increase anybody's taxes right now? Why would you want to do that, anyone, anyone in America, when we have such a tough time, when these small business people, like Joe the plumber, are going to create jobs, unless you take that money from him and spread the wealth around.
I'm not going to...
Obama: OK. Can I...
McCain: We're not going to do that in my administration.
Obama: If I can answer the question. Number one, I want to cut taxes for 95 percent of Americans. Now, it is true that my friend and supporter, Warren Buffett, for example, could afford to pay a little more in taxes in order...
McCain: We're talking about Joe the plumber.
Obama: ... in order to give -- in order to give additional tax cuts to Joe the plumber before he was at the point where he could make $250,000.
Then Exxon Mobil, which made $12 billion, record profits, over the last several quarters, they can afford to pay a little more so that ordinary families who are hurting out there -- they're trying to figure out how they're going to afford food, how they're going to save for their kids' college education, they need a break.
So, look, nobody likes taxes. I would prefer that none of us had to pay taxes, including myself. But ultimately, we've got to pay for the core investments that make this economy strong and somebody's got to do it.
McCain: Nobody likes taxes. Let's not raise anybody's taxes. OK?
Obama: Well, I don't mind paying a little more.
McCain: The fact is that businesses in America today are paying the second highest tax rate of anywhere in the world. Our tax rate for business in America is 35 percent. Ireland, it's 11 percent.
Where are companies going to go where they can create jobs and where they can do best in business?
We need to cut the business tax rate in America. We need to encourage business.
Now, of all times in America, we need to cut people's taxes. We need to encourage business, create jobs, not spread the wealth around.
Schieffer: All right. Let's go to another topic. It's related. So if you have other things you want to say, you can get back to that.
This question goes to you first, Sen. Obama.
We found out yesterday that this year's deficit will reach an astounding record high $455 billion. Some experts say it could go to $1 trillion next year.
Both of you have said you want to reduce the deficit, but the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget ran the numbers on both of your proposals and they say the cost of your proposals, even with the savings you claim can be made, each will add more than $200 billion to the deficit.
Aren't you both ignoring reality? Won't some of the programs you are proposing have to be trimmed, postponed, even eliminated?
Give us some specifics on what you're going to cut back.
Sen. Obama?
Obama: Well, first of all, I think it's important for the American public to understand that the $750 billion rescue package, if it's structured properly, and, as president, I will make sure it's structured properly, means that ultimately taxpayers get their money back, and that's important to understand.
But there is no doubt that we've been living beyond our means and we're going to have to make some adjustments.
Now, what I've done throughout this campaign is to propose a net spending cut. I haven't made a promise about...
Schieffer: But you're going to have to cut some of these programs, certainly.
Obama: Absolutely. So let me get to that. What I want to emphasize, though, is that I have been a strong proponent of pay-as- you-go. Every dollar that I've proposed, I've proposed an additional cut so that it matches.
And some of the cuts, just to give you an example, we spend $15 billion a year on subsidies to insurance companies. It doesn't -- under the Medicare plan -- it doesn't help seniors get any better. It's not improving our health care system. It's just a giveaway.
We need to eliminate a whole host of programs that don't work. And I want to go through the federal budget line by line, page by page, programs that don't work, we should cut. Programs that we need, we should make them work better.
Now, what is true is that Sen. McCain and I have a difference in terms of the need to invest in America and the American people. I mentioned health care earlier.
If we make investments now so that people have coverage, that we are preventing diseases, that will save on Medicare and Medicaid in the future.
If we invest in a serious energy policy, that will save in the amount of money we're borrowing from China to send to Saudi Arabia.
If we invest now in our young people and their ability to go to college, that will allow them to drive this economy into the 21st century.
But what is absolutely true is that, once we get through this economic crisis and some of the specific proposals to get us out of this slump, that we're not going to be able to go back to our profligate ways.
And we're going to have to embrace a culture and an ethic of responsibility, all of us, corporations, the federal government, and individuals out there who may be living beyond their means.
Schieffer: Time's up.
Senator?
McCain: Well, thank you, Bob. I just want to get back to this home ownership. During the Depression era, we had a thing called the home ownership loan corporation.
And they went out and bought up these mortgages. And people were able to stay in their homes, and eventually the values of those homes went up, and they actually made money.
And, by the way, this was a proposal made by Sen. Clinton not too long ago.
So, obviously, if we can start increasing home values, then there will be creation of wealth.
Schieffer: But what...
McCain: But -- OK. All right.
Schieffer: The question was, what are you going to cut?
McCain: Energy -- well, first -- second of all, energy independence. We have to have nuclear power. We have to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don't like us very much. It's wind, tide, solar, natural gas, nuclear, off-shore drilling, which Sen. Obama has opposed.
And the point is that we become energy independent and we will create millions of jobs -- millions of jobs in America.
OK, what -- what would I cut? I would have, first of all, across-the-board spending freeze, OK? Some people say that's a hatchet. That's a hatchet, and then I would get out a scalpel, OK?
Because we've got -- we have presided over the largest increase -- we've got to have a new direction for this country. We have presided over the largest increase in government since the Great Society.
Government spending has gone completely out of control; $10 trillion dollar debt we're giving to our kids, a half-a-trillion dollars we owe China.
I know how to save billions of dollars in defense spending. I know how to eliminate programs.
Schieffer: Which ones?
McCain: I have fought against -- well, one of them would be the marketing assistance program. Another one would be a number of subsidies for ethanol.
I oppose subsidies for ethanol because I thought it distorted the market and created inflation; Sen. Obama supported those subsidies.
I would eliminate the tariff on imported sugarcane-based ethanol from Brazil.
I know how to save billions. I saved the taxpayer $6.8 billion by fighting a deal for a couple of years, as you might recall, that was a sweetheart deal between an aircraft manufacturer, DOD, and people ended up in jail.
But I would fight for a line-item veto, and I would certainly veto every earmark pork-barrel bill. Sen. Obama has asked for nearly $1 billion in pork-barrel earmark projects...
Schieffer: Time's up.
McCain: ... including $3 million for an overhead projector in a planetarium in his hometown. That's not the way we cut -- we'll cut out all the pork.
Schieffer: Time's up.
Obama: Well, look, I think that we do have a disagreement about an across-the-board spending freeze. It sounds good. It's proposed periodically. It doesn't happen.
And, in fact, an across-the-board spending freeze is a hatchet, and we do need a scalpel, because there are some programs that don't work at all. There are some programs that are underfunded. And I want to make sure that we are focused on those programs that work.
Now, Sen. McCain talks a lot about earmarks. That's one of the centerpieces of his campaign.
Earmarks account for 0.5 percent of the total federal budget. There's no doubt that the system needs reform and there are a lot of screwy things that we end up spending money on, and they need to be eliminated. But it's not going to solve the problem.
Now, the last thing I think we have to focus on is a little bit of history, just so that we understand what we're doing going forward.
When President Bush came into office, we had a budget surplus and the national debt was a little over $5 trillion. It has doubled over the last eight years.
Obama: And we are now looking at a deficit of well over half a trillion dollars.
So one of the things that I think we have to recognize is pursuing the same kinds of policies that we pursued over the last eight years is not going to bring down the deficit. And, frankly, Sen. McCain voted for four out of five of President Bush's budgets.
We've got to take this in a new direction, that's what I propose as president.
Schieffer: Do either of you think you can balance the budget in four years? You have said previously you thought you could, Sen. McCain.
McCain: Sure I do. And let me tell you...
Schieffer: You can still do that?
McCain: Yes. Sen. Obama, I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago. I'm going to give a new direction to this economy in this country.
Sen. Obama talks about voting for budgets. He voted twice for a budget resolution that increases the taxes on individuals making $42,000 a year. Of course, we can take a hatchet and a scalpel to this budget. It's completely out of control.
The mayor of New York, Mayor Bloomberg, just imposed an across- the-board spending freeze on New York City. They're doing it all over America because they have to. Because they have to balance their budgets. I will balance our budgets and I will get them and I will...
Schieffer: In four years?
McCain: ... reduce this -- I can -- we can do it with this kind of job creation of energy independence.
Now, look, Americans are hurting tonight and they're angry and I understand that, and they want a new direction. I can bring them in that direction by eliminating spending.
Sen. Obama talks about the budgets I voted for. He voted for the last two budgets that had that $24 billion more in spending than the budget that the Bush administration proposed.
He voted for the energy bill that was full of goodies for the oil companies that I opposed. So the fact is, let's look at our records, Sen. Obama. Let's look at it as graded by the National Taxpayers Union and the Citizens Against Government Waste and the other watchdog organizations.
I have fought against spending. I have fought against special interests. I have fought for reform. You have to tell me one time when you have stood up with the leaders of your party on one single major issue.
Schieffer: Barack.
Obama: Well, there's a lot of stuff that was put out there, so let me try to address it. First of all, in terms of standing up to the leaders of my party, the first major bill that I voted on in the Senate was in support of tort reform, which wasn't very popular with trial lawyers, a major constituency in the Democratic Party. I support...
McCain: An overwhelming vote.
Obama: I support charter schools and pay for performance for teachers. Doesn't make me popular with the teachers union. I support clean coal technology. Doesn't make me popular with environmentalists. So I've got a history of reaching across the aisle.
Now with respect to a couple of things Sen. McCain said, the notion that I voted for a tax increase for people making $42,000 a year has been disputed by everybody who has looked at this claim that Sen. McCain keeps on making.
Even FOX News disputes it, and that doesn't happen very often when it comes to accusations about me. So the fact of the matter is that if I occasionally have mistaken your policies for George Bush's policies, it's because on the core economic issues that matter to the American people, on tax policy, on energy policy, on spending priorities, you have been a vigorous supporter of President Bush.
Now, you've shown independence -- commendable independence, on some key issues like torture, for example, and I give you enormous credit for that. But when it comes to economic policies, essentially what you're proposing is eight more years of the same thing. And it hasn't worked.
And I think the American people understand it hasn't worked. We need to move in a new direction.
Schieffer: All right...
McCain: Let me just say, Bob.
Schieffer: OK. About 30 seconds.
McCain: OK. But it's very clear that I have disagreed with the Bush administration. I have disagreed with leaders of my own party. I've got the scars to prove it.
Whether it be bringing climate change to the floor of the Senate for the first time. Whether it be opposition to spending and earmarks, whether it be the issue of torture, whether it be the conduct of the war in Iraq, which I vigorously opposed. Whether it be on fighting the pharmaceutical companies on Medicare prescription drugs, importation. Whether it be fighting for an HMO patient's bill of rights. Whether it be the establishment of the 9/11 Commission.
I have a long record of reform and fighting through on the floor of the United States Senate.
Schieffer: All right.
McCain: Sen. Obama, your argument for standing up to the leadership of your party isn't very convincing.
Schieffer: All right. We're going to move to another question and the topic is leadership in this campaign. Both of you pledged to take the high road in this campaign yet it has turned very nasty.
Schieffer: Sen. Obama, your campaign has used words like "erratic," "out of touch," "lie," "angry," "losing his bearings" to describe Sen. McCain.
Sen. McCain, your commercials have included words like "disrespectful," "dangerous," "dishonorable," "he lied." Your running mate said he "palled around with terrorists."
Are each of you tonight willing to sit at this table and say to each other's face what your campaigns and the people in your campaigns have said about each other?
And, Sen. McCain, you're first.
McCain: Well, this has been a tough campaign. It's been a very tough campaign. And I know from my experience in many campaigns that, if Sen. Obama had asked -- responded to my urgent request to sit down, and do town hall meetings, and come before the American people, we could have done at least 10 of them by now.
When Sen. Obama was first asked, he said, "Any place, any time," the way Barry Goldwater and Jack Kennedy agreed to do, before the intervention of the tragedy at Dallas. So I think the tone of this campaign could have been very different.
And the fact is, it's gotten pretty tough. And I regret some of the negative aspects of both campaigns. But the fact is that it has taken many turns which I think are unacceptable.
One of them happened just the other day, when a man I admire and respect -- I've written about him -- Congressman John Lewis, an American hero, made allegations that Sarah Palin and I were somehow associated with the worst chapter in American history, segregation, deaths of children in church bombings, George Wallace. That, to me, was so hurtful.
And, Sen. Obama, you didn't repudiate those remarks. Every time there's been an out-of-bounds remark made by a Republican, no matter where they are, I have repudiated them. I hope that Sen. Obama will repudiate those remarks that were made by Congressman John Lewis, very unfair and totally inappropriate.
So I want to tell you, we will run a truthful campaign. This is a tough campaign. And it's a matter of fact that Sen. Obama has spent more money on negative ads than any political campaign in history. And I can prove it.
And, Sen. Obama, when he said -- and he signed a piece of paper that said he would take public financing for his campaign if I did -- that was back when he was a long-shot candidate -- you didn't keep your word.
And when you looked into the camera in a debate with Sen. Clinton and said, "I will sit down and negotiate with John McCain about public financing before I make a decision," you didn't tell the American people the truth because you didn't.
And that's -- that's -- that's an unfortunate part. Now we have the highest spending by Sen. Obama's campaign than any time since Watergate.
Schieffer: Time's up. All right.
Obama: Well, look, you know, I think that we expect presidential campaigns to be tough. I think that, if you look at the record and the impressions of the American people -- Bob, your network just did a poll, showing that two-thirds of the American people think that Sen. McCain is running a negative campaign versus one-third of mine.
And 100 percent, John, of your ads -- 100 percent of them have been negative.
McCain: It's not true.
Obama: It absolutely is true. And, now, I think the American people are less interested in our hurt feelings during the course of the campaign than addressing the issues that matter to them so deeply.
And there is nothing wrong with us having a vigorous debate like we're having tonight about health care, about energy policy, about tax policy. That's the stuff that campaigns should be made of.
The notion, though, that because we're not doing town hall meetings that justifies some of the ads that have been going up, not just from your own campaign directly, John, but 527s and other organizations that make some pretty tough accusations, well, I don't mind being attacked for the next three weeks.
What the American people can't afford, though, is four more years of failed economic policies. And what they deserve over the next four weeks is that we talk about what's most pressing to them: the economic crisis.
Sen. McCain's own campaign said publicly last week that, if we keep on talking about the economic crisis, we lose, so we need to change the subject.
And I would love to see the next three weeks devoted to talking about the economy, devoted to talking about health care, devoted to talking about energy, and figuring out how the American people can send their kids to college.
And that is something that I would welcome. But it requires, I think, a recognition that politics as usual, as been practiced over the last several years, is not solving the big problems here in America.
McCain: Well, if you'll turn on the television, as I -- I watched the Arizona Cardinals defeat the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday.
Obama: Congratulations.
McCain: Every other ad -- ever other ad was an attack ad on my health care plan. And any objective observer has said it's not true. You're running ads right now that say that I oppose federal funding for stem cell research. I don't.
You're running ads that misportray completely my position on immigration. So the fact is that Sen. Obama is spending unprecedented -- unprecedented in the history of American politics, going back to the beginning, amounts of money in negative attack ads on me.
And of course, I've been talking about the economy. Of course, I've talked to people like Joe the plumber and tell him that I'm not going to spread his wealth around. I'm going to let him keep his wealth. And of course, we're talking about positive plan of action to restore this economy and restore jobs in America.
That's what my campaign is all about and that's what it'll continue to be all about.
But again, I did not hear a repudiation of Congressman...
Obama: I mean, look, if we want to talk about Congressman Lewis, who is an American hero, he, unprompted by my campaign, without my campaign's awareness, made a statement that he was troubled with what he was hearing at some of the rallies that your running mate was holding, in which all the Republican reports indicated were shouting, when my name came up, things like "terrorist" and "kill him," and that you're running mate didn't mention, didn't stop, didn't say "Hold on a second, that's kind of out of line."
And I think Congressman Lewis' point was that we have to be careful about how we deal with our supporters.
Now...
McCain: You've got to read what he said...
(CROSSTALK)
Obama: Let -- let -- let...
McCain: You've got to read what he said.
Obama: Let me -- let me complete...
Schieffer: Go ahead.
Obama: ... my response. I do think that he inappropriately drew a comparison between what was happening there and what had happened during the civil rights movement, and we immediately put out a statement saying that we don't think that comparison is appropriate.
And, in fact, afterwards, Congressman Lewis put out a similar statement, saying that he had probably gone over the line.
The important point here is, though, the American people have become so cynical about our politics, because all they see is a tit- for-tat and back-and-forth. And what they want is the ability to just focus on some really big challenges that we face right now, and that's what I have been trying to focus on this entire campaign.
McCain: I cannot...
Obama: We can have serious differences about our health care policy, for example, John, because we do have a difference on health care policy, but we...
McCain: We do and I hope...
Obama: ... talking about it this evening.
McCain: Sure.
Obama: But when people suggest that I pal around with terrorists, then we're not talking about issues. What we're talking about...
McCain: Well, let me just say I would...
Schieffer: (inaudible)
McCain: Let me just say categorically I'm proud of the people that come to our rallies. Whenever you get a large rally of 10,000, 15,000, 20,000 people, you're going to have some fringe peoples. You know that. And I've -- and we've always said that that's not appropriate.
But to somehow say that group of young women who said "Military wives for McCain" are somehow saying anything derogatory about you, but anything -- and those veterans that wear those hats that say "World War II, Vietnam, Korea, Iraq," I'm not going to stand for people saying that the people that come to my rallies are anything but the most dedicated, patriotic men and women that are in this nation and they're great citizens.
And I'm not going to stand for somebody saying that because someone yelled something at a rally -- there's a lot of things that have been yelled at your rallies, Sen. Obama, that I'm not happy about either.
In fact, some T-shirts that are very...
Obama: John, I...
McCain: ... unacceptable. So the point is -- the point is that I have repudiated every time someone's been out of line, whether they've been part of my campaign or not, and I will continue to do that.
But the fact is that we need to absolutely not stand for the kind of things that have been going on. I haven't.
Obama: Well, look, Bob, as I said...
Schieffer: I mean, do you take issue with that?
Obama: You know, here's what I would say. I mean, we can have a debate back and forth about | 0 | train |
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Cannibals Arrested in Florida Claim Eating Human Flesh Cures Diabetes and Depression Police in Vernal Heights, Florida, arrested 3-practicing cannibals who claim eating human flesh cures both type-1 and type-2 diabetes and depression.
According to Vernal Heights Chief of Police, Gregory Moore, the 3-men were arrested when officers responded to what they assumed would be a routine noise complaint.
Police arrived at 3845 Toolson Lane (the home of William Provost) at approximately 7:45 PM on Sunday evening in response to a neighbor complaining of strange sounds coming from the home.
Responding officers told reporters that they assumed their visit to the house would be a quick one and that they would simply be asking the residents to keep the noise down.
When the officers arrived at 3845 Toolson Lane, they repeatedly knocked on the door and rang the doorbell, however, nothing could be heard over the sound a stereo inside the house repeatedly playing the same song, which was later identified as – Enya’s ‘Who Can Say’.
After attempting to get the attention of the homeowner via knocking and ringing the doorbell for approximately 5-minutes, police entered the home through an unlocked door located at the rear of the house.
The responding officers told reporters that the house had been extremely dark, cluttered, and an overwhelming smell (which was later identified as decomposing flesh) filled the home. Upon clearing the first-floor of the home, the responding officers realized that the blaring music was coming from the home’s basement.
According to the officers, a bizarre crime scene was quickly uncovered upon entering the basement. Three men, which have since been identified as 62-year-old William Provost, 51-year-old Dennis Ratcliff, and 36-year-old Michael Dore were sitting in a circle on the basement’s concrete floor and ritualistically chanting while eating what police initially believed was an animal carcass, but was later identified as human remains.
William Provost, who police believe to be the group’s ringleader, admitted to practicing cannibalism and told arresting officers:
“I find human flesh to be the only thing that cures my type-2 diabetes and chronic depression. If expensive pharmaceutical drugs helped, I would figure out a way to obtain them, but they don’t, so I stick to what works for me”.
Upon searching the home’s basement, police made several startling discoveries including a large room that appears to contain nothing more than decades worth of clutter, but upon further inspection, police discovered human remains hidden throughout the old wooden furniture and broken appliances.
Police also discovered a kitchen style refrigerator located in a small room in the corner of the basement that contained the limbs, organs, and miscellaneous remains of what police believe to be upwards of 7-8 different individuals.
In addition to the refrigerator, the small room in the basement also housed a make-shift ‘tool wall’ that contained a myriad of tools that police believe were used to dismember several victims.
Upon their initial investigation, police believe the 3-men have been practicing cannibalism for the past 3-4 years and largely remained under the radar due to their practice of targeting and befriending homeless drifters they met at small dive-bars located upwards of 100-miles from their Vernal Heights residence.
Vernal Heights Chief of Police, Gregory Moore, spoke to reporters during a brief press-conference this morning.
“Though modern-day cannibalism is extremely rare, it does unfortunately exist. That said -treating diabetes and or depression has to be the most bizarre reason for practicing cannibalism that I’ve ever heard.”
Provost’s accomplices, 51-year-old Dennis Ratcliff, and 36-year-old Michael Dore, also admitted to cannibalizing human flesh because they believed it would cure depression and told arresting officer’s that Provost took them under his wing in late-2012.
As of Tuesday afternoon, police and detectives are still conducting a search at the residence located at 3845 Toolson Lane.
All three men are currently being held without bail at the Vernal Heights Municipal Jail. | 1 | train |
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Budget of the United States Government, FY 2008 THE NATION’S FISCAL OUTLOOK
The President’s 2008 Budget addresses the Nation’s near-term and long-term fiscal challenges through pro-growth economic policies and spending restraint. Three years ago, the President set a goal to cut the deficit in half by 2009 from its projected peak in 2004. The President’s fiscal approach succeeded, and the results—including two consecutive years of double-digit revenue growth—allowed the President to achieve that goal in 2006, three years ahead of schedule. The Administration’s fiscal strategy of pro-growth tax policy, restraint in discretionary spending, and reductions in the growth of entitlement spending, will further reduce the deficit and balance the budget by 2012. This steady improvement in the deficit outlook is welcome news. Yet despite this improvement in the near term, the Nation continues to face pressing long-term fiscal challenges arising from our key entitlement programs. The President has made clear that he wants to work with the Congress to address this longer-term problem of the unsustainable growth in entitlement spending.
THE NEAR-TERM FISCAL OUTLOOK
Since the beginning of his Administration, the President has pursued pro-growth economic policies to give all Americans the opportunity to share in the Nation’s prosperity. Strong economic growth is also essential to generating the revenue needed to reduce the deficit. The President has pursued spending restraint in the face of enormous challenges, from the significant costs arising from the September 11th terrorist attacks and the subsequent War on Terror, to the response and rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina.
The size of the deficit and the debt is best assessed in relation to the economy as a whole, as measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In his 2005 Budget, the President set a goal to cut the deficit in half by 2009 from its projected peak in 2004. The President achieved his goal in 2006, three years ahead of schedule. The deficit fell from a projected 4.5 percent of GDP, or $521 billion, to 1.9 percent of GDP, or $248 billion. This deficit is below the 40-year historical average of 2.4 percent of GDP, and is smaller than the deficit as a percent of GDP in 18 of the previous 25 years.
The Budget reflects the projected full costs of the War on Terror for 2007 and 2008. It also includes an allowance for at least a portion of the anticipated costs for 2009; actual funding needs will be determined by conditions at that time. In addition, the Budget assumes the extension for one year of relief from the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). Even with these added costs, the deficit is projected to decline in both dollar terms and as a share of the economy in 2007. By 2012, the Budget is projected to generate a surplus of $61 billion. The Budget projects these results while increasing funding for the Nation’s security, investing in education and supporting other key national priorities, including making permanent the President's tax relief.
The Nation’s fiscal outlook is reflected in both the annual budget deficit and the amount of Federal debt held by the public, which is debt issued to finance past and current deficit spending. Debt held by the public has ranged from 33 to 49 percent of GDP over the past 20 years, and has averaged 35 percent over the past 40 years. For 2006, debt held by the public declined from 37.4 percent to 37.0 percent of GDP. For 2012, debt held by the public is expected to be 32 percent, below the 40-year historical average, providing further evidence that the President’s pro-growth economic policies and spending restraint are working to improve the Nation’s fiscal outlook.
Strong Economy: Fueled by Pro-Growth Policies
The President’s pro-growth economic policies, beginning with his tax relief proposals, have promoted America's entrepreneurial spirit, rewarding the hard work and risk-taking of the Nation’s workers and entrepreneurs. The tax relief included reducing marginal individual income tax rates, doubling the child tax credit, reducing the marriage penalty, reducing capital gains and dividend tax rates, encouraging retirement savings, reducing the estate and gift tax, and increasing incentives for small business investment. On May 17, 2006, the President signed the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005, extending through 2010 capital gains and dividend tax rate relief and extending through 2009 a provision to encourage small business investment by raising the expensing limits for equipment purchases. On August 17, 2006, the President signed the Pension Protection Act of 2006, tightening the rules relating to defined-benefit plans and making permanent some of the President’s proposals to encourage retirement and education savings.
Note: Shaded areas indicate recessions.
Because of the positive economic impact his tax relief program has had in the short term, and would continue to have over the long term, the President’s policy is to make tax relief permanent rather than allowing it to expire as scheduled at the end of this decade. Since the President’s tax relief was fully implemented in 2003, the Nation’s economy has generated more than seven million jobs. This strong economic growth has been good for the Nation’s workers and the resulting revenue growth has been good for the Federal budget.
For 2006, tax receipts of $2.4 trillion were 11.8 percent greater than in 2005, and in 2005 receipts were 14.5 percent higher than in 2004. Each year constituted record receipts and together made for the highest two-year percentage growth in receipts in the past 25 years. The Budget conservatively projects future revenue growth that averages 5.4 percent over the next six years, about equal to the projected overall growth in the economy.
The tax proposals in the 2008 Budget promote continued economic growth and, consequently, continued growth in the Government’s tax receipts. The Budget proposes to make permanent tax relief that was enacted in 2001 and 2003. In addition, the Administration proposes to change the tax code to encourage savings for retirement, to make it easier for all Americans to afford health insurance, and to increase small business investment. Furthermore, the Administration proposes to simplify the tax code for families, close tax loopholes, and increase tax compliance.
In addition to tax relief, the President will continue to strengthen the economy by advancing basic research and development, promoting innovation and accountability in education, reducing the burden on business of Government paperwork and regulations, reducing costly and unnecessary litigation, and eliminating trade barriers and opening overseas markets to American products and services.
National Security Spending: Protecting the American People
Security spending includes spending for the Department of Defense, homeland security, and international diplomatic efforts. International affairs spending finances efforts to create a stable government in Iraq, rebuild the economy in Afghanistan, and enhance security by promoting democracy and building alliances around the world. Between 2001 and 2006, security spending increased 41 percent overall: 36 percent for defense, 38 percent for international affairs, and 209 percent for homeland security. These significant increases were necessary to protect the Nation’s homeland and pursue the War on Terror after September 11th.
In his 2008 Budget, the President includes a further 10.5 percent increase in base defense spending. This includes funding to maintain a high level of military readiness to support the Global War on Terror and to continue to transform the military to meet the challenges of the 21st Century. The Budget includes a 17.1-percent increase in spending for international affairs to support key allies in the Global War on Terror, promote democratic institutions and values, counter the spread of HIV/AIDS, and provide humanitarian assistance to those affected by continuing violence and instability. In addition, the Budget includes a 6.7-percent increase to defend the Nation’s homeland by funding nuclear detection capabilities, strengthening the country’s borders, developing high-tech screening capabilities, and maintaining close partnerships with State and local law enforcement officials.
Spending Restraint: Slowing Growth in Non-Security and Entitlement Spending
The near-term budget outlook has improved in large part because of the double-digit growth in tax receipts and also because of spending restraint. Due to the need for increased spending on defense and homeland security as part of the Global War on Terror and the automatic increases in spending for entitlement programs, outlays rose to $2.7 trillion in 2006, or 20.3 percent of GDP. Despite these spending pressures, spending remained below the 40-year historical average of 20.6 percent of GDP. This is largely because over the past two years, the Congress and the President have reduced the growth rate in non-security discretionary spending—which grew by more than 16 percent in the last year of the previous Administration—to below the rate of inflation. In addition, in February 2006, the Congress enacted and the President signed into law the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, generating nearly $40 billion in mandatory savings over five years.
The 2008 Budget achieves spending restraint by holding growth in non-security discretionary spending to one percent in 2008 and for the five-year period. The Budget reduces or eliminates 141 programs saving $12.0 billion, and slows spending growth through sensible reforms in entitlement and other mandatory programs, resulting in savings of $96 billion over five years, and growing to savings of $309 billion over 10 years. This total includes $66 billion in savings in Medicare and $6.8 billion in Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) over five years, as discussed below. The Budget also proposes to increase premiums paid to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) by corporations with defined-benefit pension plans, providing $5.5 billion over five years to put the PBGC on a path to solvency. And, the Budget proposes to increase user fees, saving $7 billion over five years, to capture more fully the costs to the Government of providing particular goods and services.
THE LONG-TERM OUTLOOK
While the near-term outlook of smaller deficits and a surplus starting in 2012 is encouraging, the current structure of the Federal Government’s major entitlement programs will place a growing and unsustainable burden on the budget in the long-term. Currently, spending on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security is approximately eight percent of the Nation’s GDP. With the first of the baby boom generation becoming eligible for Social Security in 2008, Social Security spending will accelerate. Three years later, the problem will become more pronounced as these individuals become eligible for Medicare, under which program costs rise even faster due to health care inflation. By 2050, spending on these three entitlement programs is projected to be more than 15 percent of GDP, or more than twice as large as spending on all other programs combined, excluding interest on the public debt.
The mandatory savings proposals in the 2008 Budget will not solve the Government’s long-term fiscal challenges, but they are an important and meaningful step, producing a significant improvement over the long term. Under the President’s Budget policies, the deficit in 2050 is projected to be 4.7 percent of GDP. In contrast, if the Congress fails to adopt the President’s mandatory proposals and permits current law to remain in force, the deficit in 2050 is projected to be 7.5 percent of GDP. A more detailed analysis of the Government’s long-term fiscal outlook is provided in the Stewardship chapter of the Analytical Perspectives volume of the Budget.
Social Security: Promised Benefits Outpacing Resources
Social Security was designed as a pay-as-you-go, self-financing program whereby current workers pay taxes directly and indirectly, through their employers, to support the benefit payments for current retirees, disabled persons, and survivors (collectively, beneficiaries). Such a system can only be sustained if the number of workers and the taxes they pay align with the number of beneficiaries and the benefits they receive. In 1950, when there were 16 workers for every program beneficiary, the combined payroll tax rate was very low at 3 percent of taxable wages. Currently, there are 3.3 workers for every beneficiary and the tax rate is 12.4 percent. The ratio of workers to beneficiaries is expected to decline further as the first of the baby boom generation becomes eligible for Social Security in 2008, and will fall to 2.2 workers per beneficiary in 2030.
Even after the baby boom generation is fully retired, the ratio of workers to beneficiaries will continue to fall, reaching 1.9 in 2080 primarily because of the growing difference between projected life expectancy and the age at which seniors become eligible for Social Security benefits. The increase in longevity, coupled with the fact that Americans are spending fewer years in the workforce, means that Americans are spending a greater proportion of their lives in retirement than ever before. Since 1940, life expectancy at age 65 has increased by approximately 40 percent and is projected to increase by an additional 20 percent by 2080.
The growth in retirees resulting from the retirement of the baby boom generation and increases in life expectancy will create a large and rapidly growing mismatch between scheduled Social Security benefits and the resources available to the program under current law. Through 2016, Social Security is projected to collect more in cash receipts than it pays in benefits. Beginning in 2017, however, Social Security benefit payments are projected to exceed the cash income dedicated to the trust funds. From this point forward, the Federal Government must borrow, tax, or cut other spending to pay excess Social Security benefits. Receipts are projected to continue falling to 70 percent of promised benefits by 2080.
There are many ways to summarize the extent of the mismatch between expected Social Security receipts and benefits. One such summary is the discounted present value of all future scheduled benefits net of receipts, or unfunded obligations under Social Security. The concept is to compare scheduled benefits and receipts under current law into the indefinite future, and to recognize through discounting that a dollar tomorrow is worth less than a dollar today. Based on the 2006 Social Security Trustees’ Report, the unfunded obligation of Social Security totals $15.3 trillion over the indefinite future. To put this figure into perspective, this is about three times the amount of Federal debt currently held by the public.
The President is committed to strengthening Social Security through a bipartisan reform process in which participants are encouraged to bring different options for strengthening Social Security to the table. The President has identified three goals for reform: to strengthen permanently the safety net for future generations without raising payroll tax rates; to protect those who depend on Social Security the most; and to offer every American a chance to experience ownership through voluntary personal retirement accounts.
The 2008 Budget again reflects the President’s proposal to allow workers to use a portion of the Social Security payroll tax to fund voluntary personal retirement accounts. These accounts will permit Americans to have greater control over their retirement planning, giving them an opportunity to obtain a higher return on their payroll taxes than is possible in the current Social Security system. The result will be to shift Social Security from an entirely pay-as-you-go system of financing toward a system that is less dependent on current workers. Beginning in 2012, workers will be allowed to use up to four percent of their Social Security taxable earnings, up to a $1,300 annual limit, to fund their personal retirement accounts; the $1,300 cap will be increased by $100 each year through 2017.
As one component of reforms to make the system sustainable, the President has embraced the idea of indexing future benefits of the highest-wage workers to inflation while continuing to index the wages of lower-wage workers to wage growth. Over time, wages tend to rise faster than prices, and so “progressive indexing” provides a higher rate of indexing for lower-wage workers than for higher-wage workers. This proposal would help restore the solvency of Social Security, while protecting those who most depend on Social Security. Comprehensive Social Security reform including personal retirement accounts, changes in the indexation of wages, and other modest changes will ensure the sustainability of the program for future generations, and help slow the unsustainable growth in total entitlement spending.
Health Care: Reforms to Improve Quality and Reduce Cost
The Nation spends more than $2 trillion per year on health care, permitting Americans to live longer and healthier lives than at any time in the Nation’s history. The Federal Government is the Nation’s largest purchaser of health care, accounting for approximately one-third of U.S. health care spending. As a result, economic developments in the health care sector, including the high rate of growth in health care inflation that confronts individuals and companies, are becoming acute fiscal problems for individuals and businesses, and for the Federal Government. Despite an enormous investment and enormous gains in the quality of care overall, health care inflation, the extent of private health care insurance coverage, and gaps in the availability of high-quality care are problems the Nation continues to face.
The 2008 Budget proposes a number of reforms to improve the Nation’s health care system. The Administration is proposing a significant change in the tax treatment of health insurance purchases and expenditures for out-of-pocket health care costs. Under this proposal, all individuals and families who buy at least a catastrophic health plan will receive the same tax benefits, in the form of a flat $15,000 deduction. The Administration’s proposal will make health insurance more affordable for millions of American families and reduce the number of the uninsured. This policy will also eliminate the tax bias toward high-cost insurance, making health care purchasers more price conscious and thereby marshalling market forces more effectively to restrain health care inflation. The Administration continues to promote the use of health information technology to enhance the health care delivery system, including the availability of price and quality information to individuals. This would allow health care consumers to spend their health care dollars more wisely, and avoid unnecessary procedures and treatments.
The President has also asked the Secretary of Health and Human Services to work with the Congress and the States on an Affordable Choices Initiative to redirect existing resources in the health care system to help poor and hard-to-insure citizens afford private insurance. This initiative would help avoid costly and unnecessary emergency room visits and improve health care quality and efficiency.
Medicare: Slowing Cost Growth through Reforms
The single largest fiscal challenge we face is the unsustainable growth in the Medicare program. The Medicare Part A Hospital Insurance program receives designated payroll taxes from employees and their employers, which are deposited in the Medicare trust fund held by the Government. Medicare Part A is therefore similar to Social Security in that it is an inter-generational transfer program with current workers paying benefits for current beneficiaries. In contrast, under Medicare Part B, the Supplementary Medical Insurance program, and Part D, the new drug benefit, beneficiaries pay premiums to cover some of the costs and the balance is paid out of general revenues.
As in the case of Social Security, Medicare will face increased cost pressures over the next several decades as the baby boom generation becomes eligible for and receives Medicare benefits. But because of rising health care costs, Medicare is projected to have much higher cost-per-beneficiary growth than Social Security in the coming decades.
Medicare’s dedicated revenues from designated payroll taxes and from premium payments cover only 57 percent of current benefits. The remaining 43 percent is financed from general tax revenues. By 2030, the pressure from Medicare on general revenues will be substantially greater as dedicated revenues are projected to finance only 38 percent of total benefits, leaving 62 percent of program costs relying on general tax revenues. This projected rate of growth in Medicare benefits is not sustainable over time.
The 2006 Medicare Trustees’ report shows that future dedicated payroll taxes and premiums are sufficient to cover only a portion of Medicare’s projected costs. This results in an unfunded obligation (the gap between dedicated receipts and projected costs) of $71 trillion over the infinite horizon. This is more than four times as large as the gap between receipts and projected costs for Social Security and 14 times as large the total amount of Government debt that is held by the public. Within Medicare, the Hospital Insurance trust fund, which is mostly funded by the Medicare payroll tax, has unfunded obligations, or a gap between dedicated receipts and projected costs, of $28 trillion. Meeting these obligations would require tripling the Medicare payroll tax. If the Medicare payroll tax were used to pay for Medicare’s entire $71 trillion unfunded obligation, the Medicare payroll tax would have to be increased by 500 percent. This would be a huge tax increase on workers and companies that would cripple the Nation’s economy. The only realistic solution is to reduce program growth to a sustainable level.
In the long run, part of the solution to Medicare and Medicaid’s unsustainable growth must lie with slowing health care inflation. Recent trends in the overall health care market have already improved Medicare’s finances. Spending on the Medicare drug program has been lower than originally expected because of lower-than-projected growth in prescription drug inflation. Medicare drug program spending in 2006, the first year of the benefit, was $15 billion lower than initially estimated. In addition, the drug program spending for 2007 is projected to be $25 billion lower than initially estimated, and for 2007 through 2016 the spending is projected to be $189 billion lower. The slower growth in prescription drug prices has been good for beneficiaries as well. Beneficiary premiums for the drug benefit are lower than expected: an average of $22 per month in 2007 rather than $39 per month as initially estimated. Controlling health care inflation is critical to the success of reform, but other significant reforms are also needed.
With an unfunded obligation of $71 trillion, and annual increases in spending well above inflation and other domestic spending, there has been increasing focus on the need to address Medicare growth rates. The 2008 Budget proposes to restrain Medicare spending both in the near term and in the long term. These proposals save $66 billion over five years and reduce the present value of future net costs by an estimated $8 trillion over 75 years. These are sensible reforms, most of which have been proposed in previous budgets. The aggregate impact of the proposed reforms only slows the rate of growth of the Medicare program from 7.4 percent over 10 years to 6.7 percent.
To achieve these savings, the Budget proposes to promote high-quality and cost-efficient care through competition and innovation. Specifically, the Budget proposes to adjust permanently provider payments to encourage efficiency and productivity, taking advantage of advances in medical technology and the delivery of care, and other management improvements. The Budget also proposes to establish competitive bidding for clinical laboratory services.
The Budget also proposes to encourage greater responsibility for health care use and costs for high-income beneficiaries. In addition, the Budget proposes to modernize and rationalize Medicare policies to encourage efficient and cost-effective payments. For example, the Budget proposes to ensure that patients are served in the most medically appropriate and cost-efficient setting for post-acute care, and that payments for medical equipment be brought in line with actual costs.
In addition to proposing specific reforms to reduce the unsustainable rate of growth in the near term, the Budget also proposes a new mechanism to address the long-term funded unfunded obligation in Medicare. The Budget proposes to build on the progress made in the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA) with respect to Medicare financing. Under current law, MMA requires the Medicare Trustees issue a “funding warning” if, for two consecutive years, the Trustees find that more than 45 percent of projected Medicare expenditures will require funding from general tax revenue (rather than dedicated resources) within the next six years. In the 2006 Trustees’ Report, the Trustees found that general revenue funding would first reach the 45 percent level in 2012, within the seven-year window specified in the MMA.
The 2008 Budget proposes to add an incentive for reform to the MMA funding warning. Specifically, in the year in which the 45 percent threshold is exceeded, there would be automatic payment reductions to providers by four-tenths of one percent per year. The provider payments would continue to be reduced by an additional four-tenths of one percent per year, as long as Medicare’s receipts cover 55 percent or less of program costs. The provision is intended to encourage the Congress and the Administration to reach agreement on reforms needed to slow the growth in program costs.
Medicaid: Proposals Ensure Fiscal Integrity
Medicaid is the Federal entitlement program that provides medical assistance, including acute and long-term care, to low-income families with dependent children and to low-income individuals who are elderly, blind, or disabled. As with Medicare, Medicaid costs will increase substantially in the coming decades as the baby boomers retire and begin to have greater health care needs. An increasing number of low-income elderly individuals will come to rely on Medicaid for non-hospital care, including long-term care. In addition, as with Medicare, Medicaid will be under increasing fiscal pressure in the coming decades as a result of health care inflation.
The President’s Budget proposes a package of program integrity reforms. These reforms save approximately $6.8 billion over five years, including additional increased funding for the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The Budget builds on previous initiatives, some of which were included in the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, to promote sound financial practices, increase market efficiencies, and eliminate Medicaid overpayments. The proposals included in the 2008 Budget help to ensure the fiscal integrity of Medicaid by lowering its rate of growth. These proposed changes reduce the rate of growth of Medicaid from 7.7 percent to 7.6 percent over the next 10 years.
BUDGET REFORMS
During the 1990s, budget decisions were governed by the now-expired Budget Enforcement Act (BEA). Under the BEA, discretionary spending (including both budget authority and actual outlays) was limited each fiscal year to a maximum amount specified in law. In addition, under the BEA, pay-as-you-go rules required all legislation involving new mandatory spending or tax cuts was required to be deficit neutral. Violations of the discretionary spending caps or the pay-as-you-go provisions triggered across-the-board spending reductions. The BEA generally succeeded in preventing the Government’s budgetary outlook from deteriorating.
Based in part on the spending controls in the BEA, the President has proposed a number of budget process reforms, including new caps on discretionary spending, a pay-as-you-go requirement for mandatory spending, a line-item veto, and earmark reform. In addition, the Administration implemented its own pay-as-you-go controls to limit mandatory spending resulting from agency administrative action. Specifically, on May 23, 2005, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) began requiring that proposed agency administrative action that increases mandatory spending be offset by administrative actions that reduce mandatory spending by the same amount.
Federal spending is generally divided into three major categories: discretionary spending (approximately 38 percent of the Budget), mandatory spending (53 percent), and interest on the debt (9 percent).
Discretionary Spending Caps: Restraining Annual Appropriations
Discretionary spending is generally thought of as funding the day-to-day operations of Government and is the only spending subject to annual review and appropriations by the Congress and the President. As distinct from mandatory spending, discretionary spending must be enacted into law every year before Government agencies may obligate and spend money. Hence, discretionary spending is not subject to the same automatic, uncontrolled growth characteristic of some mandatory spending. Nevertheless, without active restraint reinforced by effective rules governing the legislative process, discretionary spending will tend to increase steadily over time. The 2008 Budget proposes to reinstate BEA controls on discretionary spending. Specifically, the Budget proposes placing statutory limits or “caps” on discretionary spending each year through 2012. Any appropriations bill that causes the caps to be exceeded would be subject to a point of order, requiring a three-fifths vote, in the Senate. If, in the aggregate, appropriations actions exceed the spending caps, then OMB would be required to make across-the-board cuts to reduce total discretionary spending to the statutory caps.
Within these proposed spending caps, the Budget proposes to devote resources for program integrity efforts. Program integrity efforts are designed to eliminate spending to those not eligible for benefit payments and to collect unpaid taxes due to the Government. Since program integrity efforts can generate as high as a ten-to-one return to the Government, the Administration proposes an adjustment to the statutory discretionary spending limits for amounts dedicated to program integrity.
Mandatory Spending Controls: Restraining Automatic Spending
The vast majority of spending for mandatory programs takes place automatically every year without any action on the part of the Congress or the President. It is made up of “entitlement” programs, for which the amount of spending is based on the number of qualifying beneficiaries and benefit formulas specified in law. This spending provides income security and health care to individuals who are elderly, disabled, widowed, or orphaned. These programs are effectively exempt from the annual review and approval in the budget process because the benefit qualifications and benefit formulas are specified in law, resulting in an automatic appropriation of benefit payments.
In 1962, mandatory spending accounted for just over one-quarter of total Government outlays and discretionary spending accounted for slightly more than two-thirds of Government outlays; the remainder of outlays was for interest. Today, the picture is dramatically different, with mandatory spending having doubled as a share of total outlays, now accounting for 53 percent of all Government spending. Without intervention, entitlement spending over the next four decades will become unsustainable. With the baby boom population beginning to become eligible for Social Security in 2008 and Medicare in 2011, the time to address this problem is now.
The 2008 Budget proposes to place limits on new mandatory spending. In addition to the proposal to address excessive general revenue spending in Medicare, discussed above, the Budget also proposes a pay-as-you-go requirement such that any legislation that increases mandatory spending be offset by reductions in other mandatory spending. Any legislation that increases mandatory spending without an equal offset wo | 0 | train |
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Remarks by the President at Campaign Event -- Colorado Springs, CO Colorado College
Colorado Springs, Colorado
1:58 P.M. MDT
THE PRESIDENT: Hello, Colorado! (Applause.) Oh, what a beautiful day! (Applause.)
Can everybody please give Christy a big round of applause for the great introduction? (Applause.) And then, I want everybody to acknowledge one of the outstanding alums of Colorado College -- (applause) -- an outstanding senator for this great state of Colorado, an unbelievable Secretary of the Interior, looking after our natural resources -- Ken Salazar. (Applause.)
Now --
AUDIENCE MEMBER: We love you!
THE PRESIDENT: I love you back. I really do. (Applause.)
Now, I have to say, first of all, this looks like a very smart crowd -- (applause) -- which means that you've been spending a lot of time watching our Olympic Games -- (applause) -- and the unbelievable athletes and all the great training -- right here, we've got -- do we have one of our outstanding athletes? (Applause.) Thank you, Colorado, because Colorado Springs has been a training site for all our outstanding athletes. And we're so proud of them. Thank you so much. (Applause.)
And for those of you who are curious, the women are doing pretty good right now in soccer. (Applause.) I know some of you may be -- the game is not over, and some of you may have DVR'd it, so I'm not going to say anything more. (Laughter.) But we're making progress.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Moving forward!
THE PRESIDENT: Moving forward. (Applause.)
Now, even though we've been spending most of our time, sensibly, watching the Olympics, unless your cable is broken, you probably also noticed there’s this pretty intense campaign going on right now. And the reason it is an intense campaign is because the choice that we face in November could not be bigger. It’s not just a choice between two candidates or two political parties. It is a choice between two fundamentally different visions about how we move this country forward. And the direction that we choose -- the direction you choose when you walk into that voting booth -- is going to have a direct impact not just on us, it will have an impact on our kids and our grandkids for decades to come.
Now, four years ago, we came together -- and it wasn’t just Democrats, we had independents and even some Republicans come together because we wanted to restore the basic bargain that made this country great, that built the greatest middle class and the most prosperous economy in the history of the world. And it’s a bargain that says very simply, if you work hard, your work will be rewarded. If you work hard, you can get ahead. It’s a deal that says if you put in enough effort, if you act responsibly, you can find a job that pays the bills, have a home you call your own. You can count on health care when you get sick. You can retire with dignity and respect. (Applause.) And most importantly, you can provide your kids with the education and opportunity so that they can dream bigger than you ever dreamed and they can achieve things you couldn't even imagine.
That's the American promise. That's the core of who we are as a people. And unfortunately, we had gone through a decade where that dream felt like it was slipping away. Jobs had gotten shifted overseas. Incomes had gone down, when you account inflation, even though the cost of everything from health care to college had gone up. And it all culminated in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
So we knew restoring this dream, reinstating this basic bargain was not going to be easy. And we understood it would take more than one year, or one term, or maybe even one President. And that was before the middle class got clobbered by this financial crisis. And a lot of our friends and neighbors lost their jobs, lost their homes, lost their savings -- and it made that dream seem even further out of reach.
But here's the good news. The American people are tougher than tough times. (Applause.) Not only is there a fundamental goodness and decency to the American people, but there’s also grit and resilience. And when we get knocked down, we get back up. (Applause.)
And so, for the last three and a half years, we've worked to make sure that we didn’t slip into a Great Depression. And we created 4.5 million new jobs. (Applause.) We saved an auto industry on the brink of collapse. And although we are far away from where we need to be -- okay, we'll be okay. I hear you. What will happen is that the medical services -- we've just got somebody who fainted. Which reminds me, everybody, if you've been standing for a long time, bend your knees a little bit. Because this happens every time we have a rally. They'll be okay, just give them some space. And make sure that you drink some water if you've got some.
Now, we know that we've still got a long ways to go -- and the medical folks are coming right here. They're on their way. But, you know, what hasn’t changed as a result of this crisis is our character. (Applause.) What's made us great in the past is going to make us great in the future. (Applause.)
We came together in 2008, understanding that we had an urgent mission to make sure that here in America everybody gets a fair shot, everybody does their fair share, and everybody plays by the same set of rules. (Applause.) We're here to build an economy where hard work pays off, so that no matter who you are or where you come from, you can make it if you try. That’s what this campaign is about, Colorado. That’s what the choice is in November. And that's why I’m running for a second term as President of the United States of America. (Applause.)
AUDIENCE: Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!
THE PRESIDENT: Now, here's the good news. Even though there are no quick fixes, there are no easy solutions -- some of these problems built up over decades and they're not going to be solved overnight -- we've got everything we need to meet the challenges we face. We've got the best workers in the world. (Applause.) We've got the best entrepreneurs in the world. We've got the best scientists and researchers in the world. We've got the best colleges and we've got the best universities in the world. (Applause.) We're a young nation. We've got this incredible diversity of talent and ingenuity. People come here from every corner of the globe, because they believe in our creed. They believe in our ideas.
And so, no matter what the naysayers say, no matter how bad folks try to paint the picture just to sell newspapers or sound sophisticated -- (laughter) -- the truth of the matter is that there's not a country on Earth that wouldn't trade places with the United States of America. (Applause.)
We've got what we need to succeed. What is standing in our way right now is our politics in Washington. (Applause.) It's a bunch of folks who think compromise is a dirty word; who think that the right way forward is to go backwards to the same top-down economic policies that got us into this mess in the first place.
AUDIENCE: Booo --
THE PRESIDENT: And, look, Mr. Romney, his friends in Congress, their basic economic plan is really simple to describe. It's not complicated. What they say is, on the one hand, they want to eliminate regulations on Wall Street banks, even after this crisis, or regulations on insurance companies, or regulations on unscrupulous lenders, or regulations that keep our air and water clean. So that's part number one. And then part number two -- big part of their plan -- is to cut taxes a lot more for the wealthiest Americans.
AUDIENCE: Booo --
THE PRESIDENT: And the idea is that somehow if you combine these two concepts that this is going to lead to jobs and prosperity for everybody.
That's what they're proposing. I'm not making this stuff up. (Laughter.) Go to their websites. Look at what the House of Republicans voted on, their budget. That's where they're going to take us if they win. That's their idea. And, look, if you believe in that idea, then you're probably not going to be voting for me.
Mr. Romney's -- the centerpiece of his entire economic plan is a new $5 trillion tax cut on top of the Bush tax cuts, a big chunk of it going to the wealthiest Americans. And last week, we found out that he expects you, middle-class families, to pay for it.
AUDIENCE: Booo --
THE PRESIDENT: Governor Romney’s tax plan -- this is not according to me, this is according to independent analysts -- assuming he kept his promise that it wasn't going to add to the deficit, would mean raising taxes on middle-class families with children by an average of $2,000. And keep in mind this would not be to pay down our deficit. It wouldn’t be to grow jobs or invest in education or make college more affordable, or invest in science and research or clean energy -- because he wants to gut all those things. He wants to cut away that stuff. Your tax increase would be to pay for another $250,000 tax cut for people making more than $3 million a year.
AUDIENCE: Booo --
THE PRESIDENT: How many people think that’s a good idea?
AUDIENCE: No!
THE PRESIDENT: How many people honestly believe that that’s going to unleash incredible job growth in this country?
AUDIENCE: No!
THE PRESIDENT: Look, we have tried this before. They tried to sell us this trickle-down tax cut fairy dust before. (Laughter.) And guess what -- it didn’t work. It didn’t work then; it won’t work now. It’s not a plan to create jobs. It’s not a plan to cut the deficit. It’s not a plan to move our economy forward.
We don’t need more tax cuts for folks like me. We need tax relief for working families. (Applause.) We need tax cuts for folks who are trying to make sure their kids get a good education, trying to keep their kids healthy, trying to keep a roof over their heads, trying to send them to college.
That’s the choice in this election. That’s why I’m running for a second term as President of the United States -- because our work is not yet done. (Applause.)
I’ve got a different idea. Four years ago, I promised to cut taxes for middle-class families. I did that. (Applause.) The average typical family, their income taxes -- their tax burden is about $3,600 lower than it is now [sic]. I want to keep taxes exactly where they are for the first $250,000 of everybody’s income. I’ve already told Congress let’s get it done. We should do it before the election. Now, if your family makes under $250,000 -- which, by the way, is 98 percent of American families and 97 percent of small businesses -- under my plan, your income taxes would not increase a single dime next year. (Applause.) That’s my plan.
But if you’re fortunate enough to be in the other 2 percent, if this country has blessed you the way it’s blessed me, you still get a tax cut on the first $250,000 of income. It’s just that after that, we’re going to ask you to contribute a little bit more so we can pay down our deficit responsibly and invest in things like helping young people go to college -- (applause) -- invest in basic science and research, rebuild our roads -- all the things that help us grow and make the middle class strong. (Applause.)
And, by the way, this doesn’t mean that we don’t still have more work to do to make government more efficient. I’m not somebody who believes government can solve every problem. Government has to do its part by cutting out spending that we don’t need. We’ve already cut a trillion dollars -- a trillion -- that’s with a “T” -- out of our budget. And we can do more to make government more efficient, more customer-friendly. But that doesn’t do enough to bring down the deficit.
So all I’m asking is that folks like me go back to the rates that we paid under Bill Clinton -- which, by the way, you may remember, we created 23 million new jobs, the biggest budget surplus in history -- (applause) -- and we created a whole bunch of millionaires to boot. Because what happens is when a construction worker or a police officer, they’ve got a little more money to spend, you know what, maybe they go out and buy that new car. And suddenly the car company has more profits, which means that hire more workers -- and everybody does better. (Applause.)
When a teacher or a receptionist has a little bit more money to spend, maybe they go to that local restaurant. Maybe they buy a computer for their kid for school. And now, suddenly, all businesses are doing better.
That’s the history of America. When we grow from the middle class out, when we provide ladders of opportunity for those who want to get into the middle class and are willing to work hard to do it, everybody does well -- top, middle, bottom. (Applause.)
We are in this thing together. That’s the choice in this election. And that’s why I’m running for President of the United States of America. (Applause.)
This difference in vision, it shows up on all sorts of issues. When the American auto industry was on the brink of collapse, 1 million jobs at stake, Mr. Romney said, "let Detroit go bankrupt." I said, let’s bet on America’s workers. (Applause.) And we got management and workers to come together, making better cars than ever, and now GM is number one again and the American auto industry has come roaring back. (Applause.)
So now I want to say what we did with the auto industry, we can do it in manufacturing across America. Let’s make sure advanced, high-tech manufacturing jobs take root here, not in China. Let’s have them here in Colorado. (Applause.) And that means supporting investment here.
Governor Romney talks about his private sector experience. But he invested in companies that were called "pioneers" of outsourcing. I don't want to outsource. I want to insource. (Applause.) Let's reform our tax code and let's make it simpler. And let's make sure that we're providing tax breaks to companies that are investing here in Colorado Springs, here in Colorado -- not overseas. (Applause.) They're the ones who need tax breaks.
Let's give tax breaks to companies that are investing here. It's the right thing to do.
At a moment when homegrown energy is creating new jobs in states like Colorado and Iowa, my opponent wants to end tax credits for wind producers.
AUDIENCE: Booo --
THE PRESIDENT: The wind industry supports about 5,000 jobs across this state. Without those tax credits, jobs would be at risk -- 37,000 jobs across this country would be at risk. Why would we want to stop promoting clean, renewable energy that can make our environment better, put people back to work, free our dependence from foreign oil? We should stop spending billions of taxpayer subsidies on the oil industry that is very profitable. Let's keep investing in a clean energy industry that's never been more promising. (Applause.) That's the choice in this election.
Here's another choice. I promised in 2008 I'd end the war in Iraq. We ended it. (Applause.) I said we'd go after bin Laden and al Qaeda. We did. (Applause.) We're transitioning in Afghanistan and starting to bring our troops home. (Applause.)
And so none of this could have been accomplished had it not been for our outstanding men and women in uniform. (Applause.) We are safer and more respected because of them.
But now we've got to make sure that the country they come back to is going on all cylinders. So what I said is let's set up a Veterans Jobs Corps that helps returning veterans get jobs as firefighters and police officers in communities that need them. (Applause.) Let's make sure that they are getting the training that they need. And let's make sure that we take some of those savings that we are spending after a decade of war, let's do some nation-building here at home. (Applause.) Let's put people back to work rebuilding our roads and our bridges, laying broadband lines, rebuilding our schools, putting in new science labs.
I was just down in Pueblo, and we were talking about a water project that John F. Kennedy had signed, authorizing 60 years ago -- 50 years ago. It has never been funded. You know what, under my administration it's getting funded. (Applause.)
There are projects like that all across America. And we can put people back to work right now. That's good for the economy right now -- lower unemployment right now -- but it also lays the foundation for economic growth for decades to come. That's a choice in this election.
I believe that we, once again, should be leading the world in educating our kids. (Applause.) So I've said let's make sure that we're helping local school districts hire the best teachers, especially in math and science. (Applause.) Let's help to provide millions of new slots at community colleges, so people can train for the jobs that businesses are hiring for right now. (Applause.) And I want to make college and university tuitions lower so young people aren't burdened with tens of thousands of dollars' worth of debt. (Applause.) We can do it -- because higher education is not a luxury; it's an economic necessity in the 21st century. (Applause.)
My opponent doesn't have a plan for higher education. He doesn't have a plan for homeownership. He was asked, what should we do about the housing crisis. He says, well, we'll just let foreclosures bottom out. That's not a plan. What I've said is let's help all families take advantage of historically low rates, refinance your homes, get an extra $3,000 a year, which you will then spend and will make the economy stronger and the housing market stronger. (Applause.) That's a choice in this election -- doing nothing, or putting $3,000 in your pocket.
I'm running because I believe nobody in America should go broke because they get sick. (Applause.) Mr. Romney says he wants to repeal Obamacare.
AUDIENCE: Booo --
THE PRESIDENT: Let me tell you, I'll work with anybody to keep improving our health care system. But the Supreme Court has spoken -- (applause) -- 6.5 million young people are able to stay on their parent's plans now. (Applause.) Seniors are getting discounts on their prescription drugs. Insurance companies can't prevent you from getting health insurance if you've got a preexisting condition. (Applause.) Folks are getting free preventive care.
I think it was the right thing to do. We're not going backwards, we're going forwards. That's the choice in this election. (Applause.)
We're not going back to "don't ask, don't tell". Everybody should be able to serve the country they love. (Applause.) That's a choice in this election. Helping out the DREAM Act kids -- that was the right thing to do. We're not going backwards, we're going forwards. That's the choice in this election. (Applause.)
All these things tie together. Because my vision is one in which -- whether we're talking about housing or education or rebuilding America -- the idea is you've got to show individual initiative. Government can't solve all your problems. Government can't help folks who won't help themselves. But there are things we can do to make sure that everybody has got a chance, everybody has got opportunity. (Applause.) If everybody is willing to work hard, they've got those rungs on the ladder to have a secure middle-class life. (Applause.)
That's the promise our parents passed down to us. That's why I'm standing here today -- because somebody helped me along the way. That's the promise I want to pass on to the next generation. That's why I'm running for another term as President of the United States of America. (Applause.)
AUDIENCE: Four more years! Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!
THE PRESIDENT: Now, over the next three months, the other side will spend more money than we've ever seen on ads that tell you the same thing we've been hearing for four years now, which is the economy is not good enough and it's Obama's fault. Basically, they should just have one commercial and they can just run it over and over again, because they don't say anything new. (Laughter.)
And the reason that's their argument is because they don't have a plan, and the plan they've got they can't sell. (Applause.) So they will do their best, like they've been trying to do for the last three years, to just run me down. The problem is they don't have a plan to create jobs. They don't have a plan to strengthen the economy. And they don't have a plan to revive the middle class. And I do. (Applause.) But in order to implement that plan, I'm going to have to have your help.
This election is going to be close. Colorado is going to be close. So I've got to make sure your friends are registered. I've got to make sure you're registered. In Colorado, you can register online. So you got to go to gottaregister.com -- that's "gotta," G-O-T-T-A. (Laughter.)
But we're going to have to work hard. Here is the good news. Here is the good news. I've been outspent before. I've been counted out before. But you know what we learned in 2008 -- when the American people decide that they want to see change, they make it happen. (Applause.) When the American people come together and focus on those values that have made us strong, they cut through all the nonsense. It doesn't matter how much the other side spends -- change happens.
Colorado, we've come too far to turn back now. (Applause.) We've got too many good jobs we still have to create. We've got too many teachers we've got to hire. (Applause.) We've got too many schools we've got to rebuild, too many students we want to send to college. We've got too much homegrown energy we still have to generate, too many troops we've still got to bring home. We've got too many doors of opportunity we still have to open up for everybody who is willing to work hard and walk through those doors. (Applause.)
That's what's at stake right now. That's why I'm running. That's why I need your help. In 2008, I said to you I am not a perfect man and I won't be a perfect President. But I promised you that I would spend every single day fighting as hard as I knew how for you. And I have kept that promise. Because I still believe in you. (Applause.) And, Colorado, if you still believe in me -- if you're willing to work with me and stand with me, and knock on doors with me, and make phone calls with me, we will win Colorado -- (applause) -- and we will win this election. And we will finish what we started. And we will remind the world why America is the greatest nation on Earth.
God bless you. And God bless the United States of America. (Applause.)
END
2:27 P.M. MDT | 0 | train |
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Crist has experience to be vice president, McCain says Fill out this form to email this article to a friend Your name Your email Recipient email
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Click here to try again. We were unable to send your email. Crist has experience to be vice president, McCain says By Adam C. Smith, Times Political Editor
In print: Thursday, June 5, 2008 SCOTT KEELER | Times Story Tools E-mail this story Contact the editor Print this story Comment on this story Social Bookmarking [+] Digg Facebook Stumbleupon Reddit Del.icio.us Newsvine ADVERTISEMENT [EDMUND D. FOUNTAIN | Times] Mike Hughes of Largo, Pam Wilson of Indian Rocks Beach and Nora Harvey of Dunedin sit outside the Renaissance Vinoy Resort in St. Petersburg protesting Sen. John McCain’s fundraiser there Wednesday. About 50 people, including Democrats and union members, came out against the presumptive Republican nominee for president, whom they called “McSame” as President Bush. Wilson made signs for the protest. Jack Ganzell of Dunedin, far right, says he came out because he wanted to see what was going on. Related Links Audio: Excerpts of McCain's interview with the Times' Adam Smith ST. PETERSBURG — Charlie Crist may not yet have a full gubernatorial term under his belt, but Sen. John McCain said Wednesday Crist has enough experience to be vice president. "Oh, I am sure that in many respects Charlie Crist is qualified. He's had other offices. As we know, he was attorney general as well. This is a big and diverse state," McCain said in an interview Wednesday evening before a $1,000-per-person private fundraising reception. "But we haven't moved anywhere on the process that he would be under," the presumptive Republican presidential nominee stressed. "We have a large number of people that we are considering, but I just don't mention anybody's name because then it starts a process that could end up in an invasion of their privacy." In a taped interview to air Sunday on Political Connections on Bay News 9, McCain said he will reach out to supporters of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and noted his independence from President Bush on such issues as government spending and climate control. "I promise them that I'll be the president of all the people, not just Republicans or anybody else, but all the people," McCain said. "I realize that I have to get independents and Democrats if I'm going to win this election." He also decried the giant Confederate flag that's been proposed to fly near the intersection of Interstates 4 and 75 in Hillsborough County. McCain has faced this issue before, and has voiced profound regret for not taking a stand against a rebel flag atop the South Carolina statehouse during the 2000 GOP primary. "It's a free country," McCain said of the flag in Hillsborough, but he said the Civil War memorial group behind the flag plans "should consider the feelings and sensitivities on this issue at a time like this in America where we want to move forward." Now that the Democratic nominee has been chosen, McCain knows he faces an opponent in Sen. Barack Obama who is more inspiring and energetic on the stump. McCain isn't worried. "I think people are very interested in substance, as well as style," he said. McCain also struck on a theme of his campaign, suggesting Obama lacks the experience and knowledge to be president. But polls show a strong majority of American voters think invading Iraq was a mistake, which is what Obama said all along. When asked if Obama showed better judgment in opposing the invasion, McCain defended the war as the right call because "every intelligence agency in the world believed that (Saddam Hussein) had weapons of mass destruction." What about Florida's Bob Graham, the former Senate Intelligence Committee chairman who argued at the time that invading Iraq would divert attention and resources from more urgent threats, particularly al-Qaida? "I respect Sen. Graham enormously, but I don't think there's any doubt that Saddam Hussein, who had acquired and used weapons of mass destruction before, had invaded a neighbor, Kuwait, where we had to fight one war with him, that his intent was … to acquire and use weapons of mass destruction," McCain replied. The private fundraising reception at the Renaissance Vinoy Resort in St. Petersburg kicked off a three-day Florida swing, which includes a speech to newspaper editors in Orlando today and an event touting his environmental credentials in the Everglades on Friday. Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton dismissed McCain's efforts to cast himself as anything but a continuation of President Bush's agenda. "While John McCain has a record of occasional independence from his party in the past, last year he chose to embrace 95 percent of George Bush's agenda, including his failed economic policies and his failed policy in Iraq," Burton said referring to McCain's voting record. "No matter how hard he tries to spin it otherwise, that kind of record is simply not the change the American people are looking for or deserve." McCain said he supports the antigay marriage ballot initiatives in Florida and California, even though the Republican governors of both states have little interest in those efforts. While he voted against a federal marriage amendment proposal, McCain noted that he supported a similar initiative in his home state of Arizona, where voters rejected the idea. "I think it's important to preserve the unique status of a marriage between men and women," McCain said. "I respect the views of others who don't hold that view, but I also think that we have a process in our states to amend our constitutions to reflect the will of the majority of the people." Adam C. Smith can be reached
at [email protected]
or (727)893-8241.
>>fast facts Want to watch? The full interview airs
Sunday on Bay News 9
at 11 a.m. and 8:30 p.m.
[Last modified: Jun 05, 2008 09:01 PM]
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Comments on this article by John P. Jun 5, 2008 9:01 PM I actually liked McCain till he comes out and makes the comment that Crist is a qualified VP propect. ARE YOU KIDDING ME ? Crist has done nothing to rectify the property tax, property insurance and huge abuse's in government spending,ex. double dipp by Buddy Jun 5, 2008 6:50 PM If mcCain picks Christ he will lose my vote. by Jane Jun 5, 2008 3:18 PM I'm glad people wasted their votes on Christ for Governor. He's checked out on state, just as soon as he won. He's spent valuable time kissing McCain's tush while he could've been solving real problems here. I bet Jim Davis is peeved by Steve Jun 5, 2008 3:18 PM I'm surprised (not really) at how anti-gay McCain is (courting the homophobe vote). He is for an anti-gay state ammendment in a state he doesn't live in governed by a possible running mate who is against the ammendment. I know who I'll vote for now. by jim Jun 5, 2008 3:13 PM maybe charlie can get his friend pearlman to run a drive for McCain by Rich Jun 5, 2008 3:00 PM Senile John and empty Charlie..after clueless George. Obama is over qualified and I cnat wait to vote for him. by Trunk Jun 5, 2008 1:54 PM Nice smile, nice tan, nice girlfriend. That's about it. by Sam Jun 5, 2008 1:41 PM McFossil will not be redeemed to Conservatives by having Gov. Crist, a moderate Republican, on the ticket as Vice President. by Syracuse Jun 5, 2008 1:33 PM I don't think I could vote for an orange VP. by bdiddy Jun 5, 2008 11:52 AM Politics sucks. I am torn between 2 worthless candidates. It could be an old fashioned coin toss. by john Jun 5, 2008 11:52 AM Well I know who I'm not voting for if he does chose Charlie. You know every King needs a court jester. by fj Jun 5, 2008 11:52 AM If Bush can be a president ...when he can't even read ....why cant Crist be a Vice President! Lets face it our standards have been lower'd by Bush! Apparently a trained monkey can be President! by C. Jun 5, 2008 11:52 AM So fairly-new Gov. Crist has experience to be one step away from the presidency, but Sen. Obama doesn't have the experience to be president, though he's more experienced than Crist? McCain, how will you explain yourself out of this one? by Kim Jun 5, 2008 11:52 AM I said I could never vote for Obama, but if McCain pick Crist, I will have not choice, I will have to throw McCain under the bus.... by Pete Jun 5, 2008 11:52 AM Good. Maybe we can get him out of the governor's seat then. He's been dangerous to Floridians in that role since day 1. by billy Jun 5, 2008 11:52 AM "at least bush had ideas..." bush had terrible ideas, and look at the results of his ideas and his gut reactions. i am not a republican, but i must say that crist is far more intelligent and acceptable than bush. by kitty Jun 5, 2008 10:52 AM Another reason to NOT vote for ya! Thanks for the warning johnny boy! by Zander Jun 5, 2008 10:52 AM ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? Charlie Crist seems like a nice guy but he is no more qualified to be VP than Obama is qualified to be President. by JH Jun 5, 2008 10:52 AM Graham said we should be focusing on Iran not Iraq and that's why he voted against going to Iraq. Al qaeda's zawahiri stated that Iraq was the central front in the war against the west. It's time the far left admitted defeat. We are winning in Iraq. by Ted Jun 5, 2008 10:51 AM After watching both McCains and Obamas speeches on TV Tuesday night, McCain no less than NEEDS to run Alaska Gov Sarah Palin as his VP mate. by Marie Jun 5, 2008 10:51 AM God help us. RINOs by Clifford Jun 5, 2008 10:51 AM Charlie doesn't pass the White Picket fence test - he isn't married, has no children, and doesn't own property. Unless you consider the child that the mother says is Charlie's but CC won't submit to a DNA test. Charlie is also dating a married woman! by Cindi Jun 5, 2008 10:51 AM If McCain picks Charlie Crist for VP this demonstrates an incredible lack of knowledge. Crist does nothing unless he knows that it will not decrease his popularity.What has he done as Gov? Nothing! I have never voted for him and won't in November. by Bill Jun 5, 2008 10:51 AM Please take empty chair Charlie with you. He's done NOTHING to help with any of the real Florida issues. At least Bush had ideas........Crist has none. by peggy Jun 5, 2008 10:51 AM MCCain was promoted by Crist's tactic to endorse him. Crist did this knowing personally from Guiliani that Guilliani was throwing all his eggs into Florida primary fight.For Crist's short list pick, he destroyed the younger more vibrant candidate. by Joshu Jones Jun 5, 2008 10:50 AM "Saddam Hussein who had acquired and used weapons of mass destruction before, .... that his intent was to acquire and use weapons of mass destruction." So the US just doesn't supply him with any more. Problem Solved! by Debbie Jun 5, 2008 10:50 AM And there you have it folks. Signs of dementia already. Crist is no more qualified to be vice president than Obama is to be president. What poor choices we have all because the process is tainted by money... by Holly Jun 5, 2008 10:50 AM As we all know, there are two sides to every polician! Unfortunately, George Bush has soured so many people that we are too eager for "change." Has Obama ever had a "real" job? I know he doesn't speak to my personal every day needs. by tranottoc Jun 5, 2008 10:50 AM It would be a shame for Florida to lose the talent of Crist for being part of a failed presidential effort. | 0 | train |
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Mother Issues Warning to Parents After Watching Her Baby Boy Die Within Minutes It might be hard to believe, after all, many of us had used Vick VapoRub. It seems like a harmless ointment, effective for fever, nasal congestion, and many other affections.
But this case will make people question its use, especially moms and dads with small children because it could bring fatal consequences to them.
A mother tells her tragedy to warn other parents and avoid someone else going through what she’s living: the loss of her 2-years-old baby.
When she came back from work, she came into her baby’s room. When she got near to kiss him, she felt he had a fever. She imagined it was just a common cold and thought about a home remedy to relieve him.
She rubbed Vick VapoRub on his chest, back, and under his nose to help him breathe. She tucked him up and laid down next to him.
She was tired, so she fell asleep next to her baby. Hours later, when she woke up, she noticed her son wasn’t breathing.
She carried him and took it to the hospital to save him. But, sadly, everything was pointless, the baby had been dead for hours.
The medical report stated the child died due to inflammation in the respiratory track, produced by the camphor contained in the famous ointment.
She never imagined that home remedy would take his baby. She only wanted to help him breathe, and the ointment did exactly the opposite.
The thing is, this remedy is effective for adults; however, for babies younger than two years old, the ointment increases the mucus by 60%. The mucus accumulates on the trachea and blocks the breathing.
The label warns the ointment is contraindicated for children younger than 3 years old.
Sadly, in the case of the mother, the warning went unnoticed. Using home remedies for several affections is something common in homes around the world, but we hope this story draw attention to this fact: when children are concerned, we must always read the labels and ask for the advice of experts before using any home remedy.
We must not let a simple mistake take our loved ones; we must be careful and seek medical advice to treat any illness. | 1 | train |
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'This Week' Transcript: Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Mike Rogers A rush transcript of "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" airing on Sunday morning, June 9, 2013 on ABC News is below. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Good morning and welcome to "This Week." Watching everything.
(START VIDEO CLIP)
SAWYER: America's phone records, but also internet searches are under surveillance.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: A secret government program tracking our phones, casting a wide net across the internet.
(START VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: I want to be very clear, nobody is listening to your telephone calls.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: Has this protected national security?
(START VIDEO CLIP)
ROGERS: This program was used to stop a terrorist attack.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: At what cost to personal privacy?
(START VIDEO CLIP)
PAUL: I am appalled. It's a violation of the Bill of Rights.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: This morning, we cover the controversy from all angles. The reporter who broke the story, Glen Greenwald. The Senator who sounded the alarm, Mark Udall, and the Committee Chairs who approved the program, Senator Diane Feinstein, and Congressman Mike Rogers. Plus our Powerhouse Roundtable on that, and all the weeks politics with ABC's George Will and Matthew Dowd, Nobel Prize Winner Paul Krugman from the New York Times, Congressman Keith Ellison, and Great Van Susteren from Fox News.
ANNOUNCER: From ABC News, This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Reporting from ABC News Headquarters, George Stephanopoulos.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Hello again. The secret struggle to balance national security and individual liberty broke out into open this week, after a series of blockbuster revelations, starting in The Guardian newspaper. We learned that the government has the capacity to track virtually every American phone call, and to scoop up impossibly vast quantities of data across the Internet.
And our first guest is The Guardian columnist getting these scoops, Glenn Greenwald. Thank you for joining us today, Mr. Greenwald. You are really on a roll. You broke another story yesterday showing the scale of the data collection programs. In March 2013, you report the government collected 97 billion pieces of data, almost all of it from outside the U.S. What's the key finding here?
GREENWALD: There are two key findings. One is that there are members of the Congress who have responsibility for oversight, for checking the people who run this vast secret apparatus of spying to make sure they are not abusing their power. These people in Congress have continuously asked for the NSA to provide basic information about how many Americans they are spying on, how many conversations and telephone and chats of -- of Americans they are intercepting, and the NSA continuously tells them, we don't have the capability to tell you that, to even give you a rough estimate.
So what these documents that we published show, that were marked top-secret to prevent the American people from learning about them, was that the NSA keeps extremely precise statistics, all the data that the senators amassed where that the NSA has falsely claimed does not exist. And the other thing that it does, as you said, is it indicates just how vast and massive the NSA is in terms of sweeping up all forms of communication around the globe, including domestically.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You also drew new criticism yesterday from the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper. He called the disclosures reckless, said the rush to publish has created significant misimpressions and added that the articles are filled with inaccuracies. Your response to that?
GREENWALD: Every single time any major media outlet reports on something that the government is hiding, that political officials don't want people to know, such as the fact that they are collecting the phone records of all Americans, regardless of any suspicion of wrongdoing? The people in power do exactly the same thing. They attack the media as the messenger and they try and discredit the story. This has been going back decades, ever since the Pentagon Papers were released by the New York Times, and political officials said, you are endangering national security.
The only thing we've endangered is the reputation of the people in power who are building this massive spying apparatus without any accountability who are trying to hide from the American people what it is that they are doing. There is no national security harm from letting people know that they are collecting all phone records, that they are tapping into the Internet, that they are planning massive cyber attacks both foreign and -- and even domestic. These are things that the American people have a right to know. The only thing being damaged is the credibility of political officials and they way they exercise power in the dark.
STEPHANOPOULOS: One of the things you reported is that the government has, quote, "direct access" to the servers of massive internet firms, like Google and Microsoft and Facebook, and all the companies have come out and denied it. You see Google saying, "The U.S. government does not have direct access or a backdoor to the information stored in our data centers." Similar statements from Facebook and Apple. And Mr. Clapper also said, "The U.S. government does not unilaterally obtain information." Now, I take it there could be some semantic word games being played here. What's your understanding about what is actually happening? Because it does appear that they don't have direct access to the servers.
GREENWALD: Well, our story was very clear. What we said was that, and -- and we presented it as the story from the start, was that we have top secret NSA documents that claim that there is a new program called The PRISM Program, in place since 2007 that provides, in the words of the NSA's own documents, direct collection, directly from the servers of these companies. We then went to all of those companies named, and they said no, we don't provide direct access to our servers, so there was a conflict, which is what we reported, that the NSA claims that they have direct access, the companies deny it.
Clearly, there are all kinds of negotiations taking place and all kinds of agreements that have been reached between these internet companies that store massive amounts of communication data about people around the world, and the government. We should have this debate out in the open. Let these companies that collect massive amounts of information about people, and the government, resolve this discrepancy in public. Tell us what it is exactly that these companies are turning over to the government, and what kinds of capabilities the government is wanting to access? So we reported these discrepancies precisely because we want them -- those parties to resolve it in -- in public, in sunlight, and-- and let people decide whether or not that's the kind of country they want to live in when -- when the government can -- can get this massive amount of information.
STEPHANOPOULOS: The DNI spokesman also said that a crimes report has been filed by the National Security Agency. Have you been contacted by the FBI or any federal law enforcement official yet?
GREENWALD: No. And -- and any time they would like to speak to me, I'll be more than happy to speak to them, and I will tell them that there is this thing called the Constitution, and the very First Amendment of which guarantees a free press. As an American citizen, I have every right, and even the obligation as a journalist to tell my fellow citizens and -- and our readers what it is that the government is doing, that they don't want people in the United States to know about. And I'm happy to talk to them at any time, and the attempt to intimidate journalists and sources with these constant threats of investigation aren't going to work.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You described your source as a reader of yours who trusted how you would handle the materials. The source has also been described as a career government official, who was concerned about these programs. A former prosecutor called the source a double-agent. I know you're not going to reveal the source, obviously, but what more can you tell us about the individual's motivations?
GREENWALD: Well, first of all, I am not going to confirm that there is only one individual, there could be one or more than one. But, let me first make this point, because I think this is so critical, because every time there is a whistle-blower, somebody who exposes government wrongdoing, the tactic of the government is to try and demonize them as a traitor. They risk their careers, and their lives, and their liberty. Because what they were seeing being done in secret, inside the United States government is so alarming, and so pernicious that they simply want one thing.
And that is for the American people, at least to learn about what this massive spying apparatus is, and what the capabilities are, so that we can have an open, honest debate about whether that's the kind of country that we want to live in. And if the people decide that they -- yes, they do want the government knowing everything about them, intervening in all of their communications, monitoring them, keeping dossiers on them, then so be it. But at least we should have that debate openly and democratically. Unfortunately, since the government hides virtually everything that they do at the threat of criminal prosecution, the only way for us to learn about them is through these courageous whistle-blowers who deserve our praise and gratitude and not imprisonment and prosecution.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Finally, should we be expecting more revelations from you?
GREENWALD: You should.
STEPHANOPOULOS: OK, Glenn Greenwald, thanks very much.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Now to the senator who says he did everything short of leaking classified information to shine a light on these surveillance programs. Here is Mark Udall on the Senate floor more than two years ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UDALL: The intelligence community can target individuals who have no connection to terrorist organizations. They can collect business records on law-abiding Americans who have no connection to terrorism.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: And Senator Udall joins us from Colorado this morning. Thank you for joining us, Senator. Is everything we're learning this week consistent with what you knew then?
UDALL: It is, George, and as you pointed out, I tried to draw attention to what was happening over two years ago. I am not happy that we've had leaks and these leaks are concerning, but I think it's an opportunity now to have a discussion about the limits of surveillance, how we create transparency, and above all, how we protect Americans' privacy.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, what is your main concern here? Because the president has come out and said that that the programs are approved by Congress, overseen by the courts, and carefully constrained. Here he was on Friday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: They are very focused, and in the abstract, you can complain about big brother and how this is a potential program run amok, but when you actually look at the details, then I think we've struck the right balance.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: You don't believe the right balance has been struck?
UDALL: I don't. My main concern is Americans don't know the extent to which they are being surveilled, George. We hear this term metadata, which has to do with when you make calls, where you make calls to, who you're talking to. I think that's private information, and I think if the government is gathering that, the American people ought to know it, we ought to have a discussion about it, and frankly, I think we ought to reopen the Patriot Act and put some limits on the amount of data that the National Security Administration is collecting.
STEPHANOPOULOS: What kind of limits exactly? Because as the president pointed out, no one is listening to phone calls here, and they are not allowed to continue the targeting of any individual unless they have probable cause, unless they have developed some information that would give them a reason to continue with tracking.
UDALL: My concern is, look, you know through a contract with your company that they're going to collect this data, but the phone company can't arrest you, prosecute you, put you in jail. And metadata, although it sounds simple and it sounds innocuous, can lead to a lot of additional information. I just draw the line a little bit differently than the president does. We do need to remember, we're in a war against terrorists, and terrorism remains a real threat, but I also think we have to cue to the Bill of Rights, and the Fourth Amendment, which prevents unlawful searches and seizures, ought to be important to us. It ought to remain sacred, and there's got to be a balance here. That is what I'm aiming for. Let's have the debate, let's be transparent, let's open this up. I don't think the American public knows the extent or knew the extent to which they were being surveilled and their data was being collected.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But Senator, the president has said that this has been fully debated and authorized by the Congress.
UDALL: It has been, George, but in a limited way, if I might make that point, and that's why I want to reopen the Patriot Act, I think now that this information is more available. I certainly have a lot of Coloradans say to me they are uncomfortable with this, they want to know more. That's my point, is let's have a debate here, let's look at what is really happening. It's what I was trying to draw attention to two years ago. Millions of records every day being accumulated, makes me uneasy. I think it's a violation of our privacy. Let's take a further look at this.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you think that the administration has been straight with the Congress in their testimonies?
UDALL: You know, in general, I do. And look, this is the law, but the way the law is being interpreted has really concerned me. The law has been interpreted in a secret way. That's what I've been calling for, is let's have full disclosure of how this law is being applied. This isn't a scandal, but this is deeply concerning to me and a lot of Americans, and frankly a lot of my colleagues in the Senate on both sides of the aisle.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And do you believe, though, that the program has been effective? We had Chairman Mike Rogers coming up saying, who said that this program has helped stop terrorist attacks, and (inaudible) reported that the subway, the attempted subway plot in New York subways in 2009 could have been stopped by this program.
UDALL: George, I am not convinced, and by the way, there are two programs that are being discussed. There is one the so-called PRISM program, Article 702 in the law, and it's been very effective. It surveils foreigners, grabs content, photographs, emails. The 215 provisions which are collecting all the metadata, I am not convinced that it's uniquely valuable intelligence that we could not have generated in other ways. So I know these claims are being made, but that's all the more reason to have a debate, to share this information and to determine whether or not we ought to be collecting millions of records every day of Americans' phone calls. It's just to me a violation of our privacy, particularly if it's done in ways that we don't know about.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Udall, thanks for your time this morning.
UDALL: Hey, George, thanks for having me on.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Let's get a response now from the chairs of the intelligence committees, Democrat Dianne Feinstein from the Senate and Republican Mike Rogers from the House. And Senator Feinstein, let me begin with you. You heard Mr. Greenwald and Senator Udall right there. They believe that the balance between privacy and national security is out of whack with these programs. Your response.
FEINSTEIN: Well, of course, balance is a difficult thing to actually identify what it is, but I can tell you this: These programs are within the law. The business records section is reviewed by a federal judge every 90 days. It should be noted that the document that was released that was under seal, which reauthorized the program for another 90 days, came along with a second document that placed and discussed the strictures on the program. That document was not released.
So here's what happens with that program. The program is essentially walled off within the NSA. There are limited numbers of people who have access to it. The only thing taken, as has been correctly expressed, is not content of a conversation, but the information that is generally on your telephone bill, which has been held not to be private personal property by the Supreme Court.
If there is strong suspicion that a terrorist outside of the country is trying to reach someone on the inside of the country, those numbers then can be obtained. If you want to collect content on the American, then a court order is issued.
So, the program has been used. Two cases have been declassified. One of them is the case of David Headley, who went to Mumbai, to the Taj hotel, and scoped it out for the terrorist attack.
The second is Najibullah Zazi, who lived in Colorado, who made the decision that he was going to blow up a New York subway, who went to a beauty wholesale supply place, bought enough hydrogen peroxide to make bombs, was surveilled by the FBI for six months, traveled to go to New York, to meet with a number of other people who were going to carry out this attack with him, and were arrested by the FBI, who has pled guilty and in federal prison.
Here is the point. And this is why this is so difficult. I flew over World Trade Center going to Senator Lautenberg's funeral, and in the distance was the Statue of Liberty. And I thought of those bodies jumping out of that building, hitting the canopy. Part of our obligation is keeping Americans safe. Human intelligence isn't going to do it, because you can't -- it's a different culture. It is a fanaticism that isn't going to come forward. And so, this kind of strict, strictly overseen -- it's overseen by the Justice Department, by inspectors general, by audits, by a 90-day review, by the court, is looked at as a method. I'm very happy if there's a better way, we will certainly look at it.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me bring that to Congressman Rogers, because you also said you believe these programs are effective, Mr. Chairman.
ROGERS: I do.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But what about this idea, raised by Senator Udall, that you reopen the Patriot Act, and put more limits on particularly the phone record collection program? Because he says that that hasn't helped. That is his suspicion, at least.
ROGERS: Well, I can tell you, in the Zazi case in New York, it's exactly the program that was used. And remember, all of these programs, this is really important, George, I mean, really important. They are not -- the National Security Agency does not listen to Americans' phone calls and it is not reading Americans' emails. None of these programs allow that. As a matter of fact, the Patriot Act, part of that 702 says it's expressly prohibited by law that you can read and wholly surveil domestic e-mail traffic in the United States. So the inflammatory nature of the comments does not fit with what Dianne and I know this program really does. And let's just talk about the phone records just real quickly. What this is, and the reason this happened is after 9/11, we realized there was a big hole in our ability to fully identify all of the players in that terrorist plot. And one of it was by the fact that these business records, the phone billing information, is destroyed by these companies. They can't, expense-wise, it's really difficult for them to hold them. So this is what happened. The court said, put all of that information in a box and hold that information, and when you want to access that information, you have to use this very specific court-ordered approval process, which means it has to be a foreign person believed to be on a foreign land. So some notion that they can see a name that even comes out of that -- by the way, this is important -- no name comes out of that search. So even if they get a number, it doesn't have a name on it. This then allows them to do further investigation.
But the number of times it's accessed is very -- it is a fraction of a fraction, number one. And number two, no one can data mine that information. That is what's so frustrating to those of us who know this program.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But that's what I was just going to get to. Both of you know so much more than any other Americans. One of the things you heard from Senator Udall is the desire for more public information. Now, he believes that the administration hasn't been misleading generally the committee and the public, but I want to play an exchange, it was in the Intelligence Committee in March, when James Clapper was questioned by your colleague, Senator Wyden.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. RON WYDEN, D-OREGON: Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?
JAMES CLAPPER, DNI: No, sir.
WYDEN: It does not?
CLAPPER: Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently, perhaps, collect, but not wittingly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Feinstein, I have to confess, I have a hard time squaring that answer with what we learned this week.
FEINSTEIN: Well, I think this is very hard. There is no more direct or honest person than Jim Clapper, and I think both Mike and I know that. You can misunderstand the question. This is one of the dilemmas of talking about it. He could have thought the question had content or something, but it is true that this is a wide collection of phone records, as Mike said. No name, no content. But the number to number, the length of time, the kind of thing that's on the telephone bill, and we have to deal with that.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So, what do we do going forward? Senator McCain has said, and we heard Senator Udall as well, that maybe there should be a public hearing on this program and the range of the programs that are surveilling, that includes some surveillance of some data from Americans. Are you open to that, Senator Feinstein? And Chairman Rogers, you comment as well.
FEINSTEIN: Yeah, I am open to it. And I have to think about this. We had an intelligence committee meeting on Thursday, which I opened up to everybody and 27 senators came. You know, we informed them that every senator, the material is available. They can come and see it.
One of the structures of highly classified with no stuff is no staff. I think that should be changed so that intelligence committee staff can come in with the member and go over and review the material.
But we have had lots of hearings on this. And I think Senator Wyden knows this and has been respectful of it.
And I'm open to doing a hearing every month if that's necessary. And I'm open to doing to doing an opening hearing now.
Here's the rub, the instances where this has produced good -- has disrupted plots, prevented terrorist attacks is all classified, that's what's so hard about this. So that we can't actually go in there and other than the two that have been released give the public an actual idea of people that have been saved, attacks that have been prevented, that kind of thing.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Chairman Rogers?
ROGERS: You know, George, one of the things that we're charged with is keeping America safe and keeping our civil liberties and privacy intact. I think we have done both in this particular case. And the problem with this is, if you tell our adversaries and enemies in the counterterrorism fight exactly how we conduct business, they are not going to business the same ever again. It makes it more difficult.
And so each one of these programs -- and I think the Zazi case is so important, because that's one you can specifically show that this was the key piece that allowed us to stop a bombing in the New York Subway system.
But these programs, that authorized by the court by the way, only focused on non-United States persons overseas, that gets lost in this debate, are pieces of the puzzle. And you have to have all of the pieces of the puzzle to try to put it together. That's what we found went wrong in 9/11.
And we didn't have all of the pieces of the puzzle, we found out subsequently, to the Boston bombings, either. And so had we had more pieces of the puzzle you can stop these things before they happen.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Finally, we're just about -- sorry, we're just about out of time. I just want a quick answer from each of you on this. We saw that a crimes investigation has been opened. Is it fair to say that both of you believe that this investigation should be pursued and the source, if found, should be prosecuted?
ROGERS: I absolutely believe that someone did not have authorization to release this information. And why that's so important, George, is because they didn't have all of the information. I know your reported that you interviewed, Greenwald, says that he's got it all and now is an expert on the program. He doesn't have a clue how this thing works. Nether did the person who released just enough information to literally be dangerous.
I argue that there's other methods. He could come to the committees, if they had concern. We have IGs that they can go to in a classified way if they have concern. Taking a very sensitive classified program that targets foreign person on foreign lands, and putting just enough out there to be dangerous, is dangerous to us, it's dangerous to our national security and it violates the oath of which that person took. I absolutely think they should be prosecuted.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You too, Senator Feinstein?
FEINSTEIN: I do.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Thank you both for your time this morning.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Up next, our powerhouse round table weighs in on all this. Plus, the president's new foreign police fix. Chris Christie's controversial call. And Paul Krugman analyzes the latest jobs numbers.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
STEPHANOPOULOS: An update now on the race to fill John Kerry's Senate race up in Massachusetts. With the vote coming up later this month, the sparks flew at the first debate between veteran Democratic congressman Ed Markey and former Navy SEAL Gabriel Gomez.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ED MARKEY, (D) MASSACHUSETTS SENATE CANDIDATE: They want Mr. Gomez down there to help them get the majority that will ultimately further this grid lock that they have fostered over this lost generation.
GABRIEL GOMEZ, (R) MASSACHUSETTS SENATE CANDIDATE: If you wanted to run against, you know, Newt Gingrich or George W. Bush or even Gerald Ford, who was president when you were down there for the first time, you should have run against them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: Both candidates will be here next week. And we'll be right back with the roundtable. | 0 | train |
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U.S. Senate: U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 110th Congress Use this guide to help you find the full text of recent bills and resolutions on the Web, or order them from the Senate or House Document Rooms, or you can find them in a library. | 0 | train |
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Barack Obama says U.S. oil production last year was highest since 2003 In his press conference on March 11, 2011, President Barack Obama talked up U.S. oil production against a backdrop of rising prices at the pump.
"We need to continue to boost domestic production of oil and gas," he said. "Last year, American oil production reached its highest level since 2003. Let me repeat that. Our oil production reached its highest level in seven years. Oil production from federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico reached an all-time high. For the first time in more than a decade, imports accounted for less than half of what we consumed. So any notion that my administration has shut down oil production might make for a good political sound bite, but it doesn’t match up with reality,"
In this item, we’ll check the first piece of evidence to support his contention that his administration hasn’t "shut down" oil production -- that "last year, American oil production reached its highest level since 2003."
We turned to the Energy Information Administration, the federal government’s official office for energy statistics. Since Obama said "oil production," we will only look at oil removed from U.S. territory, rather than natural gas or other petroleum products.
Here are the annual totals, in barrels produced, going back to 2003:
2003: 2,073,453,000
2004: 1,983,302,000
2005: 1,890,106,000
2006: 1,862,259,000
2007: 1,848,450,000
2008: 1,811,817,000
2009: 1,956,596,000
2010: 2,011,856,000
So, 2010 is definitely the highest since 2003. But we’ll note a couple of caveats.
First, production levels actually have been quite stable over the eight-year period. Comparing 2009 and 2010 statistics, petroleum production only rose about 3 percent. And the level for 2010 is only 11 percent higher than for the lowest year in that eight-year period. So the increase the president is referring to is not particularly dramatic.
The second caveat is that the Energy Information Administration projects that production totals are poised to fall from their current levels over the next two years.
Domestic crude oil production, the agency says, is projected to decline by 110,000 barrels a day in 2011 and by an additional 130,000 barrels per day in 2012. The agency makes that projection based on expected production declines in Alaska due to maturing oil fields. Production in the Gulf of Mexico is also projected to decline. Both are partially offset by projected increases in the Lower 48 states, but on balance, EIA sees the numbers falling.
So Obama is right that American oil production is at its highest level since 2003, but we’re taking the statement down a notch on our rating scale because the amount is projected to fall during each of the next two years, making it somewhat problematic to use the number as evidence that domestic oil production is on a healthy trendline. On balance, we rate the statement Mostly True. | 0 | train |
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Melania Trump undergoes kidney surgery at Walter Reed medical center (CNN) First lady Melania Trump underwent kidney surgery Monday at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center near Washington, DC, according to a statement from her office.
Trump had been experiencing an issue with her kidney that her office described as benign but requiring medical attention.
"This morning, first lady Melania Trump underwent an embolization procedure to treat a benign kidney condition. The procedure was successful, and there were no complications," the first lady's communications director, Stephanie Grisham, said in a statement.
"Mrs. Trump is at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and will likely remain there for the duration of the week. The first lady looks forward to a full recovery so she can continue her work on behalf of children everywhere," Grisham wrote.
President Donald Trump remained in the White House during Melania Trump's surgery. He tweeted just after 5 p.m. Monday that he was heading to hospital to visit his wife in Marine One.
"Heading over to Walter Reed Medical Center to see our great First Lady, Melania. Successful procedure, she is in good spirits. Thank you to all of the well-wishers!" Trump tweeted.
Heading over to Walter Reed Medical Center to see our great First Lady, Melania. Successful procedure, she is in good spirits. Thank you to all of the well-wishers! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 14, 2018
Trump, who turned 48 last month, had surgery at Walter Reed in nearby Bethesda, Maryland, on Monday morning.
She is the first US first lady to undergo such a serious medical procedure while in the White House since Nancy Reagan had a mastectomy in October 1987. Rosalynn Carter underwent surgery to remove a benign lump from her breast in April 1977. Weeks after Betty Ford became first lady, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy in September 1974.
The first lady did not move to Washington until six months into the administration, choosing to let their son, Barron, finish the 2017 school year in New York. More recently, Melania Trump has had a more public profile. On April 24, she and the President hosted the first official state dinner of the Trump administration, an event that was planned and executed primarily by the first lady.
Trump was responsible for every aspect of the formal dinner in honor of French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte Macron, from the hand-selected ivory tablecloths to the menu, which the first lady designed to meld American food with French influence. During the welcome ceremony leading up to the dinner, Melania Trump stole headlines, wearing a crisp white Michael Kors Collection suit with a matching white hat, custom-made by her personal couturier. The hat set the internet ablaze, with references and comparisons to Beyoncé, the suffragette movement and even television character Olivia Pope of "Scandal."
On May 7, Trump, a relatively private first lady by comparison to her most recent predecessors, was once again front and center, this time to unveil her formal platform, Be Best . She kicked off the initiative with a Rose Garden speech lasting 11 minutes, the longest public speaking engagement during her 16-month tenure as first lady.
Be Best is a three-pronged platform with a focus on opioid addiction and families, general physical and emotional well-being of children, and kindness and safety for kids using social media. The latter caused a firestorm of controversy because it encompasses cyberbullying, a tactic that Melania Trump's husband, the President, has often been accused of fueling. In March, the first lady addressed the criticism she has faced by taking up the issue during opening remarks to a meeting she convened at the White House for tech industry leaders from Google, Snap, Twitter, Facebook, Amazon and others.
JUST WATCHED Melania Trump's popularity jumps in new poll Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Melania Trump's popularity jumps in new poll 02:07
"I am well-aware that people are skeptical of me discussing this topic," she said. "I have been criticized for my commitment to tackling this issue, and I know that will continue. But it will not stop me from doing what I know is right."
Melania Trump has also appeared with her husband several times in recent weeks. He was seated in the front row during her Be Best speech, after which he made remarks praising her commitment to helping children, and he was again second to speak, after his wife, during the Military Mothers and Spouses Ceremony on Friday in the White House East Room.
"She's become a very, very popular first lady. I'm reading that ... They love Melania," the President said. A new CNN poll released May 7 had the first lady's favorable rating up 10 points since January to 57%.
This story is breaking and being updated. | 1 | train |
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Bill Gates Outlines 2018 Plan To Depopulate The Planet Bill Gates has doubled down on his goal to depopulate the planet, using deceitful Orwellian doublespeak in a new video to bamboozle his naive followers into believing that “by making people healthier, we can reduce the world’s population.”
Make no mistake, when Gates talks about “making people healthier,” what he is really talking about is enforcing the mandatory roll out of his range of experimental vaccinations. The same vaccines that have already caused mass sterilization and death on multiple continents.
The second-richest man on the planet is a committed globalist and eugenicist working towards the New World Order goal of depopulation. Lest anyone forget these facts, Bill Gates regularly goes out of his way to remind us of them.
Bill Gates and his foundation have consistently come under fire for their goal of depopulation, and now the same man who admitted in a TED talk that his goal is to eliminate a billion humans from the face of the earth has now taken to Facebook to lecture us about why being eradicated is in our own interests.
The irony of Bill Gates’ faux concern for the human race is almost laughable. India, however, may not find it so funny.
Last year, India’s National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization announced that it would be banning the Gates Foundation from operating in the country after it was revealed that the vaccines the foundation had been promoting “to make people healthier” were actually doing irreparable harm to young girls — and that the Gates Foundation “campaigns” were actually “experimental trials of the vaccines.”
Mainstream investigators have found that these vaccine trials in India led to thousands of injuries and deaths of young women.
The “philanthropist” has also funded secretive sterilization programs, and says we should form death panels to differentiate between those who are worthy of life and those who “have no benefit whatsoever” to society. This cold, skewed psychopathic “logic” is terrifying and brings to mind the worst excesses of the 20th century’s most evil regimes.
Now we are starting to see the horrific results of Gates’ depopulation agenda playing out around the world.
Kenya doesn’t find his Gates’ fake concern for the human race amusing either. In September of 2017 it was reported that at least 500,000 young Kenyan girls and women have been made sterile, following a tetanus vaccine administered by the government, and pushed by the international organizations in Bill Gates’ back pocket:
“Today, we can confirm to the country that the Catholic Church was right. Hundreds of thousands of our girls and women, aged between 14 and 49, from the fastest growing populations in the country will not have children, because of the state-sponsored sterilization that was sold to the country as tetanus vaccination,” Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga declared.
Gates, who has $23m of shares in Monsanto, is responsible for widespread vaccination programs which have been linked to outbreaks of disease in South America and the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. GMOs and vaccinations have both been linked to human illness and death, even though Big Pharma and Big Ag continue to deny the undeniable correlations.
Let’s ask ourselves this: If Gates is focused on his goal of reducing the number of people on our planet, why would he then fund vaccination programs to save lives?
None of this makes any sense, unless the vaccinations are not meant to save lives at all. | 1 | train |
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Call ‘Islamic terrorism’ what it is: a threat to West, Jeb Bush says TribLIVE's Daily and Weekly email newsletters deliver the news you want and information you need, right to your inbox.
COLUMBUS, Ohio — America’s role as a world leader and coalition builder among nations has weakened under President Obama, allowing “Islamic terrorism” to spread, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said Tuesday.
Bush, a likely contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, warned that “people are fearful for the security of our country,” and “voids are being filled by asymmetric threats that are quite dangerous.”
He said U.S. leaders should identify the threat for what it is — Islamic terrorism — noting that groups such as ISIS are spreading destruction beyond Iraq and Syria.
“It’s not some isolated thing. It is a threat on Western civilization, and take them at their word — they want to destroy Western civilization,” he told the Tribune-Review in an interview before his speech to the Ohio Chamber of Commerce’s annual meeting.
Under Obama, Bush said, America’s strategy is “to isolate and not be fully engaged, because of the fatigue Americans legitimately feel about long-term engagements, in the Middle East particularly.”
“One of the first things we have to do is to get back into the game and develop coalitions to take these terrorist groups out,” he said.
Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Persian Gulf countries “are hugely important” as U.S. allies, Bush said, “with Egypt being perhaps the most important relationship that we have fractured.”
The United States should make clear that “we are going to be their partner for the long haul and not going to cut-and-run,” he said.
Bush has not decided whether to run for the White House, but he would like to have the job, he said.
The son and brother of presidents, Bush has formed the Right to Rise political action committee to raise money for himself and other GOP candidates. His travels this week — including the stop in Ohio, a state critical to presidential elections since 1960 — give the appearance of a campaign. From here he planned to go to New Orleans, then to Mississippi and New Hampshire.
Bush wants to be president because “I think I have the skills” to fix complex problems such as a structural deficit based on a system of entitlement from an earlier era, a hyper-regulatory environment that does little to help businesses, and fears about terrorism that hinder economic security and opportunity.
“We have created one of the most complex, costly, high-tax systems that impales our competitive posture in the world,” he said. “We fix those things, and embrace our energy revolution that is right here in the industrial heartland, and turn our broken immigration system into an economic driver, (and) then we can grow at a far faster rate.”
Even in the sixth year of economic recovery from the Great Recession, the median income for middle-class Americans “is below what it was at the start of the recovery,” Bush said. “That is the legacy that Barack Obama has brought us. He has divided the country. The wealthy are wealthier, the poor are more stuck, and the middle is getting squeezed.”
An undeclared political campaign has not prevented Bush from hurdling over others in his party — U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Marco Rubio of Florida have announced — to hit Hillary Clinton, the Democrats’ only declared candidate, straight on.
When Clinton formalized her candidacy on Sunday, Bush released an online video, saying: “We must do better than the Obama-Clinton foreign policy that has damaged relationships with our allies and emboldened our enemies.”
Rubio, who announced his campaign Monday, “is a great guy,” Bush said. “He is my friend, and you will never hear me say a disparaging thing about him.”
Though Bush and Rubio won’t say it, each probably would prefer the other not run, said Chip Felkel, a South Carolina Republican strategist.
“I’m sure there are a number of people in Florida who feel the same way,” he said.
Bush said his leadership PAC is named Right to Rise to signify a person’s ability to achieve, “no matter where we come from, as long as we are willing to work hard.” It is meant to put forth “the hopeful, optimistic, conservative message that I think is the winning one in 2016.”
“We don’t win the ‘angry and against-things’ battle, or being pessimistic about the future,” he said of Republicans running for office. “But we do win if we give people substance and principles to apply, so that we can tear down the barriers to achieve their own success. That should be our mission.”
A Quinnipiac University swing-state poll released in early April showed Bush as the front-runner in a possible 2016 presidential primary in Florida, leading with 24 percent of the vote. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker had 15 percent; Rubio, 12 percent.
Felkel said Bush wisely has encouraged Republicans to focus on their accomplishments and not attack each other, as primary candidates did in 2012.
“So far, his approach seems to be working,” Felkel said. The key, he said, would be winning over skeptical voters and separating from the pack.
A RealClearPolitcs aggregate of data from five national polls in March showed Bush with a slight advantage in a field that included Cruz, Paul, Rubio, Walker, Govs. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Chris Christie of New Jersey, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a 2008 presidential candidate.
Salena Zito is a Trib Total Media staff writer. Reach her at [email protected]. | 0 | train |
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Public Views on Health Care Overhaul Top Week's News Support the kind of journalism done by the NewsHour... Become a member of your local PBS station. | 0 | train |
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TSA: Frequently Asked Questions Frequently Asked Questions
Advanced Imaging Technology
Q. What is advanced imaging technology?
A. Advanced imaging technology safely screens passengers for both metallic and non-metallic threats, including weapons and explosives, which may be concealed under a passengers’ clothing without physical contact to keep the traveling public secure.
Q. Does imaging technology work?
A. Yes. Imaging technology is a highly effective security tool, which can detect both metallic and non-metallic items that may pose a threat to aviation security. AIT is a proven technology and TSA is highly confident in its detection capability.
Q. Is imaging technology optional?
A. Yes, imaging technology screening is optional for all passengers. Passengers who do not wish to receive imagining technology screening will receive alternative screening, including a physical pat-down.
Q. Is imaging technology safe?
A. Advanced imaging technology is safe and meets national health and safety standards. Backscatter technology was evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH), the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL). For comparison, a single scan using backscatter technology produces exposure equivalent to two minutes of flying on an airplane, and the energy projected by millimeter wave technology is thousands of times less than a cell phone transmission.
Q. What has TSA done to protect my privacy?
A. TSA has implemented strict measures to protect passenger privacy, which is ensured through the anonymity of the image. A remotely located officer views the image and does not see the passenger, and the officer assisting the passenger cannot view the image. The image cannot be stored, transmitted or printed, and is deleted immediately once viewed. Additionally, there is a privacy algorithm applied to blur the image.
Q. How does the imaging technology screening process work?
A. Each passenger will be asked to take everything out of their pockets (including non-metallic items) and walk into the imaging portal. Once inside, they will be asked to stand in a position and remain still for a few seconds while the technology creates an image of the passenger in real time. A remotely located officer views the image. After review and resolution of any anomalies, the image is immediately deleted. The passenger will then be free to exit the opposite side of the portal and collect belongings. The entire process takes a matter of seconds, compared to a 2-4 minute pat-down.
Q. How does backscatter imaging technology work?
A. Backscatter technology projects an ionizing X-ray beam over the body surface at high speed. The reflection, or “backscatter,” of the beam is detected, digitized and displayed on a monitor. Each full body scan produces less than 10 microREM of emission, the equivalent to the exposure each person receives in about 2 minutes of airplane flight at altitude. It produces an image that resembles a chalk-etching, and has a privacy filter applied to the entire body.
Q. How does millimeter wave imaging technology work?
A. Millimeter wave technology bounces harmless electromagnetic waves off of the human body to create a black and white image. It is safe, and the energy emitted by millimeter wave technology is thousands of times less than what is permitted for a cell phone. Millimeter wave technology has a privacy filter that blurs facial features.
Q. Where are imaging technology machines located?
A. Currently, there are 127 advanced imaging technology machines located at 36 airports nationwide. Airports that have the technology include the following.
Albuquerque International Sunport Airport
Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport
Boston Logan International Airport
Charlotte Douglas International Airport
Chicago O'Hare International Airport
Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport
Corpus Christi International Airport
Denver International Airport
Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport
Detroit Metro Airport
El Paso International Airport
Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport
Fort Wayne International Airport
Harlingen/Valley International Airport
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport
Indianapolis International Airport
Jacksonville International Airport
Kansas City International Airport
Los Angeles International Airport
McAllen Miller Airport
McCarran International Airport
Miami International Airport
San Jose International Airprot
Omaha Eppley Airfield Airport
Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport
Port Columbus International Airport
Raleigh-Durham International Airport
Richmond International Airport
Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport
Salt Lake City International Airport
San Francisco International Airport
Tampa International Airport
Tulsa International Airport
Boise Airport
Brownsville/South Padre Island International Airport
Buffalo Niagara International Airport
Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport
Houston William P. Hobby Airport
La Guardia International Airport
Laredo International Airport
Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport
Oakland International Airport
Orlando International Airport
Pittsburgh International Airport
Reno-Tahoe International Airport
San Diego International Airport
Spokane International Airport
T. F. Green International Airport
Q. Where else is advanced imaging technology used?
A. Domestic locations:
Colorado Springs Court House (CO
) Cook County Court House (IL)
Department of Corrections facility (PA)
Douglas County Colorado Justice Center
Montana State Prison
Utah State Correctional Facility
International locations:Advanced imaging technology is used in hundreds of locations around the world in aviation and mass transit environments, including Canada, France, the Netherlands, Nigeria and the United Kingdom.
If you need additional information, please e-mail the TSA Contact Center at [email protected]. | 0 | train |
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Let’s Not Be Civil Last week, President Obama offered a spirited defense of his party’s values — in effect, of the legacy of the New Deal and the Great Society. Immediately thereafter, as always happens when Democrats take a stand, the civility police came out in force. The president, we were told, was being too partisan; he needs to treat his opponents with respect; he should have lunch with them, and work out a consensus.
That’s a bad idea. Equally important, it’s an undemocratic idea.
Let’s review the story so far.
Two weeks ago, House Republicans released their big budget proposal, selling it to credulous pundits as a statement of necessity, not ideology — a document telling America What Must Be Done.
But it was, in fact, a deeply partisan document, which you might have guessed from the opening sentence: “Where the president has failed, House Republicans will lead.” It hyped the danger of deficits, yet even on its own (not at all credible) accounting, spending cuts were used mainly to pay for tax cuts rather than deficit reduction. The transparent and obvious goal was to use deficit fears to impose a vision of small government and low taxes, especially on the wealthy.
So the House budget proposal revealed a yawning gap between the two parties’ priorities. And it revealed a deep difference in views about how the world works.
Advertisement Continue reading the main story | 0 | train |
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Mitch McConnell, Alison Lundergan Grimes Have 'Sharp Differences' on Campaign Finance Rules Republican Senator Mitch McConnell and Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes sit on opposite sides of the debate about the role of money in U.S. elections.
A deluge of campaign cash is playing a significant role in Kentucky’s Senate race thus far.
The money raised by the campaigns and outside groups is expected to top the $100 million mark and go down as the most expensive in U.S. history.
More than any lawmaker, McConnell is the face of loosening—if not, eliminating—campaign finance regulations.
For over a decade the GOP leader has espoused that money and free speech are synonymous. He has filed legal briefs urging the Supreme Court to reaffirm its Citizens United decision and supports a controversial case to further deregulate contribution limits placed on individuals.
In a March 17 e-mail to supporters, Grimes took a strong stance against the influence wealthy donors are having and calls out McConnell as the chief architect and beneficiary of that system.
“Special interest money has already flooded into Mitch McConnell’s campaign,” Grimes said. “He’s the number one recipient of contributions from lobbyists this cycle and his Karl Rove-affiliated Super PACs are clogging the Commonwealth’s airwaves with negative attack ads. Enough is enough—our democracy is too important to be auctioned off to the highest bidder.”
Grimes has played it safe on the campaign trail when faced with thornier issues outside of core Democratic principles, such as raising the minimum wage. But given the left’s apoplectic reaction to the Roberts Court’s dismantling limitations and the rise of super PACs, her position is receiving applause from watchdog groups.
“It’s very good that Alison Grimes has come out in support of a policy that puts regular people in charge of government again,” says David Donnelly, who is executive director of Public Campaign Action Fund. “She understands that money in politics drowns out the voices of every day Kentuckians. This is a sharp difference between her and McConnell, someone who is advocating the make the problem worse.”
The Grimes campaign message also directs voters to sign a petition calling on Congress to “stop special interest billionaires,” that has the support of red state Democratic senators such as Joe Donnelly of Indiana and Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
In the 2014 election cycle, there are almost 1,000 registered super PACs that have generated over $141 million and spent more than $24.8 million on races.
According to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, the pro-McConnell super PAC Kentuckians for Strong Leadership is among the ranks among the top ten groups in this year’s races.
Democrats and liberal activists decrying the influence of money in politics have themselves pointed out its limitations in Kentucky’s Senate race.
McConnell has spent over half of the $20 million he’s raised this cycle and he has a number of outside groups spending millions in advertisements supporting his re-election. Yet McConnell’s approval ratings remain terribly low and Grimes either leads or ties the GOP leader in most polling.
Former FEC Chairman Michael Toner says despite arguments that the wealthy are purchasing American elections, those independent expenditure committees haven’t always worked out for candidates.
“One reason the federal courts over the years have not found a corruption threat at the independent spending is that sometimes it’s not that effective in directly advancing a candidate’s interest,” he says.
“A lot of candidates who spend more money than their opponents whether out of their own pocket or let’s say supported by major outside groups, their track record in winning elections is not that good to be honest. We’ve seen a lot of multi-millionaire candidates who are defeated in various races. Now to be sure some are also elected, but by now means is the candidate with the most money spent on their behalf assured of being elected.”
Grimes has raised $4.5 million since entering the race last year and been all over the country at fundraisers with big name Democratic donors. She outpaced McConnell’s money machine during the third quarter and Democratic-affiliated groups have also spent money attacking McConnell in television ads.
The McConnell campaign was quick to point out that while Grimes is criticizing Citizens United, she is also benefiting from attack ads against the senator from outside liberal groups who praise her position.
“Like Barack Obama, Alison Lundergan Grimes is obviously much more concerned with political convenience than Constitutional protections,” McConnell campaign spokeswoman Allison Moore told WFPL. “The sad part is that she apparently sees no irony in the fact the special interest group who successfully persuaded her to embrace trampling on our First Amendment rights in the name of money in politics is the same one running hundreds of thousands of dollars of advertising on her behalf.”
The top expenditures in 2014 have been super PACs with liberal viewpoints such as Senate Majority PAC, which has slammed McConnell in TV ads.
Asked about Grimes’ wealthy donors, Donnelly says all elected officials and candidates are implicated but that what lawmakers do in Washington matters.
“The real distinction is what are you going to do to clean it up and propose pro-actively to make the system better,” he says. “And on that score voters know in Alison Grimes they have someone who is going to champion the issue and that in Mitch McConnell who is going to make the problem worse.” | 0 | train |
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Summary of the Affordable Care Act Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (P.L. 111-148)
Overall approach to expanding access to coverage Require most U.S. citizens and legal residents to have health insurance. Create state-based American Health Benefit Exchanges through which individuals can purchase coverage, with premium and cost-sharing credits available to individuals/families with income between 133-400% of the federal poverty level (the poverty level is $19,530 for a family of three in 2013) and create separate Exchanges through which small businesses can purchase coverage. Require employers to pay penalties for employees who receive tax credits for health insurance through an Exchange, with exceptions for small employers. Impose new regulations on health plans in the Exchanges and in the individual and small group markets. Expand Medicaid to 133% of the federal poverty level.
INDIVIDUAL MANDATE
Requirement to have coverage Require U.S. citizens and legal residents to have qualifying health coverage. Those without coverage pay a tax penalty of the greater of $695 per year up to a maximum of three times that amount ($2,085) per family or 2.5% of household income. The penalty will be phased-in according to the following schedule: $95 in 2014, $325 in 2015, and $695 in 2016 for the flat fee or 1.0% of taxable income in 2014, 2.0% of taxable income in 2015, and 2.5% of taxable income in 2016. Beginning after 2016, the penalty will be increased annually by the cost-of-living adjustment. Exemptions will be granted for financial hardship, religious objections, American Indians, those without coverage for less than three months, undocumented immigrants, incarcerated individuals, those for whom the lowest cost plan option exceeds 8% of an individual’s income, and those with incomes below the tax filing threshold (in 2009 the threshold for taxpayers under age 65 was $9,350 for singles and $18,700 for couples).
EMPLOYER REQUIREMENTS
Requirement to offer coverage Assess employers with 50 or more full-time employees that do not offer coverage and have at least one full-time employee who receives a premium tax credit a fee of $2,000 per full-time employee, excluding the first 30 employees from the assessment. Employers with 50 or more full-time employees that offer coverage but have at least one full-time employee receiving a premium tax credit, will pay the lesser of $3,000 for each employee receiving a premium credit or $2,000 for each full-time employee, excluding the first 30 employees from the assessment. (Effective January 1, 2014) • Exempt employers with up to 50 full-time employees from any of the above penalties.
Other requirements Require employers with more than 200 employees to automatically enroll employees into health insurance plans offered by the employer. Employees may opt out of coverage.
EXPANSION OF PUBLIC PROGRAMS
Treatment of Medicaid Expand Medicaid to all non-Medicare eligible individuals under age 65 (children, pregnant women, parents, and adults without dependent children) with incomes up to 133% FPL based on modified adjusted gross income (as under current law undocumented immigrants are not eligible for Medicaid). All newly eligible adults will be guaranteed a benchmark benefit package that meets the essential health benefits available through the Exchanges. The Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of the ACA upheld the Medicaid expansion, but limited the ability of HHS to enforce it, thereby making the decision to expand Medicaid optional for states. To finance the coverage for the newly eligible (those who were not previously eligible for at least benchmark equivalent coverage, those who were eligible for a capped program but were not enrolled, or those who were enrolled in state-funded programs), states will receive 100% federal funding for 2014 through 2016, 95% federal financing in 2017, 94% federal financing in 2018, 93% federal financing in 2019, and 90% federal financing for 2020 and subsequent years. States that have already expanded eligibility to adults with incomes up to 100% FPL will receive a phased-in increase in the federal medical assistance percentage (FMAP) for non-pregnant childless adults so that by 2019 they receive the same federal financing as other states (93% in 2019 and 90% in 2020 and later). States have the option to expand Medicaid eligibility to childless adults beginning on April 1, 2010, but will receive their regular FMAP until 2014. In addition, increase Medicaid payments in fee-for-service and managed care for primary care services provided by primary care doctors (family medicine, general internal medicine or pediatric medicine) to 100% of the Medicare payment rates for 2013 and 2014. States will receive 100% federal financing for the increased payment rates. (Effective January 1, 2014)
Treatment of CHIP Require states to maintain current income eligibility levels for children in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) until 2019 and extend funding for CHIP through 2015. CHIP benefit package and cost-sharing rules will continue as under current law. Provide states with the option to provide CHIP coverage to children of state employees who are eligible for health benefits if certain conditions are met. Beginning in 2015, states will receive a 23 percentage point increase in the CHIP match rate up to a cap of 100%. CHIP-eligible children who are unable to enroll in the program due to enrollment caps will be eligible for tax credits in the state Exchanges.
PREMIUM AND COST-SHARING SUBSIDIES TO INDIVIDUALS
Eligibility Limit availability of premium credits and cost-sharing subsidies through the Exchanges to U.S. citizens and legal immigrants who meet income limits. Employees who are offered coverage by an employer are not eligible for premium credits unless the employer plan does not have an actuarial value of at least 60% or if the employee share of the premium exceeds 9.5% of income. Legal immigrants who are barred from enrolling in Medicaid during their first five years in the U.S. will be eligible for premium credits.
Premium credits Provide refundable and advanceable premium credits to eligible individuals and families with incomes between 100-400% FPL to purchase insurance through the Exchanges. The premium credits will be tied to the second lowest cost silver plan in the area and will be set on a sliding scale such that the premium contributions are limited to the following percentages of income for specified income levels: Up to 133% FPL: 2% of income 133-150% FPL: 3 – 4% of income 150-200% FPL: 4 – 6.3% of income 200-250% FPL: 6.3 – 8.05% of income 250-300% FPL: 8.05 – 9.5% of income 300-400% FPL: 9.5% of income Increase the premium contributions for those receiving subsidies annually to reflect the excess of the premium growth over the rate of income growth for 2014-2018. Beginning in 2019, further adjust the premium contributions to reflect the excess of premium growth over CPI if aggregate premiums and cost sharing subsidies exceed .504% of GDP.
Provisions related to the premium and cost-sharing subsidies are effective January 1, 2014.
Cost-sharing subsidies Provide cost-sharing subsidies to eligible individuals and families. The cost-sharing credits reduce the cost-sharing amounts and annual cost-sharing limits and have the effect of increasing the actuarial value of the basic benefit plan to the following percentages of the full value of the plan for the specified income level:
100-150% FPL: 94%
150-200% FPL: 87%
200-250% FPL: 73%
250-400% FPL: 70%
Verification Require verification of both income and citizenship status in determining eligibility for the federal premium credits.
Subsidies and abortion coverage Ensure that federal premium or cost-sharing subsidies are not used to purchase coverage for abortion if coverage extends beyond saving the life of the woman or cases of rape or incest (Hyde amendment). If an individual who receives federal assistance purchases coverage in a plan that chooses to cover abortion services beyond those for which federal funds are permitted, those federal subsidy funds (for premiums or cost-sharing) must not be used for the purchase of the abortion coverage and must be segregated from private premium payments or state funds.
PREMIUM SUBSIDIES TO EMPLOYERS
Small business tax credits Provide small employers with no more than 25 employees and average annual wages of less than $50,000 that purchase health insurance for employees with a tax credit. Phase I: For tax years 2010 through 2013, provide a tax credit of up to 35% of the employer’s contribution toward the employee’s health insurance premium if the employer contributes at least 50% of the total premium cost or 50% of a benchmark premium. The full credit will be available to employers with 10 or fewer employees and average annual wages of less than $25,000. The credit phases-out as firm size and average wage increases. Tax-exempt small businesses meeting these requirements are eligible for tax credits of up to 25% of the employer’s contribution toward the employee’s health insurance premium. Phase II: For tax years 2014 and later, for eligible small businesses that purchase coverage through the state Exchange, provide a tax credit of up to 50% of the employer’s contribution toward the employee’s health insurance premium if the employer contributes at least 50% of the total premium cost. The credit will be available for two years. The full credit will be available to employers with 10 or fewer employees and average annual wages of less than $25,000. The credit phases-out as firm size and average wage increases. Tax-exempt small businesses meeting these requirements are eligible for tax credits of up to 35% of the employer’s contribution toward the employee’s health insurance premium.
Reinsurance program Create a temporary reinsurance program for employers providing health insurance coverage to retirees over age 55 who are not eligible for Medicare. Program will reimburse employers or insurers for 80% of retiree claims between $15,000 and $90,000. Payments from the reinsurance program will be used to lower the costs for enrollees in the employer plan. Appropriate $5 billion to finance the program. (Effective 90 days following enactment through January 1, 2014)
TAX CHANGES RELATED TO HEALTH INSURANCE OR FINANCING HEALTH REFORM
Tax changes related to health insurance Impose a tax on individuals without qualifying coverage of the greater of $695 per year up to a maximum of three times that amount or 2.5% of household income to be phased-in beginning in 2014.
Exclude the costs for over-the-counter drugs not prescribed by a doctor from being reimbursed through an HRA or health FSA and from being reimbursed on a tax-free basis through an HSA or Archer Medical Savings Account. (Effective January 1, 2011)
Increase the tax on distributions from a health savings account or an Archer MSA that are not used for qualified medical expenses to 20% (from 10% for HSAs and from 15% for Archer MSAs) of the disbursed amount. (Effective January 1, 2011)
Limit the amount of contributions to a flexible spending account for medical expenses to $2,500 per year increased annually by the cost of living adjustment. (Effective January 1, 2013)
Increase the threshold for the itemized deduction for unreimbursed medical expenses from 7.5% of adjusted gross income to 10% of adjusted gross income for regular tax purposes; waive the increase for individuals age 65 and older for tax years 2013 through 2016. (Effective January 1, 2013)
Increase the Medicare Part A (hospital insurance) tax rate on wages by 0.9% (from 1.45% to 2.35%) on earnings over $200,000 for individual taxpayers and $250,000 for married couples filing jointly and impose a 3.8% tax on unearned income for higher-income taxpayers (thresholds are not indexed). (Effective January 1, 2013)
Impose an excise tax on insurers of employer-sponsored health plans with aggregate values that exceed $10,200 for individual coverage and $27,500 for family coverage (these threshold values will be indexed to the consumer price index for urban consumers (CPI-U) for years beginning in 2020). The threshold amounts will be increased for retired individuals age 55 and older who are not eligible for Medicare and for employees engaged in high-risk professions by $1,650 for individual coverage and $3,450 for family coverage. The threshold amounts may be adjusted upwards if health care costs rise more than expected prior to implementation of the tax in 2018. The threshold amounts will be increased for firms that may have higher health care costs because of the age or gender of their workers. The tax is equal to 40% of the value of the plan that exceeds the threshold amounts and is imposed on the issuer of the health insurance policy, which in the case of a self-insured plan is the plan administrator or, in some cases, the employer. The aggregate value of the health insurance plan includes reimbursements under a flexible spending account for medical expenses (health FSA) or health reimbursement arrangement (HRA), employer contributions to a health savings account (HSA), and coverage for supplementary health insurance coverage, excluding dental and vision coverage. (Effective January 1, 2018)
Eliminate the tax deduction for employers who receive Medicare Part D retiree drug subsidy payments. (Effective January 1, 2013)
Tax changes related to financing health reform Impose new annual fees on the pharmaceutical manufacturing sector, according to the following schedule: $2.8 billion in 2012-2013;$3.0 billion in 2014-2016; $4.0 billion in 2017; $4.1 billion in 2018; and 2.8 billion in 2019 and later.
Impose an annual fee on the health insurance sector, according to the following schedule: $8 billion in 2014; $11.3 billion in 2015-2016; $13.9 billion in 2017; $14.3 billion in 2018 For subsequent years, the fee shall be the amount from the previous year increased by the rate of premium growth.
For non-profit insurers, only 50% of net premiums are taken into account in calculating the fee. Exemptions granted for non-profit plans that receive more than 80% of their income from government programs targeting low-income or elderly populations, or people with disabilities, and voluntary employees’ beneficiary associations (VEBAs) not established by an employer. (Effective January 1, 2014) Impose an excise tax of 2.3% on the sale of any taxable medical device. (Effective for sales after December 31, 2012)
Limit the deductibility of executive and employee compensation to $500,000 per applicable individual for health insurance providers. (Effective January 1, 2009)
Impose a tax of 10% on the amount paid for indoor tanning services. (Effective July 1, 2010)
Exclude unprocessed fuels from the definition of cellulosic biofuel for purposes of applying the cellulosic biofuel producer credit. (Effective January 1, 2010)
Clarify application of the economic substance doctrine and increase penalties for underpayments attributable to a transaction lacking economic substance. (Effective upon enactment)
HEALTH INSURANCE EXCHANGES
Creation and structure of health insurance exchanges Create state-based American Health Benefit Exchanges and Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) Exchanges, administered by a governmental agency or non-profit organization, through which individuals and small businesses with up to 100 employees can purchase qualified coverage. Permit states to allow businesses with more than 100 employees to purchase coverage in the SHOP Exchange beginning in 2017. States may form regional Exchanges or allow more than one Exchange to operate in a state as long as each Exchange serves a distinct geographic area. (Funding available to states to establish Exchanges within one year of enactment and until January 1, 2015)
Eligibility to purchase in the exchanges Restrict access to coverage through the Exchanges to U.S. citizens and legal immigrants who are not incarcerated.
Multi-state plans Require the Office of Personnel Management to contract with insurers to offer at least two multi-state plans in each Exchange. At least one plan must be offered by a non-profit entity and at least one plan must not provide coverage for abortions beyond those permitted by federal law. Each multi-state plan must be licensed in each state and must meet the qualifications of a qualified health plan. If a state has lower age rating requirements than 3:1, the state may require multi-state plans to meet the more protective age rating rules. These multi-state plans will be offered separately from the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program and will have a separate risk pool.
Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan (CO-OP) Create the Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan (CO-OP) program to foster the creation of non-profit, member-run health insurance companies in all 50 states and District of Columbia to offer qualified health plans. To be eligible to receive funds, an organization must not be an existing health insurer or sponsored by a state or local government, substantially all of its activities must consist of the issuance of qualified health benefit plans in each state in which it is licensed, governance of the organization must be subject to a majority vote of its members, must operate with a strong consumer focus, and any profits must be used to lower premiums, improve benefits, or improve the quality of health care delivered to its members. (Appropriate $4.8 billion to finance the program and award loans and grants to establish CO-OPs by July 1, 2013)
Benefit tiers Create four benefit categories of plans plus a separate catastrophic plan to be offered through the Exchange, and in the individual and small group markets: Bronze plan represents minimum creditable coverage and provides the essential health benefits, cover 60% of the benefit costs of the plan, with an out-of-pocket limit equal to the Health Savings Account (HSA) current law limit ($5,950 for individuals and $11,900 for families in 2010); Silver plan provides the essential health benefits, covers 70% of the benefit costs of the plan, with the HSA out-of-pocket limits; Gold plan provides the essential health benefits, covers 80% of the benefit costs of the plan, with the HSA out-of-pocket limits; Platinum plan provides the essential health benefits, covers 90% of the benefit costs of the plan, with the HSA out-of-pocket limits; Catastrophic plan available to those up to age 30 or to those who are exempt from the mandate to purchase coverage and provides catastrophic coverage only with the coverage level set at the HSA current law levels except that prevention benefits and coverage for three primary care visits would be exempt from the deductible. This plan is only available in the individual market.
Reduce the out-of-pocket limits for those with incomes up to 400% FPL to the following levels: 100-200% FPL: one-third of the HSA limits ($1,983/individual and $3,967/family); 200-300% FPL: one-half of the HSA limits ($2,975/individual and $5,950/family); 300-400% FPL: two-thirds of the HSA limits ($3,987/individual and $7,973/family).
These out-of-pocket reductions are applied within the actuarial limits of the plan and will not increase the actuarial value of the plan.
Insurance market and rating rules Require guarantee issue and renewability and allow rating variation based only on age (limited to 3 to 1 ratio), premium rating area, family composition, and tobacco use (limited to 1.5. to 1 ratio) in the individual and the small group market and the Exchange.
Require risk adjustment in the individual and small group markets and in the Exchange. (Effective January 1, 2014)
Qualifications of participating health plans Require qualified health plans participating in the Exchange to meet marketing requirements, have adequate provider networks, contract with essential community providers, contract with navigators to conduct outreach and enrollment assistance, be accredited with respect to performance on quality measures, use a uniform enrollment form and standard format to present plan information.
Require qualified health plans to report information on claims payment policies, enrollment, disenrollment, number of claims denied, cost-sharing requirements, out-of-network policies, and enrollee rights in plain language.
Requirements of the exchanges Require the Exchanges to maintain a call center for customer service, and establish procedures for enrolling individuals and businesses and for determining eligibility for tax credits. Require states to develop a single form for applying for state health subsidy programs that can be filed online, in person, by mail or by phone. Permit Exchanges to contract with state Medicaid agencies to determine eligibility for tax credits in the Exchanges.
Require Exchanges to submit financial reports to the Secretary and comply with oversight investigations including a GAO study on the operation and administration of Exchanges.
Basic health plan Permit states the option to create a Basic Health Plan for uninsured individuals with incomes between 133-200% FPL who would otherwise be eligible to receive premium subsidies in the Exchange. States opting to provide this coverage will contract with one or more standard plans to provide at least the essential health benefits and must ensure that eligible individuals do not pay more in premiums than they would have paid in the Exchange and that the cost-sharing requirements do not exceed those of the platinum plan for enrollees with income less than 150% FPL or the gold plan for all other enrollees. States will receive 95% of the funds that would have been paid as federal premium and cost-sharing subsidies for eligible individuals to establish the Basic Health Plan. Individuals with incomes between 133-200% FPL in states creating Basic Health Plans will not be eligible for subsidies in the Exchanges.
Abortion coverage Permit states to prohibit plans participating in the Exchange from providing coverage for abortions.
Require plans that choose to offer coverage for abortions beyond those for which federal funds are permitted (to save the life of the woman and in cases of rape or incest) in states that allow such coverage to create allocation accounts for segregating premium payments for coverage of abortion services from premium payments for coverage for all other services to ensure that no federal premium or cost-sharing subsidies are used to pay for the abortion coverage. Plans must also estimate the actuarial value of covering abortions by taking into account the cost of the abortion benefit (valued at no less than $1 per enrollee per month) and cannot take into account any savings that might be reaped as a result of the abortions. Prohibit plans participating in the Exchanges from discriminating against any provider because of an unwillingness to provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions.
Effective dates Unless otherwise noted, provisions relating to the American Health Benefit Exchanges are effective January 1, 2014.
BENEFIT DESIGN
Essential benefits package Create an essential health benefits package that provides a comprehensive set of services, covers at least 60% of the actuarial value of the covered benefits, limits annual cost-sharing to the current law HSA limits ($5,950/individual and $11,900/family in 2010), and is not more extensive than the typical employer plan. Require the Secretary to define and annually update the benefit package through a transparent and public process. (Effective January 1, 2014)
Require all qualified health benefits plans, including those offered through the Exchanges and those offered in the individual and small group markets outside the Exchanges, except grandfathered individual and employer-sponsored plans, to offer at least the essential health benefits package. (Effective January 1, 2014)
Abortion coverage Prohibit abortion coverage from being required as part of the essential health benefits package. (Effective January 1, 2014)
CHANGES TO PRIVATE INSURANCE
Temporary high-risk pool Establish a temporary national high-risk pool to provide health coverage to individuals with pre-existing medical conditions. U.S. citizens and legal immigrants who have a pre-existing medical condition and who have been uninsured for at least six months will be eligible to enroll in the high-risk pool and receive subsidized premiums. Premiums for the pool will be established for a standard population and may vary by no more than 4 to 1 due to age; maximum cost-sharing will be limited to the current law HSA limit ($5,950/individual and $11,900/family in 2010). Appropriate $5 billion to finance the program. (Effective within 90 days of enactment until January 1, 2014)
Medical loss ratio and premium rate reviews Require health plans to report the proportion of premium dollars spent on clinical services, quality, and other costs and provide rebates to consumers for the amount of the premium spent on clinical services and quality that is less than 85% for plans in the large group market and 80% for plans in the individual and small group markets. (Requirement to report medical loss ratio effective plan year 2010; requirement to provide rebates effective January 1, 2011)
Establish a process for reviewing increases in health plan premiums and require plans to justify increases. Require states to report on trends in premium increases and recommend whether certain plan should be excluded from the Exchange based on unjustified premium increases. Provide grants to states to support efforts to review and approve premium increases. (Effective beginning plan year 2010)
Administrative simplification Adopt standards for financial and administrative transactions to promote administrative simplification. (Effective dates vary)
Dependent coverage Provide dependent coverage for children up to age 26 for all individual and group policies. (Effective six months following enactment)
Insurance market rules Prohibit individual and group health plans from placing lifetime limits on the dollar value of coverage and prohibit insurers from rescinding coverage except in cases of fraud. Prohibit pre-existing condition exclusions for children. (Effective six months following enactment) Beginning in January 2014, prohibit individual and group health plans from placing annual limits on the dollar value of coverage. Prior to January 2014, plans may only impose annual limits on coverage as determined by the Secretary.
Grandfather existing individual and group plans with respect to new benefit standards, but require these grandfathered plans to extend dependent coverage to adult children up to age 26 and prohibit rescissions of coverage. Require grandfathered group plans to eliminate lifetime limits on coverage and beginning in 2014, eliminate annual limits on coverage. Prior to 2014, grandfathered group plans may only impose annual limits as determined by the Secretary. Require grandfathered group plans to eliminate pre-existing condition exclusions for children within six months of enactment and by 2014 for adults, and eliminate waiting periods for coverage of greater than 90 days by 2014. (Effective six months following enactment, except where otherwise specified)
Impose the same insurance market regulations relating to guarantee issue, premium rating, and prohibitions on pre-existing condition exclusions in the individual market, in the Exchange, and in the small group market. (See new rating and market rules in Creation of insurance pooling mechanism.) (Effective January 1, 2014)
Require all new policies (except stand-alone dental, vision, and long-term care insurance plans), including those offered through the Exchanges and those offered outside of the Exchanges, to comply with one of the four benefit categories. Existing individual and employer-sponsored plans do not have to meet the new benefit standards. (See description of benefit categories in Creation of insurance pooling mechanism.) (Effective January 1, 2014)
Limit deductibles for health plans in the small group market to $2,000 for individuals and $4,000 for families unless contributions are offered that offset deductible amounts above these limits. This deductible limit will not affect the actuarial value of any plans. (Effective January 1, 2014)
Limit any waiting periods for coverage to 90 days. (Effective January 1, 2014)
Create a temporary reinsurance program to collect payments from health insurers in the individual and group markets to provide payments to plans in the individual market that cover high-risk individuals. Finance the reinsurance program through mandatory contributions by health insurers totaling $25 billion over three years. (Effective January 1, 2014 through December 2016)
Allow states the option of merging the individual and small group markets. (Effective January 1, 2014)
Consumer protections Establish an internet website to help residents identify health coverage options (effective July 1, 2010) and develop a standard format for presenting information on coverage options (effective 60 days following enactment).
Develop standards for insurers to use in providing information on benefits and coverage. (Standards developed within 12 months following enactment; insurer must comply with standards within 24 months following enactment)
Health care choice compacts and national plans Permit states to form health care choice compacts and allow insurers to sell policies in any state participating in the compact. Insurers selling policies through a compact would only be subject to the laws and regulations of the state where the policy is written or issued, except for rules pertaining to market conduct, unfair trade practices, network adequacy, and consumer protections. Compacts may only be approved if it is determined that the compact will provide coverage that is at least as comprehensive and affordable as coverage provided through the state Exchanges. (Regulations issued by July 1, 2013, compacts may not take effect before January 1, 2016)
Health insurance administration Establish the Health Insurance Reform Implementation Fund within the Department of Health and Human Services and allocate $1 billion to implement health reform policies.
STATE ROLE
State role Create an American Health Benefit Exchange and a Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) Exchange for individuals and small businesses and provide oversight of health plans with regard to the new insurance market regulations, consumer protections, rate reviews, solvency, reserve fund requirements, premium taxes, and to define rating areas.
Enroll newly eligible Medicaid beneficiaries into the Medicaid program no later than January 2014 (states have the option to expand enrollment beginning in 2011), coordinate enrollment with the new Exchanges, and implement other specified changes to the Medicaid program. Maintain current Medicaid and CHIP eligibility levels for children until 2019 and maintain current Medicaid eligibility levels for adults until the Exchange is fully operational. A state will be exempt from the maintenance of effort requirement for non-disabled adults with incomes above 133% FPL for any year from January 2011 through December 31, 2013 if the state certifies that it is experiencing a budget deficit or will experience a deficit in the following year.
Establish an office of health insurance consumer assistance or an ombudsman program to serve as an advocate for people with private coverage in the individual and small group markets. (Federal grants available beginning fiscal year 2010)
Permit states to create a Basic Health Plan for uninsured individuals with incomes between 133% and 200% FPL in lieu of these individuals receiving premium subsidies to purchase coverage in the Exchanges. (Effective January 1, 2014) Permit states to obtain a five-year waiver of certain new health insurance requirements if the state can demonstrate that it provides health coverage to all residents that is at least as comprehensive as the coverage required under an Exchange plan and that the state plan does not increase the federal budget deficit. (Effective January 1, 2017)
COST CONTAINMENT
Administrative simplification Simplify health insurance administration by adopting a single set of operating rules for eligibility verification and claims status (rules adopted July 1, 2011; effective January 1, 2013), electronic funds transfers and health care payment and remittance (rules adopted July 1, 2012; effective January 1, 2014), and h | 0 | train |
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Obama: Mitt Romney refused to say whether he supports Lilly Ledbetter Act Updated Thursday, October 25th, 2012 at 2:08 p.m.
Asked about fair pay for women during the second presidential debate, President Barack Obama was quick to bring up the first piece of legislation he signed into law -- the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
Audience member Katherine Fenton asked Obama, "In what new ways to you intend to rectify the inequalities in the workplace, specifically regarding females making only 72 percent of what their male counterparts earn?"
Obama talked about being raised by a single mom who put herself through school and of his grandmother, who worked her way up from a bank secretary to a vice president but "hit the glass ceiling."
"She trained people who would end up becoming her bosses during the course of her career. She didn't complain. That's not what you did in that generation," he said at the debate at Hofstra University on Oct. 16, 2012. "And this is one of the reasons why one of the first -- the first bill I signed was something called the Lilly Ledbetter bill."
Romney responded by saying at one point he had more women in senior leadership positions than any other governor and that he wanted to help more women find jobs.
Obama jumped in, saying, "Katherine, I just want to point out that when Gov. Romney's campaign was asked about the Lilly Ledbetter bill, whether he supported it, he said, ‘I'll get back to you.’ And that's not the kind of advocacy that women need in any economy."
Did Romney and his campaign really refuse to say whether he supported the law? Sort of.
The law, which Obama signed on Jan. 29, 2009, made it easier for workers to pursue wage discrimination claims but received little Republican support in Congress. It updated 1960s civil rights and age discrimination laws to reset the statute of limitations on such claims with each new paycheck. In 2007, the Supreme Court had ruled in Ledbetter vs. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. that the 180-day statute of limitations started from the day an employer made the decision to discriminate — making it harder for employees who claimed such discrimination later to get relief, such as back pay.
What did Romney have to say about it? For a previous fact-check in May, the Obama campaign directed us to a couple media reports.
In an April 2012 conference call covered by a Washington Post blogger, a Huffington Post reporter asked an unnamed Romney adviser whether Romney supported the Lilly Ledbetter Act. The adviser responded, "Sam (Stein), we’ll get back to you on that."
Later, Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul clarified in an email, "He supports pay equity and is not looking to change current law."
The second piece the Obama campaign showed us was a Romney interview by Diane Sawyer of ABC News. Sawyer asked Romney, " If you were president — you had been president — would you have signed the Lilly Ledbetter Law?"
Romney’s response:
Romney: "It's certainly a piece of legislation I have no intention of changing. I wasn't there three years ago —"
Sawyer: "But would you have signed it?"
Romney: "... I'm not going to go back and look at all the prior laws and say had I been there which ones would I have supported and signed, but I certainly support equal pay for women and — and have no intention of changing that law, don't think there's a reason to."
Here, Romney did refuse to say whether he would have signed the bill into law. But he also said he has "no intention of changing that law."
Our ruling
Obama said that when asked whether he would have signed the Lilly Ledbetter Act into law, Romney's campaign said, "I'll get back to you." His point was that the campaign was dodging the question.
Indeed, a Romney adviser did say earlier this year that he would "get back" to a reporter about whether he supported the Lilly Ledbetter Act. A spokeswoman then said he would not change it, and Romney later said he "certainly support(s) equal pay for women," and has "no intention of changing that law."
So Obama is correct about the initial statement, but Romney later clarified by saying he wouldn't change the law. We rate Obama's claim Mostly True.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this item said the Supreme Court's Ledbetter decision made it "impossible for employees who learned of such discrimination later to get relief, such as back pay." In fact, the court declined to address the question of whether employees who learned of discrimination after the statute of limitations expired would be protected under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. | 0 | train |
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Former presidents walk fine line in Trump’s America George W. Bush has lobbed thinly-veiled critiques of President Donald Trump on his approach to the press and the travel ban from some Muslim-majority countries. | AP Photo Former presidents walk fine line in Trump’s America Trump's predecessors are trying to both defend their legacies and respect the unwritten rule of not undermining the current commander in chief.
During his “American carnage” inaugural address, President Donald Trump sent a clear message: all of the presidents in recent memory have failed the American people.
The harsh rhetoric of Trump’s inaugural address made an impression on his predecessors, with George W. Bush reportedly calling it “some weird s--t” and Jimmy Carter saying he “flinched” when Trump appeared to back off America's commitment to human rights.
Story Continued Below
In Trump’s America, the five living former presidents are walking a fine line, attempting to defend their legacies while also trying to respect the “unwritten rule” that former presidents avoid undermining their successors.
“The immediate former presidents have been more active in their criticism of the current president,” George C. Edwards, a presidential historian at Texas A&M, said. “This kind of thing has been going on throughout history, but normally it’s not very much. This is very early in a tenure and to have former presidents being critical of the president… is pretty unusual.”
As Obama returns to the public spotlight, his former aides have made it clear he has no intention of talking much about Trump. However, he’s made his displeasure clear.
Obama, who campaigned heavily for Hillary Clinton, said he was “heartened” by the protests following Trump’s immigration ban targeting Muslim-majority countries. He also released a lengthy statement defending the Affordable Care Act against Trump’s attempts to repeal it.
At a speech in Boston on Sunday night, Obama avoided mentioning Trump by name, but again forcefully defended his signature health care legislation and mentioned immigration reform. “I expect to be busy, if not with a second career, at least a second act,” Obama said Sunday.
And on Monday, Obama’s aides aggressively pushed back against Trump for trying to blame his predecessor for the woes associated with Trump’s disgraced former national security adviser Michael Flynn. While Trump and White House press secretary Sean Spicer have repeatedly denounced Obama for not revoking Flynn’s security clearance, Obama aides told reporters that Obama tried to warn Trump about Flynn’s erratic nature.
George W. Bush, meanwhile, has lobbed thinly veiled critiques of Trump on his approach to the press and the travel ban from some Muslim-majority countries. “I consider the media to be indispensable to democracy,” Bush said in an interview with “Today” in February. “We need an independent media to hold people like me to account.”
As for the travel ban, Bush was restrained but clear in his concern. “I am for an immigration policy that's welcoming and upholds the law,” Bush said.
Carter also voiced concerns after Trump’s inauguration. During an early April appearance at Emory University, he said he wanted to avoid addressing politics but he hoped the women’s movement would be “invigorated” by Trump and that he didn’t see “any glimmer of hope” from the administration on race and gender issues.
Bill Clinton, who was harshly critical of Trump during the Manhattan businessman’s presidential campaign, didn’t mince words about Trump when he ran into a local newspaper editor while holiday shopping. “He doesn’t know much,” Clinton said in late December. “One thing he does know is how to get angry white men to vote for him.”
George H.W. Bush, who has been in and out of the hospital, remains the only living president to avoid any political commentary.
Criticism of the current president by former presidents is not completely unprecedented, however. For example, Herbert Hoover criticized Franklin D. Roosevelt, his successor.
“We’ve seen some criticism already of the incumbent president, but that’s not really unprecedented,” Tim Naftali, a presidential historian at New York University, said. “If it continues at a drumbeat from former presidents, then it will be something new.”
Current and former aides to the living former presidents say their former bosses are careful in criticizing the current occupant of the West Wing. Stuart Eizenstat, Carter’s chief domestic policy adviser and a former ambassador, said it usually takes an extraordinary occurrence for a former president to criticize a sitting president.
“There’s a recognition that there is something so unique and special about the presidency, that, notwithstanding what might be very deep and serious policy differences and personal understandings, you simply bite your tongue,” he said. “You don’t try to undercut the president because you know what impact that would have had when you were president.”
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While in office, former presidents occasionally turn to their predecessors for guidance. Former aides say particularly on foreign policy issues, previous presidents and statesmen can be a valuable resource.
“Most of the time President Clinton reached out to former heads of state, or people like Henry Kissinger or James Baker, they were usually foreign policy issues, where you had a perspective there that was pretty unique on dealing with a similar situation,” Mack McLarty, Clinton’s former chief of staff, said.
For example, Carter worked with former President Gerald Ford on the treaties which turned control of the Panama Canal over to Panama. Eizenstat said Carter instructed negotiator Sol Linowitz to call Ford immediately after the deal was ratified.
Others primarily use their predecessors for humanitarian trips. Harry Truman famously sent Hoover to address the post-World War II famine, and George W. Bush had his father and Clinton help with relief efforts for the tsunami in Southeast Asia and Hurricane Katrina. Most recently, Obama sent the younger Bush and Clinton to Haiti to help after the 2010 earthquake.
“What would be really unusual is if no former president undertook any missions on behalf of the incumbent president,” Naftali said. “If we see that none of the former presidents want anything to do with the Trump administration, that would be a first in the modern history of the American presidency.”
All in all, most presidents have made an effort to remain engaged socially with their predecessors. Clinton and H.W. Bush are particularly close despite their hard-fought 1992 election, with Clinton tweeting pictures of the two in April.
But Trump is no normal president. Trump, who rose politically for questioning the legitimacy of his predecessor, at first appeared to have forged a working relationship with Obama, receiving advice both in person and over the phone. Obama even said he was “encouraged” by their first post-election meeting.
Trump has since leveled unfounded wiretapping accusations against Obama, and the president abruptly ended a recent interview with CBS’ John Dickerson after Dickerson pressed him on his comments about Obama.
“He was very nice to me, but after that, we've had some difficulties,” Trump said before referencing his debunked wiretapping allegation and saying that the alleged wiretapping was “inappropriate.”
As Barack Obama returns to the public spotlight, his former aides have made it clear he has no intention of talking much about President Donald Trump. | AP Photo
Historically speaking, Trump’s relationship with the living former presidents is more fraught than any of his predecessors’ had been, Laura Belmonte, a presidential historian at Oklahoma State University, said. “That one I think may be a category where Trump is on his own,” she said
And Trump hasn’t shied away from criticizing those who came before him. As president, Trump called Obama a “bad (or sick) guy!” as part of his debunked wire-tapping claim. He called George W. Bush “not nice” during the campaign, said the Bush administration “lied” about the Iraq War and called Bill Clinton “the WORST abuser of women in U.S. political history.”
George H.W. Bush and Carter weren’t excluded from Trump’s slights. “Enough is Enough- No More Bushses!” Trump tweeted during the campaign. He also criticized Carter as unpresidential for carrying his own luggage.
Steven Hochman, an aide to Carter at the Carter Center who helped the 92-year-old former president write his memoirs, said Carter hopes he and his center will be able to work with the Trump administration.
And Carter hasn't always seized opportunities to knock Trump. The former president appeared with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) Monday to discuss human rights, and — while revealing that he voted for Sanders — Carter said the "downturn" of human rights "preceded 2016."
“President Carter, I think he hopes that he won’t need to speak out but I would assume that if there were something he needed to say, he would say it,” Hochman said. “Actually, I’m sure he would.”
Both Bushes are more focused on their nonprofit work than engaging in politics, said Samuel Skinner, who served as the senior Bush's chief of staff. He’s spoken to both since the inauguration, and neither has mentioned Trump.
“They may have personal opinions, but they’re not going to express them,” Skinner said. “Both 41 and 43 are very measured people, so I think they’ve been both very cautious about what they say.”
McLarty, Clinton’s former chief of staff, predicted his former boss will continue to weigh in on the politics of the day. “I wouldn't be surprised at all if he expresses serious differences of opinion on economic, domestic and international policies,” he said.
Getting seriously involved in politics is a no-win scenario for former presidents, Skinner said, adding that the legacies of the former presidents are being shaped by historians, not today’s events in Washington.
“I think any time and energy they have could be better spent working in nonprofits and their libraries,” he said. | 1 | train |
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Keanu on Trump travel ban: ‘just terrible’ At the Los Angeles premiere of their latest film, "John Wick: Chapter 2," stars Keanu Reeves, Common and Laurence Fishburne discuss Donald Trump's travel ban and subsequent protests. (Jan. 31) | 1 | train |
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'This Week' Transcript: Rep. Paul Ryan AMANPOUR (voice-over): This week, budget blowback.
(UNKNOWN): We can't afford it, you moron!
AMANPOUR: As town halls across America erupt in anger over a plan to slash spending...
(UNKNOWN): You're a liar!
AMANPOUR: ... Republicans find themselves under fire.
(UNKNOWN): ... he was yelling at me, cursing at me.
AMANPOUR: I go to the heartland with the man behind the plan, House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.
RYAN: Let's prove to them that Wisconsinites can have a civil debate.
AMANPOUR: Then, in the crosshairs. A NATO bomb hits a house with Gadhafi inside, killing his son and three grandchildren. How will the strongman strike back? And how does it all end?
(UNKNOWN): This was a direct operation to assassinate the leader of this country.
AMANPOUR: What's the way out for the U.S.? A former administration insider weighs in.
Plus, we're live from the Vatican, as Pope John Paul II gets one step closer to sainthood. Is the fast track too fast?
ANNOUNCER: Live from the Newseum in Washington, "This Week" with Christiane Amanpour starts right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Welcome to our viewers here and around the world. There is a lot happening this Sunday, and we begin with unfolding news in the Libyan capital, Tripoli. The Libyan government is condemning what it called, quote, "a direct operation to assassinate Moammar Gadhafi," this after a NATO bomb hit Gadhafi's compound. It spared him, but killed three of his grandchildren and his youngest son. So could this be a game-changer in the war, which has dragged into a stalemate in recent weeks?
We go live now to Libya for the very latest on the ground. ABC's Miguel Marquez is in Benghazi, and the BBC's Christian Fraser is in Tripoli, where the attack took place.
Christian, let's start with you. Is there a feeling now that the war is entering a new phase around Tripoli?
FRASER: I think that's a very real possibility, Christiane. The way that the press visit to this bomb site was orchestrated last night, it was very deliberately held back for two hours, and then we were taken there and then given a press conference here at the hotel, in which Moussa Ibrahim spelled out what he thought the attack meant does suggest that they will try and make as much political capital from this as they can.
Certainly, it puts pressure on NATO and its allies. And we've seen already a very angry reaction from his supporters in Tripoli, reports of attacks on the U.S. embassy. I've spoken to U.N. officials today who say their offices were looted, also reports of attacks on the British and Italian missions here in Tripoli.
The unknowns, of course, are what Colonel Gadhafi's response will be. We've not heard from him yet. We don't know what the response of his supporters will be in the days ahead, and we don't know, really, what the sort of international reaction will be to what has unfolded here last night.
AMANPOUR: A lot of questions there, Christian, and we'll continue to monitor it.
Of course, the U.S. embassy is empty, because all of the staff have been evacuated over the last several weeks and months. And now we go to the other side of this conflict and ABC's Miguel Marquez, who's in the east there in rebel-held Benghazi.
Miguel, what is the reaction from the rebels? Do they think this attack could end the stalemate and signify a new -- a new impetus for them?
MARQUEZ: Well, the rebels certainly aren't buying this attack. They think that no one was killed in Tripoli last night. They're literally saying, "Show us the bodies." They believe that this is a trick, another trick by Colonel Moammar Gadhafi, and they say that he is making this up simply to win that international support to divide the coalition. They simply want to see those bodies. Whether or not it will make a difference to this I think will depend on what Colonel Gadhafi and his troops do in the hours and days ahead -- Christiane?
AMANPOUR: But, Miguel, is there any sense beyond this attack that the rebels are getting any more organized or getting any more weapons that they can actually take advantage of the help that NATO is giving them?
MARQUEZ: There's a lot of winks and nods there. There are indications that the Qataris are arming up. Certainly, there's been some reporting on that front, but the rebels here are being very shy about it. There are reports that the Qataris are (OFF-MIKE) but we haven't seen any evidence of that.
The other thing that the rebels say about this, that this (OFF- MIKE) you know, the Predator drones were a huge boost to them, and they believe that the U.S., they hope, will take even a greater role in leading operations here in Libya -- Christiane?
AMANPOUR: Miguel, thank you so much.
And later in the show, we'll get an expert's take on whether this attack on Gadhafi will be a turning point in what's become a stalemate for the United States and its allies. But first, we turn to a different sort of battle being waged right here in the United States. It's a budget battle, of course, and this was the week Republican Congress members went home to defend their sweeping budget plan before their constituents. And the reception at one town hall after another was rocky.
The plan is the brain child of House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, who's feeling some of the heat himself. I traveled to Wisconsin to see how Ryan is weathering the storm.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: How are the crowds increasing and their levels of anxiety and frustration?
RYAN: It's increasing, no two ways about it.
AMANPOUR (voice-over): Congressman Ryan is at the center of the storm. It's his plan, of course, that has sparked the outcries. Across the country, the anger is palpable.
(UNKNOWN): May I finish?
(UNKNOWN): No.
(CROSSTALK)
(UNKNOWN): You went and gave away all those tax cuts.
AMANPOUR: We've seen Republican congressmen fending off boos and catcalls from constituents over a plan to fundamentally overhaul two programs that millions of Americans have come to count on, Medicare and Medicaid.
RYAN: Hey, guys. How are you doing?
AMANPOUR: With Congress in recess, Ryan is holding as many as four town meetings a day, and it's still not enough to keep up with demand from his constituents.
(UNKNOWN): What I can do is I can give you a list of the other listening sessions we have scheduled today.
RYAN: The crowds are really getting bigger, and people are getting much more anxious about just where the country's headed.
AMANPOUR: This is the tail end of the marathon series of town halls for Ryan, who seems wholly unconcerned with the heat he's taking these days. Though the crowds we saw in Wisconsin were mostly friendly, some of his town meetings have been contentious.
(UNKNOWN): (OFF-MIKE) trickle down.
RYAN: We do (OFF-MIKE)
(CROSSTALK) RYAN: It's a sign of the times, I think. I think it's a sign of anxiety of the times. It's also a sign of the misinformation that's been perpetrated out there.
AMANPOUR (on-screen): Well, why do you say "misinformation"?
RYAN: Well, there are TV, radio and phone calls that are running, trying to scare seniors. You know, the Democratic National Committee is running phone calls to seniors in my district, TV ads, saying we're hurting current seniors when, in fact, that's not the case. And so there's a lot of...
AMANPOUR: Isn't that, though, par for the course?
(CROSSTALK)
AMANPOUR: I mean, didn't you lot do it the last time?
RYAN: Yes, Republicans -- Republicans -- both parties do this to each other. And my whole point about that is, that's why we have this political paralysis.
AMANPOUR (voice-over): On the day we joined him, the gym at Franklin High School fills up well before the congressman arrives.
(APPLAUSE)
AMANPOUR: Ryan's presentation is earnest and, it must be said, wonky.
RYAN: This pie chart shows you our federal government, basically its budget for last year.
AMANPOUR: The most controversial aspect of Paul Ryan's budget plan would transform Medicare. He knows that could be political poison with seniors, and so he makes sure to remind those in the crowd the changes wouldn't impact them.
RYAN: How many of you are 55 years of age or older? This budget does not affect your Medicare benefits.
AMANPOUR: But for many, that leaves more questions than answers, especially since budget watchdogs estimate the Medicare revamp would cost people who are now under 55 thousands of dollars out of pocket each year once their benefits kick in, and that has some here in Franklin very concerned.
(UNKNOWN): ... because it's going to be a real burden for them, especially with the economy coming up. And I think about all of the 54-year-olds who have been unemployed. Where are they going to come up with this money in 10 years to last their whole lifetime?
AMANPOUR: Ryan argues delay is not an option.
RYAN: Put these reforms in now, they don't take effect for 10 years to give people time to prepare. If we keep kicking the can down the road and if we keep going trillions of dollars deeper in the hole, then the reforms are going to be sudden, urgent, and severe, and immediate, and people won't have -- that are going to catch them by surprise.
AMANPOUR: Then the session ends...
RYAN: I appreciate you coming out.
AMANPOUR: ... and Congressman Ryan is off. I stayed back to speak with two of the women in the audience, Jackie (ph) and Lois (ph), each with very different perspectives on the congressman's plan.
(UNKNOWN): I don't appreciate it at all, and that burns my potatoes. And I think it's not fair. And I think it's selfish and self-centered. You're worried about the seniors of today, and we have the seniors of tomorrow. We need to be worried about them, too. And there's a better way of fixing this plan, this problem that we didn't get into, but we always got to be the ones.
AMANPOUR (on-screen): Did you vote for Paul Ryan?
(UNKNOWN): No. No.
AMANPOUR: Did you?
(UNKNOWN): Yes.
AMANPOUR (voice-over): Lois says Ryan is trying to fix the problem before time and money run out.
(on-screen): The CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, has said that the average senior will end up paying some $6,500 more for their health care.
(UNKNOWN): In 10 years.
AMANPOUR: Yes.
(UNKNOWN): By 2020, the whole plan Obama has is going to crash.
RYAN: A few sentences later, CBO also said that the status quo of Medicare is unsustainable.
AMANPOUR: Maybe, but it's going to shift a huge burden on to the elderly.
RYAN: Right. But what the CBO also forgot to add is that we're giving an additional $7,800 for low-income seniors on top of that. And I would argue -- and CBO concurs with this -- comparing any Medicare reform plan with the Medicare status quo is a fiscal fantasy. The Medicare status quo is not going be able to occur, because it's unsustainable.
AMANPOUR (voice-over): And Ryan dismisses any talk that tackling this thorny issue will cost Republicans at the polls.
(on-screen): And now people are getting worried, people in your party. Perhaps they might think it might even cost them the election.
RYAN: Sure. And I hear this all the time from the political people, from the pundits and the pollsters that this could be -- this could hurt us politically. I don't care about that. What I care about is fixing this country and getting this debt situation under control.
Look, literally, Christiane, if all we fear about is our political careers, then we have no business having these jobs. If you want to good at these jobs, you've got to be willing to lose the job.
AMANPOUR (voice-over): Still, politically it's a delicate dance. Just listen to Speaker John Boehner discuss Ryan's plan in an interview with ABC's Jon Karl.
BOEHNER: It's Paul's idea. Other people have other ideas. I'm not wedded to one single idea.
AMANPOUR (on-screen): How do you feel when Speaker Boehner tells ABC News that he's not wedded to your program, it's a good idea, it's one of many?
RYAN: I've talked to John about this. It's an institutional statement reflecting budget resolutions. And what a budget resolution -- which is what we've passed -- it's the architecture of a budget.
AMANPOUR: So you didn't take it personally about...
(CROSSTALK)
RYAN: No, not at all. I didn't take it personally. It's not -- it wasn't meant to be personal. I don't take it that way.
AMANPOUR: Are you sure about that?
RYAN: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I've talked to him quite a bit about this.
AMANPOUR (voice-over): And with that, we arrive at our next stop.
RYAN: Hey, folks. Nice to see you. Thank you very much.
AMANPOUR: Some boos, but mostly cheers. The crowd is largely supportive.
(UNKNOWN): And I'd like to thank you for being a bold person and standing up and saying, "Listen, we can't continue this way."
AMANPOUR: Still, this man is angry that Ryan's plan refuses to consider raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans.
(UNKNOWN): Borrow the money from the rich, fix the problem.
RYAN: Look, I think a lot of people think this is sort of like the magic fairy dust of budgets, that we can just make a small amount of people pay some more taxes and it will fix all of our problems. Well, let's keep our eye on the ball. The eye on the ball is spending. And the sooner we get this thing under control, the better off everybody is going to be.
AMANPOUR (on-screen): How do you feel about being the bogeyman in this whole budget business?
RYAN: You know, I don't really think about it. I sleep well at night.
AMANPOUR (voice-over): At the end of the day, Congressman Ryan and I sit down to talk about the bottom line.
(on-screen): People who've been studying your numbers very carefully and -- have been saying that the numbers don't add up.
RYAN: Well, the Congressional Budget Office Says they do.
AMANPOUR: Well, it also says that two-thirds of the savings that you want to make in the spending cuts come at the expense of programs designed for the poor, for the disadvantaged, and this is reverse Robin Hood-ism, if you like, take from the poor, give back to the rich again.
RYAN: Yeah, sure, I've heard that. Yeah, I would disagree with that. First of all, spending increases in this budget. Spending on the safety net increases, but it increases at a more sustainable rate. Here's the problem, Christiane. The safety net we have right now is going bankrupt. It's tearing apart at the seams.
AMANPOUR: What you're proposing seems like it's going to put a lot of the burden on the seniors. They're worried that they're not going to be able to afford the cost of health insurance.
RYAN: So we're saying give the most vulnerable people more money to cover their expenses and don't give wealthy people as much money to cover their expenses because they're wealthy and they should be able to afford more. But we're also saying is, you've got to get at the root cause of health inflation. Even President Obama is saying slow the growth rate of Medicare.
AMANPOUR (voice-over): For now, the president and the congressman seem far apart. And as we crisscross his Wisconsin district, I ask Paul Ryan if some grand budget bargain could be in the offing.
(on-screen): Do you think that these massive issues that you're dealing with, the budget, let's say, can be done only by one party?
RYAN: No. No, I don't. I think it's going to have...
AMANPOUR: So you have to negotiate?
RYAN: Oh, yeah, absolutely, yeah.
AMANPOUR: You have to work together? RYAN: Yes, I think so.
AMANPOUR: Is that atmosphere available...
(CROSSTALK)
RYAN: No, not right now.
AMANPOUR: It's not, is it?
RYAN: Look, we're probably not going to get some grand-slam agreement that fixes all of these problems. My now hope is to get a single or a double, you know, to get something done that gets us on the right path.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Congressman Ryan says that he expects Republicans and Democrats to agree on some fiscal controls to lock in spending levels, but he says a big-picture deal on the debt crisis probably won't happen before the 2012 election. And it's what the treasury secretary, Tim Geithner, said also on this program a couple of weeks ago.
So the big question remains: Can the United States afford to wait that long? Our powerhouse roundtable tackles that and weighs in with their reviews of the president's stand-up act, as well, at last night's White House correspondents' dinner.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: Tonight, for the first time, I am releasing my official birth video.
(LAUGHTER)
Let's take a look.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: He's taken some flack lately, but no one is happier, no one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than the Donald. And that's because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter, like did we fake the moon landing? What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: A little light moment last night from the White House correspondents' dinner. President Obama taking a shot at Donald Trump. Funny stuff, and we'll talk about it a little later.
But across the country, passions are running high on a more serious matter, a Republican debt reform plan that would slash spending and revamp Medicare and Medicaid without raising taxes on the wealthy. Has Paul Ryan laid the roadmap to victory for the Democrats? Or will his party have the last laugh?
Joining me to answer that question, George Will, Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post, Chrystia Freeland, global editor at Thomson Reuters, and David Stockman, who served as budget director under Ronald Reagan.
Thank you all for being here. Some of us were at that dinner last night, but, first, George, you heard what I asked Congressman Ryan, asking him about some of the Republicans who seem to be running now from the plan. Is this an election loser for them? Will they stick with him?
WILL: They've clearly made a wager that this time the American people mean what they say about cutting government. His plan now for the budget is not the same as, but it's in the same general direction as the roadmap he proposed for entitlement reform and all the rest a few years ago (inaudible) pointing out the grand total of 13 cosponsors. People are not eager to embrace it. He now has essentially made them embrace it by making the running.
Republicans are somewhat emboldened by the example of Marco Rubio running for the Senate in Florida in 2010, when, in a state planted thick with seniors, the state known as God's antechamber, as a matter of fact, in the great state of Florida, he said we must raise the retirement age and perhaps, in some sense, means test Social Security. He said that volatile thing in that state and won in a landslide.
HUFFINGTON: (OFF-MIKE) starting to listen to this incredibly shrinking budget debate where we're basically discussing what we're cutting without discussing what's happening in the country with jobs, basically, despite the fact that supposedly, you know, we have a reduction in unemployment. We know this is really a statistical reason because of the shrinking of the actual labor force, but not any real creation of jobs. And that's really what is so outstanding, that we are not focusing on this.
And you go around the country, and there's this anxiety, this fear about kids graduating from college not being able to get jobs. The foreclosures are still rampant. Even Mitt Romney, you know, in New Hampshire actually took this on and sounded like a real populist, talking about the problems of people not being able to make ends meet.
AMANPOUR: But what about the figures, the basic arithmetic? I mean, it is complex. You go to these town hall meetings, and the presentations are complex. And even people with vaguely conversant views on all of this find it difficult to understand. Is there a way to figure out what the actual math is without entering political and ideological debates? Is there a way to balance this budget, to reduce the debt, to get a hold of it without sort of hewing to very different political views?
FREELAND: Well, I think it's always going to be a political debate, but what I think is really missing in both the Republican and the Democratic approach right now and is really an example of political cowardice is taxes.
You know, and we heard in your interview, Christiane, Ryan saying, well, you know, this is about cutting spending. It's partly going to be about cutting spending, but it is also going to be about raising taxes. And that's the thing that I think no one has the courage to talk about.
And it's partly going to be -- I think there should be more taxes on the very rich. They're doing incredibly well in this economy. But it is also going to be about more taxes on the middle class, including consumption taxes.
AMANPOUR: Well, that's interesting. I want to get to consumption taxes. But, David, Paul Ryan says that people see tax hikes as sort of a fairy dust that will solve everything. Is either party dealing with the tax issue in a way that could actually solve something?
STOCKMAN: No, I think both parties are delusional in thinking that this is a long-run problem. The Ryan plan gets the balanced budget in 2030, the fiscal hereafter. We have a here-and-now problem.
This debt that we're issuing every day, $6 billion a day, is not being bought by real investors. It's being bought by the Fed and other central banks around the world, and they're going out of business in June. The Fed is stopping the bond-buying. QE2 is over. The Chinese no longer need to buy, and the Japanese have their own problem.
So once we have to sell the debt to real investors, interest rates are going to start rising and the crisis will come immediately, in the next two or three years.
Now, what does Ryan do in the next two or three years? Nothing. He cuts $600 billion or $700 billion of spending, mostly from a small part of the budget, discretionary and the safety net, leaves Medicare totally untouched for 3 years, leaves Social Security totally untouched for 10 years, leaves defense totally untouched for the next 3 years, and then, after cutting that small amount, gives it all back by extending all the Bush tax cuts that we can't afford.
Now, that's getting nowhere. In three years, he does not cut one dime from the debt.
FREELAND: Yeah, David, I have a question for you. You worked for Ronald Reagan. Do you think that America, the American economy -- so you're like a red-blooded capitalist -- could it sustain higher taxes than it has now?
STOCKMAN: Absolutely. In 1982, we were looking at the jaws of the worst recession since the 1930s. We overdid it in '81, cut taxes too much. We came back with the big deficit plan. In 1982, unemployment's 10 percent, the economy's in dire shape, and we raised taxes by 1.2 percent of GDP, which would be $150 billion a year, right now, not 10 years down the road, but right now. That's what we did in 1982, because we still had people in government who realized you can't simply be putting on this kind of debt into the world financial market.
AMANPOUR: So, George, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is calling for a vote on this up or down. Is that -- what is that going to do? And do you think there is room for some kind of debate on a consumption tax, even though very few people want to do income?
WILL: Oh, well, people of my persuasion will be all for it, considering a consumption tax, as soon as they repeal the 16th Amendment. Otherwise, they're going to pile a consumption tax, which is invisible to most people, on top of the income tax.
Larry Summers, the departing economic adviser, said conservatives hate the consumption tax because they think it's a money machine for government and liberals don't like it because they think it's regressive. We will get a consumption tax when conservatives realize it's regressive and conservatives -- and liberals realize it's a money machine. It's not going to happen. The Senate has voted in a nonbinding resolution something like 86-10 against the idea of a consumption tax.
HUFFINGTON: You know, what is interesting is what Ryan is leaving out. You know, he's talking about reforming Medicare. He's not even allowing the government to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies to reduce drug costs. So he's not only addressing the major problem of drug costs rising, of health care costs rising.
And also finally over the last week, he started talking about corporate welfare, about oil and gas subsidies, for example, but that isn't part of his budget. So how can he be addressing seriously the budget deficit without addressing seriously corporate welfare?
He said, which also sounded interesting, that he doesn't want the government picking winners and losers. That's part of (inaudible) left and right debate. A lot of people across the political spectrum are saying that. Let's focus on this.
AMANPOUR: He said to us that he is willing to talk about sort of getting rid of all those subsidies for oil companies and all those loopholes. Where do you think this is headed, though, in real economic fiscal terms? I mean, is there going to be some kind of deal on the very difficult issues?
FREELAND: I thought that what you and Ryan had to say was right. I think that it's hard to see a real deal before the presidential election, and I think that David is right to point out that that could turn out to be quite tricky. And where we will really have the important market judgment is in June, when all this money that the Federal Reserve has been pumping into the economy and buying back, that's going to stop, and we're going to really see, how much is the world prepared to support the U.S. economy?
AMANPOUR: All right. We'll continue right after a break. And up next, President Obama releases his birth certificate and Donald Trump claims credit. More of that with our roundtable right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: But I'm speaking to the vast majority of the American people, as well as the press. We do not have time for this kind of silliness. We've got better stuff to do.
TRUMP: Today, I'm very proud of myself, because I've accomplished something that nobody else has been able to accomplish. Our president has finally released a birth certificate.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: President Obama and Donald Trump earlier this week. So have we seen the last of the birthers? Let's bring back our roundtable.
Have we seen the last of this, George?
WILL: Sure, I mean, to the extent that people are open to evidence. Now, there are some people in a nation of 310 million people -- there are some people who are just cracked, and we're always going to have them out there.
AMANPOUR: You know, you say cracked. On this program last week, we spoke with Reverend Franklin Graham, and he seemed to flirt with the idea of giving some credence to this and also supporting Donald Trump. And then when I asked him sort of, you know, why is it that this issue has been hijacked by the lunatic fringe and it's become such an issue? This is what I asked him, and listen to what he responded.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: You're a very important figure, and you have a big following, and you have a lot of authority. This business about the birth certificate, it really has been debunked over and over again. So I just want to know why somebody like you can't just say, "Enough already."
GRAHAM: Oh, no, I'm not -- you were asking me about Donald Trump...
AMANPOUR: No, I'm now talking about President Obama.
GRAHAM: Oh, right. But it's Trump that has brought this up. I'm not bringing up his birth certificate. I'm just saying, it looks like, for the critics out there, his critics -- and I'm not one of them -- his critics, it looks like he could shut their mouths pretty quickly by coming up with a little bit more than what he's come up with.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So he has come up, and you're shaking your head, Chrystia.
FREELAND: I think it's obvious that it's just going to move on to new things. And we've already seen Donald Trump talking about, well, you know, maybe his college -- maybe his college documents aren't exactly right.
I mean, I think that there is something behind all of this that enough people aren't talking about and that the president actually rather recently hinted at in his speech last night, with the "Lion King" stuff and then saying, you know, Michele Bachmann, maybe she was born in Canada. There is a racial element here. And I think that part of the whole birther movement is about finding a way that isn't overtly racist to say, is he really American? You know, can this black guy really be an American?
STOCKMAN: I don't think it's so much racism. I think it's Washington has succumb to theater and has lost the point that it should be about governance. And one of the reasons for that is that the Fed has enabled Washington to run massive deficits year after year after year and issue all of these bonds and get away with it.
And so, therefore, since they're not worried, since they don't fear the consequence of what they're doing, they're willing to engage in this kind of, you know, rank theater, when, so to speak, Rome is burning.
(CROSSTALK)
STOCKMAN: And one of these days we're going to have a rude awakening, and I believe it's coming soon.
AMANPOUR: So...
(CROSSTALK)
HUFFINGTON: But this is also something that's always happened in times of deep economic anxiety. Paranoid politics can thrive, and demagoguery can thrive, and people can believe things for which there's no evidence.
AMANPOUR: So, clearly, people have believed things for which there's no evidence, but, George, what does this mean now for the Republican field? I mean, is Donald Trump a serious candidate or has he been deflated, given the fact that Haley Barbour, governor of Mississippi, has stepped out? Where does the Republican field look like it is right now?
WILL: The Republican field is perfectly fine. They lost in Haley Barbour a plausible president, and they lost it because he understands the Broder rule. The late David Broder said anyone who will do what you have to do to become president shouldn't be allowed to be president. And he said this requires a 10-year commitment; I'm not prepared to make it. That's not a moral failing. In some people, it's a sign of maturity. You have Romney, Pawlenty, perhaps Mitch Daniels -- I don't -- who am I leaving out?
FREELAND: Huckabee.
HUFFINGTON: Huntsman.
WILL: Huntsman.
FREELAND: Isn't this a good moment for Huckabee now?
WILL: It might be, but the fact is, we're actually fairly far along in this process. We've winnowed the field already. We know basically who the choice is going to be. The Republicans have to simply nominate someone who is a plausible president and then it becomes a referendum on Mr. Obama.
HUFFINGTON: But, actually, George has a point here. And Seth Meyers last night in a way made that point when he said the one person who can really beat you, Mr. President, is Obama '08, and don't you miss him, effectively? What happened to him?
And I was talking to a hard-core Democrat after the dinner who said to me that Obama is gone. He said he's not coming back. We just have to win. So this is what's happened, and it's a interesting dynamic. You know, hard-core Democrats are just about winning, but the problem for the White House is all the first-time voters who came out in large numbers and really got him to the White House in '08. Are they coming back? Because they're not just about winning. They were inspired. And that was the other thing that Seth Meyers said yesterday. What is will.i.am going to do this year? Is he going to find something to rhyme with debt ceiling? That's a big problem for...
(CROSSTALK)
AMANPOUR: Well, talking to that, what is the correct or the winnable economic strategy to be taking going into this election? Obviously -- and you've all been saying it -- it is about jobs. And I think you've been saying that all of this is obscuring the necessity to figure out jobs.
FREELAND: Well, I think especially for a Democrat, which the president is, I've been surprised that they haven't pushed much more on that. Maybe they're worried that they don't have a very strong jobs record, but I think that they really are letting the Republicans set the terms of the debate, and the debate right now is about cutting spending, maybe raising taxes. I think that a smart Democratic strategy would be to come out and say, "I am the guy who is going to focus on middle-class jobs. I care about that."
(CROSSTALK)
STOCKMAN: No, I think the right strategy is to focus on the engine of destruction in our economy today, which is the Fed. The Fed is savaging M | 0 | train |
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Bill Clinton on Rush Limbaugh, His Mistakes, the Supreme Court and Middle East Peace Bill Clinton made mistakes as president on financial regulation, he admitted in an exclusive "This Week" interview, but Clinton stood his ground regarding the dangers of overheated political rhetoric, saying Rush Limbaugh's accusation Clinton "set the stage for violence" with a recent speech on the subject "doesn't make any sense."
In his first "This Week" interview since the passage of health care reform, Clinton reflected on how the bill's success made him feel like Teddy Roosevelt to Obama's FDR. And Clinton offered advice and thoughts on some of Obama's next issues -- a Supreme Court nomination, the Middle East peace process and the midterm elections.
Anchor Jake Tapper asked Clinton about Limbaugh's criticism of his speech marking the upcoming 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. In that speech, Clinton warned that "the words we use really do matter, because there's this vast echo chamber, and they go across space and they fall on the serious and delirious alike. They fall on the connected and the unhinged alike."
On "This Week," Clinton said, "The only point I tried to make was that we ought to have a lot of political dissent -- a lot of political argument. Nobody is right all the time. But we also have to take responsibility for the possible consequences of what we say."
Clinton said he worries about threats against President Obama and the Congress. And, he worries "about more careless language ... some of which we've seen against the Republican governor in New Jersey, Gov. Christie."
A recently leaked memo from a New Jersey teacher joked about Christie dying.
"I think we all have to be careful," Clinton said. "We ought to remember [that] after Oklahoma City we learned something about the difference in disagreement and demonization."
On Derivatives: 'I Was Wrong'
Clinton acknowledged that he was wrong to take what he now views as bad advice from his Treasury secretaries, Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, who told him the market for complex financial instruments known as derivatives ought to remain unregulated.
"On derivatives, yeah, I think they were wrong and I think I was wrong to take [their advice]," Clinton said, "because the argument on derivatives was that these things are expensive and sophisticated and only a handful of investors will buy them, and they don't need any extra protection and any extra transparency. The money they're putting up guarantees them transparency.
"The flaw in that argument," Clinton added, "was that first of all sometimes people with a lot of money make stupid decisions and make it without transparency."
The former president said he also was wrong in his understanding of what a collapse in the derivative market could do to the economy.
"The most important flaw," he said, "was even if less than 1 percent of the total investment community is involved in derivative exchanges, so much money was involved that if they went bad, they could affect 100 percent of the investments, and indeed 100 percent of the citizens in countries, not investors. And I was wrong about that."
He now wishes he had tried to regulate derivatives while in office, but he doesn't think he would have been successful.
"Now, I think if I had tried to regulate them, because the Republicans were the majority in the Congress, they would have stopped it," he said. "But I wish I should have been caught trying. I mean, that was a mistake I made."
Bill Clinton's Supreme Court Nominee Advice: Robe Not Required
Clinton said a robe isn't necessarily a requirement for being nominated to the Supreme Court.
Asked about his advice for President Obama as he selects a nominee to be the next Supreme Court justice, Clinton said he hopes the president will "take a look at somebody who hasn't been a judge."
"The important thing," Clinton said, "is that you think they're smart and they're competent and they understand the lives of ordinary people."
When asked if he or his wife, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, would be suited for the job, Clinton said at 63, he's too old and, "I'd like to see him put someone in their late 40s, early 50s on the court and someone with a lot of energy for the job."
Hillary Clinton, he said, would have the same advice.
Diversity, he suggested, should also be a consideration.
"My advice to him would be to first of all see what the court is missing," Clinton said. "Does it matter if he puts a Catholic or a Jewish person or someone of another faith on a court? ... There would be no Protestants on the Supreme Court. Does that matter? Does there need to be another woman on the court? Should there be some other group represented?"
Ecstatic Over Health Care Passage: Felt Like Teddy Roosevelt
On the recent health care reform bill, Clinton said he felt like "Teddy Roosevelt would have felt if he'd still been alive in the 1930s seeing his cousin Franklin being able to sign legislation in areas that he had advocated."
Clinton was thrilled that it passed and that he and Hillary Clinton personally lobbied for passage before the final vote on the bill.
"She and I were ecstatic," he said.
Clinton expects more changes in the bill.
"They'll have to keep working on it and putting more cost drivers in it to take the cost down," he said. "But it's a big, big step. And it's a wonderful thing for the country."
Midterm Elections: Another 1994?
Clinton said the current political environment reminds him "a little bit" of 1994, a year in which Democrats lost majorities in both houses of Congress in a Republican landslide.
"I think that the dissent is just as intense, if not more intense," he said. "But I think the outcome of the election is likely to be far less dramatic than it was in '94."
Clinton expects Republicans to make some gains, but "I don't think they'll win either house."
Back in 1994, congressional Democrats put their jobs on the line to vote for President Clinton's economic package. The recent health care vote, he said, was similar, but the country is different now.
"We are culturally a different country," he said. "We are more diverse. We're more communitarian. That is, we understand we have to solve a lot of these problems together."
Middle East Peace Process
Clinton said he was reluctant to offer public advice to President Obama regarding the Middle East peace process, so as not to foreclose his options.
But he added, "We need to do something to deprive both sides of any excuse not to engage in serious negotiations."
If President Obama puts a peace plan on the table, Clinton said he will "strongly support it."
The argument against the administration putting forward a peace plan, Clinton said, is that the current Israeli government "almost certainly would reject it." That, he said, could "make us look weak."
But the Obama administration, Clinton said, "may decide it's more important to have clarity and to do something that will be an action-forcing event to put them back to the table." | 0 | train |
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Obama Demands Investigation into Subprime Loan Discrimination Obama Demands Investigation into Subprime Loan Discrimination
Thursday, October 18, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Amy Brundage, 202 228 5511
Asks FTC to examine whether minority homeowners are being targeted with high-priced loans
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) today sent the following letter to FTC Commissioner Deborah Platt Majoras, calling on her to investigate the marketing practices of subprime lenders and the brokers of subprime loans to determine whether minority borrowers have been victims of discrimination. According to recent studies, and an editorial in the New York Times, there is increasing evidence that black and Hispanic borrowers were more likely to be steered to high-cost subprime loans than other borrowers. Hundreds of thousands of African American families – many of whom probably should have been eligible for lower cost prime loans instead of riskier subprime loans – could potentially lose their homes in the coming years.
In the letter, Obama requests that the FTC investigate whether there is evidence that lenders or brokers target poor or minority borrowers with higher cost products, whether lenders are engaging in deceptive marketing practices, and whether the lack of lower-cost borrowing options has disproportionately disadvantaged minority borrowers.
The text of the letter is below:
October 18, 2007
The Honorable Deborah Platt Majoras
Federal Trade Commission
600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.,
Washington, D.C. 20580
Dear Commissioner Majoras:
I am writing to bring to your attention the attached editorial from yesterday's New York Times which begins: "Evidence is mounting that during the housing boom, black and Hispanic borrowers were far more likely to be steered into high-cost subprime loans than other borrowers, even after controlling for factors such as income, loan size and property location." ("Subprime in Black and White," The New York Times, October 17, 2007)
In reality, such evidence has been mounting since the 1990s when the Clinton Administration found that subprime loans in 1998 were over four times more prevalent in predominantly black neighborhoods in New York than in predominantly white neighborhoods. More recent studies have found similar examples of potentially discriminatory lending patterns.
Last year, for example, the Center for Responsible Lending found that for most types of subprime home loans, minority borrowers are more likely to pay higher rates than white borrowers even after accounting for differences in credit scores, loan to value ratios, and other underwriting criteria. And just this week another analysis confirmed that even high-income black borrowers are more likely than comparable white borrowers to have risky and costly subprime loans.
Black families are paying more for home loans than similarly situated white families. Effective action to address this disparity is long overdue. I call upon the FTC to investigate the marketing practices of subprime lenders and the brokers of subprime loans to determine if minority borrowers have been the victims of discrimination.
Among other things, the Federal Trade Commission is charged with protecting consumers from unfair or deceptive marketing acts or practices. Many subprime loans include sales practices or loan features that are potentially unfair and deceptive for borrowers. Some practices, such as yield-spread premiums, which encourage mortgage brokers to steer borrowers into the most costly products, or prepayment penalties, which enable lenders to offer mortgages that are unsupported by sound underwriting principles, appear to be the source of significant problems faced by many subprime borrowers.
With an estimated 53% of African American borrowers in 2005 receiving subprime loans, and more than 60% of subprime loans containing prepayment penalties, the risks particularly for African American homeowners are substantial. Indeed, hundreds of thousands of African American families – many of whom probably should have been eligible for lower cost prime loans instead of riskier subprime loans – are expected to face loss of their homes in the coming years.
I request that you begin a thorough investigation within five days and provide a status report to my office within 15 days on the following questions:
1) Whether there is evidence of lenders or brokers specifically targeting poor or minority borrowers with higher cost products than would otherwise be justified based on legitimate underwriting criteria.
2) Whether the marketing of lending products to poor or minority borrowers has been deceptive or unfair. Specifically, whether the disclosure of yield-spread premiums and prepayment penalties has been sufficiently transparent to borrowers and whether such or similar sales and pricing practices have been disproportionately detrimental to minority borrowers.
3) Whether the lack of lower-cost borrowing options, including those regulated by the Federal government, in predominantly minority communities even for higher-income borrowers, has disproportionately disadvantaged minority borrowers in their efforts to realize the dream of affordable home ownership and wealth building.
Thank you for your assistance protecting all consumers from the pernicious affects of predatory and discriminatory lending practices which undermine the American dream.
Sincerely,
Barack Obama
United States Senator
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The numbers don't lie... - Occupy Democrats 移動:
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There’s another choice There’s another choice
Gov. Gary Johnson Blocked Unblock Follow Following Aug 5, 2016
When it comes to electing their next president, Americans want a candidate to vote for — not just someone to vote against.
American voters want the perspective of an outsider who can bring an entrepreneurial perspective to the White House. They aren’t opposed to experience in governing — so long as it doesn’t bring with it an addiction to crony capitalism and the fruits thereof.
And they want a candidate who looks after American interests and doesn’t use war to destabilize already volatile regions of the world like the Middle East.
I’m running for President to offer that alternative. I am a successful businessman, and grew my construction business to employ more than 1,000 workers.
I was the Republican governor of the heavily Democratic state of New Mexico. I focused on good government and I got it done — just like my running mate, former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld. The people of New Mexico reelected me by a comfortable margin. Ditto for Weld.
Think of it this way: I’m someone you would trust to run your household and to keep it safe while you went away on a trip or a vacation. I could even fix a few things around the house. After all, the construction company I founded began as a one-man handy-man operation. Can you say the same for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump?
I’ve balanced budgets and cut taxes. I’ve also spoken my mind about where the country needed to go on personal freedoms and marriage equality. In 1999, I became the only sitting governor to publicly advocate the legalization of marijuana. Senator Bernie Sanders came to that viewpoint — a position that most Americans support — 16 years later.
I’m also a strong believer in our Constitutional rights to civil liberties and privacy. Our government should not be spying on the electronic communications of American citizens. Nor should our iPhones or Android devices be subject to unreasonable searches and seizures.
And I understand that, as a nation and as a society, we have unfinished business to right the wrongs of injustice suffered by minorities. Blacks are 30 percent more likely that white to be apprehended by the police; they are three times more likely to be searched; they are arrested twice as often as whites; and they are 75 percent more likely to be charged with offenses carrying mandatory minimum sentences.
It is not surprising that there is tangible mistrust, tension and frustration between the police and African-Americans, particularly black males. We need to speak honestly about these issues in order to address them. Let’s be honest. We have healing to do.
One of the biggest concerns that many voters have with both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, but particularly with Ms. Clinton, is the sense that she uses government power to advance her personal and political interests.
She is the very status quo. Americans want that changed. She talks about progressivism, but lines her bank accounts with speaking fees from banks and special interests. That’s what crony capitalism is all about. Americans recognize pay-to-play when they see it, and they are really, really weary of it.
Having been governor of New Mexico, I know that legislation gets passed to benefit those who have money and influence. Then they buy more money and influence. That’s one reason why, as governor, I vetoed more than 750 bills and thousands of line items.
I did it to keep crony capitalism away from government.
Another big difference between Hillary Clinton and myself is that I’m for our national tradition of peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations — while being extremely skeptical of committing ourselves and our armed forces to foreign conflicts.
As a Senator, she endorsed ill-advised foreign interventions. As Secretary of State, she was the architect of tragic and counter-productive policies in Libya, in Egypt and in Syria. These should not be America’s wars, and we ought not be prompting regime changes that serve only to replace bad actors with even worse actors and instability that makes us less safe.
Instead, our nation need the confidence that its president will be predictable, yes, but also skeptical of engaging in international shenanigans all around the world.
Americans can find sanity and principle by voting Johnson/Weld in 2016. | 0 | train |
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BREAKING: The Democrat James Comey Has Been Having An Affair With Was JUST REVEALED! (DETAILS) As we promised, Freedom Crossroads has just learned the identity of the Democrat James Comey has been having an affair with for at LEAST the last 8 months, it’s none other than the DISGRACED former Chair of the DNC, Debbie “Whiny Democrat” Wasserman Schultz — talk about a match made in Heave… errrrr… Hell!
These two dimwits were probably attracted to each other because they are both LOSERS who can’t accept defeat, but that doesn’t really differentiate them from the rest of the crybaby Democrat Party, now does it?
According to our exclusive sources, Comey and Wasserman Schultz met while both working for the government, and despite the fact that both of them are married, they couldn’t put aside their lust for each other and decided to have an affair. Not exactly shocking, considering they’re two liberal sickos — and we all know, ANYTHING goes for them.
And now we all know the REAL reason that the sad ex-FBI Director Comey is trying to attack Donald Trump… to impress his GIRLFRIEND!
Pathetic.
The staff at Freedom Crossroads is working diligently around the clock to bring you more details about the newest salacious tryst. Stay tuned! | 1 | train |
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Children - Obama for America TV Ad 自動再生 自動再生を有効にすると、関連動画が自動的に再生されます。
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Pope Calls for World Wide Gun Confiscation Except for the UN If there was any doubt as to who the Pope is loyal to, this should erase any doubts. The Pope has said that nobody should have guns. Yes, he is calling for world-wide gun confiscation, except for the UN. Here is the story... | 1 | train |
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"New Energy" Ad 自動再生 自動再生を有効にすると、関連動画が自動的に再生されます。
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Saudi Arabia to Behead 6 School Girls for Being With Their Male Friends Without Parents or a Guardian Western countries are being urged to intervene in a case where 6 young school girls facing execution for acting indecently at a friends house.
Fathima Al Kwaini and her friends that included three male friends have celebrated
Kwaini's
birthday at a friends house. A neighbor supposedly an assistant of an Imam of a mosque close by has reported this to Saudi Arabia's religious police. When the police arrived the girls were dancing with their male friends and they were arrested immediately.
The ultra conservative Arabian nation that has one of the worst human rights records is also a member of the United Nations Human Rights commission and recently got elected to the Women's Rights Commission as well which sparked anger and protest.
According to HRW the girls were detained for more than a year before the trial and never confessed committing any crime. However the verdict of the "male only" Sharia panel was that they need o be executed in accordance with the Sharia law. The boys were only advised "not to be victimized" the report further states.
Saudi uses methods such as beheading, stoning and crucifixion to execute women for crimes, including adultery, in the strict Islamic country. Beheadings take place in public squares where the headless corpses are later put on display. | 1 | train |
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GOP Task Force, Lone Democrat Eye Trafficking Law Aury Terriquez, left, 6, whose parents are from Guatemala, and Lucia Jimenez, 5, whose parents are from Bolivia, joined immigration advocates to call on the Obama administration to mitigate the child migrant crisis. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)
The House GOP task force charged with making recommendations to colleagues on the influx of unaccompanied, undocumented immigrant children at the U.S.-Mexico border might suggest controversial changes to a 2008 trafficking law — and at least one Democrat wants to go that route as well.
Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, a fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrat who made headlines on Wednesday for blasting President Barack Obama's failure to visit the border during a fundraising trip to the area, said he would soon introduce legislation to allow all children apprehended at the southwest border to qualify for "voluntary return" to their home countries.
A law known as the "William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act" gave that right only to children from counties "contiguous" to the United States, namely Mexico and Canada. Given the droves of unaccompanied minors trying to enter the country illegally from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador — among other parts of Central America — Cuellar said tweaking the 2008 act would ease conditions at the border, with fewer children having to wait long periods for deportation hearings at overcrowded detention centers if they would just as soon return to their homes on their own terms. "All the protections under the law would be kept in, asylum, credible fear, victim of a sex crime," Cuellar told a group of reporters. "The only thing we change is that aspect of it, that allows them to [be deported] on a voluntary basis."
Members of the Republican task force also said in a statement late Wednesday that revisiting the act is one of their recommendations to remedy the border crisis.
"We agree with the President that [children] must be returned to their home countries in the most humane way possible," they wrote, "and that will require a revision of the 2008 Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act."
Cuellar said that he had not yet begun to make the rounds to colleagues to garner co-sponsors for his bill, but that a certain senator from Texas with "a little bit of experience" — a nod to senior Texas Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican — would be moving forward with companion legislation on his side of the Capitol.
Obama has also said there should be some re-evaluation of the law, enacted in the waning days of the George W. Bush administration to protect children against sex trafficking.
But most Democrats are likely to bristle at the prospect of touching the law, fearful that any tinkering would leave young people vulnerable.
"I think there's ample evidence that children who are potential victims are being returned without adequate inquiry," said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif. "I think [Cuellar] has very few people in the Democratic caucus who would agree with him."
Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva, D-Ariz., said that he and 10 other members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus immigration task force met earlier on Wednesday — and dispersed with the resolve to be oppose any revisions to the trafficking law.
He said he had "suspected all along" that Cuellar might be cooking something up on his own. But the CHC task force meeting focused on the issue in the context of what changes Republicans might want to pursue, either in standalone legislation or more likely as a policy rider in Obama's pending request for Congress to appropriate $3.8 billion to bolster resources at the southwest border.
"We need to take a position that protects children," Grijalva said, "and a Republican effort ... to undo the 2008 law, that would be something we would fight."
Related stories: President's Party Asks Why He's Avoiding the Border Obama 'Happy to Consider' Sending National Guard to Border to get Votes on Supplemental A Tale of Two Congressional Visits to the Southwest Border Obama’s Bill for Border Surge Gets Frosty Reception on the Right Obama Asking Congress for $4.3 Billion for Border Crisis, Wildfires On Climate Change, Landrieu Stands With Coal, Against Obama Roll Call Election Map: Race Ratings for Every Seat Get breaking news alerts and more from Roll Call in your inbox or on your iPhone. | 0 | train |
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Rand Paul: We Must Demilitarize the Police The shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown is an awful tragedy that continues to send shockwaves through the community of Ferguson, Missouri and across the nation.
If I had been told to get out of the street as a teenager, there would have been a distinct possibility that I might have smarted off. But, I wouldn’t have expected to be shot.
The outrage in Ferguson is understandable—though there is never an excuse for rioting or looting. There is a legitimate role for the police to keep the peace, but there should be a difference between a police response and a military response.
The images and scenes we continue to see in Ferguson resemble war more than traditional police action.
Glenn Reynolds, in Popular Mechanics, recognized the increasing militarization of the police five years ago. In 2009 he wrote:
Soldiers and police are supposed to be different. … Police look inward. They’re supposed to protect their fellow citizens from criminals, and to maintain order with a minimum of force. It’s the difference between Audie Murphy and Andy Griffith. But nowadays, police are looking, and acting, more like soldiers than cops, with bad consequences. And those who suffer the consequences are usually innocent civilians.
The Cato Institute’s Walter Olson observed this week how the rising militarization of law enforcement is currently playing out in Ferguson:
Why armored vehicles in a Midwestern inner suburb? Why would cops wear camouflage gear against a terrain patterned by convenience stores and beauty parlors? Why are the authorities in Ferguson, Mo. so given to quasi-martial crowd control methods (such as bans on walking on the street) and, per the reporting of Riverfront Times, the firing of tear gas at people in their own yards? (“‘This my property!’ he shouted, prompting police to fire a tear gas canister directly at his face.”) Why would someone identifying himself as an 82nd Airborne Army veteran, observing the Ferguson police scene, comment that “We rolled lighter than that in an actual warzone”?
Olson added, “the dominant visual aspect of the story, however, has been the sight of overpowering police forces confronting unarmed protesters who are seen waving signs or just their hands.”
How did this happen?
Most police officers are good cops and good people. It is an unquestionably difficult job, especially in the current circumstances.
There is a systemic problem with today’s law enforcement.
Not surprisingly, big government has been at the heart of the problem. Washington has incentivized the militarization of local police precincts by using federal dollars to help municipal governments build what are essentially small armies—where police departments compete to acquire military gear that goes far beyond what most of Americans think of as law enforcement.
This is usually done in the name of fighting the war on drugs or terrorism. The Heritage Foundation’s Evan Bernick wrote in 2013 that, “the Department of Homeland Security has handed out anti-terrorism grants to cities and towns across the country, enabling them to buy armored vehicles, guns, armor, aircraft, and other equipment.”
Bernick continued, “federal agencies of all stripes, as well as local police departments in towns with populations less than 14,000, come equipped with SWAT teams and heavy artillery.”
Bernick noted the cartoonish imbalance between the equipment some police departments possess and the constituents they serve, “today, Bossier Parish, Louisiana, has a .50 caliber gun mounted on an armored vehicle. The Pentagon gives away millions of pieces of military equipment to police departments across the country—tanks included.”
When you couple this militarization of law enforcement with an erosion of civil liberties and due process that allows the police to become judge and jury—national security letters, no-knock searches, broad general warrants, pre-conviction forfeiture—we begin to have a very serious problem on our hands.
Given these developments, it is almost impossible for many Americans not to feel like their government is targeting them. Given the racial disparities in our criminal justice system, it is impossible for African-Americans not to feel like their government is particularly targeting them.
This is part of the anguish we are seeing in the tragic events outside of St. Louis, Missouri. It is what the citizens of Ferguson feel when there is an unfortunate and heartbreaking shooting like the incident with Michael Brown.
Anyone who thinks that race does not still, even if inadvertently, skew the application of criminal justice in this country is just not paying close enough attention. Our prisons are full of black and brown men and women who are serving inappropriately long and harsh sentences for non-violent mistakes in their youth.
The militarization of our law enforcement is due to an unprecedented expansion of government power in this realm. It is one thing for federal officials to work in conjunction with local authorities to reduce or solve crime. It is quite another for them to subsidize it.
Americans must never sacrifice their liberty for an illusive and dangerous, or false, security. This has been a cause I have championed for years, and one that is at a near-crisis point in our country.
Let us continue to pray for Michael Brown’s family, the people of Ferguson, police, and citizens alike.
Paul is the junior U.S. Senator for Kentucky.
Witness Tension Between Police and Protestors in Ferguson, Mo. Whitney Curtis—The New York Times/Redux Scott Olson—Getty Images Scott Olson—Getty Images Mario Anzuoni—Reuters Mario Anzuoni—Reuters Mario Anzuoni—Reuters Scott Olson—Getty Images Jeff Roberson—AP Scott Olson—Getty Images Scott Olson—Getty Images Scott Olson—Getty Images Scott Olson—Getty Images Scott Olson—Getty Images Scott Olson—Getty Images Robert Cohen—St. Louis Post-Dispatch/MCT/Zuma Press Robert Cohen—St. Louis Post-Dispatch/AP Scott Olson—Getty Images Jeff Roberson—AP David Carson—St. Louis Post-Dispatch/AP Jeff Roberson—AP Jeff Roberson—AP Scott Olson—Getty Images Lucas Jackson—Reuters Lucas Jackson—Reuters Lucas Jackson—Reuters Scott Olson—Getty Images Scott Olson—Getty Images Jon Lowenstein—NOOR for TIME Jon Lowenstein—Noor for TIME Jon Lowenstein—Noor for TIME Jon Lowenstein—Noor for TIME Jon Lowenstein—NOOR for TIME Jon Lowenstein—Noor for TIME Jon Lowenstein—Noor for TIME Jon Lowenstein—Noor for TIME Charlie Riedel—AP Jon Lowenstein—Noor for TIME Charlie Riedel—AP Scott Olson—Getty Images Lucas Jackson—Reuters Lucas Jackson—Reuters Lucas Jackson—Reuters Laurie Skrivan—St. Louis Post-Dispatch/AP Michael B. Thomas—AFP/Getty Images Joe Raedle—Getty Images Abe Van Dyke—Demotix/Corbis David Carson—St Louis Post-Dispatch/Polaris Lucas Jackson—Reuters Joshua Lott—Reuters Joshua Lott—Reuters Joshua Lott—Reuters Michael B. Thomas—AFP/Getty Images Adrees Latif—Reuters Jeff Roberson—AP 1 of 54 Advertisement
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What OFA Has Accomplished, And The Fight Ahead What OFA Has Accomplished, And The Fight Ahead
All On The Line Blocked Unblock Follow Following Apr 22
By Katie Hogan, Executive Director, Organizing for Action
Organizing for Action’s core purpose has been to build a more accessible and participatory democracy. As we take a look back at the past six years, we couldn’t be prouder of this movement’s contributions to that fight. Nor could we be more excited to enter this new chapter together to further that goal — but more on that in a bit.
As we celebrate everything we’ve already accomplished together, I want to emphasize that none of this would have been possible without our incredible volunteers, who have constantly inspired us with their tireless commitment to — as President Obama put it — “the joyous task we’ve been given to continually try to improve this great nation of ours.”
When Organizing for Action launched in 2013, it was a grand experiment. We set out to harness the power of the grassroots movement that had twice elected Barack Obama as president, and convert it into a nationwide organizing, training, and issue advocacy group that would continue fighting for the core values that brought it together in the first place.
OFA’s decision to make a massive investment in long-term, multi-issue, community organizing was both an obvious choice and a significant gamble. On the one hand, there was no way we were going to let this family — this network of impassioned and engaged citizens dedicated to making positive change — wither away when there was so much work left to do. On the other hand, there was no true precedent or blueprint for success when it came to the nature and scope of our endeavor.
Fast forward six years and this model no longer seems overly risky or audacious — after all, grassroots activism has been resurgent in the past two years, and volunteer-driven groups like Indivisible and Swing Left have quickly become powerhouses. Well the truth is, there is no greater testament to OFA’s impact than the influx of progressive organizations taking on grassroots movement-building with training and leadership development as essential program areas.
Leadership Development: Strengthening The Progressive Movement
OFA has always been an organization deeply rooted in the core values of the 2008 Obama for America field team: Respect. Empower. Include.
Our foundational organizing model grew out of that campaign’s ‘neighborhood team’ structure and channeled President Obama’s belief in the extraordinary power of ordinary citizens:
“One voice can change a room, and if one voice can change a room, then it can change a city, and if it can change a city, it can change a state, and if it change a state, it can change a nation, and if it can change a nation, it can change the world.”
Where many organizations prioritize politics and aim to manufacture a ground presence to meet the political needs of the moment, OFA focused on cultivating deep relationships with volunteers and empowered them to make a difference in their own communities. We met people at various points of engagement, equipped them with leadership skills, connected them with fellow local activists, and provided them with opportunities to take action.
Through this approach, OFA fostered the formation and growth of hundreds of volunteer chapters all across the country — well-trained neighborhood teams that functioned autonomously, but received ongoing support from staff and mentors. And, by successfully marrying long-term relationship building and organizing with mobilizing, we were able to build lasting grassroots muscle that could be flexed at the drop of a hat for key issue fights.
In a political culture that too often requires and rewards privilege, OFA has always taken great pride in offering high-quality, professional, cost-free leadership development programs. Our efforts have helped build the pipeline of progressive talent and helped ensure that the next generation of leaders better reflects the great diversity of our country. Over the course of the past six years, we have trained 62,243 volunteers on effective conversations, issue advocacy, community organizing, and voter contact best practices.
OFA training was rooted in the belief that anyone taking action or even thinking about taking action for the first time could become a change-maker, a community organizer, and leader in their community.
Through our cornerstone six-week fellowship courses, OFA trained more than 6,000 activists at no cost to them. Fellows from every religion, race, socioeconomic status, gender identity, and sexual orientation received training on the foundations of community engagement.
As a way to help fellows take their leadership to the next level, OFA launched its Leadership Pathway Partnership Program (LP3) in 2017 to connect graduating fellows with key progressive organizations that could help them take the next step, such as running for public office — organizations like Emerge America, New Leaders Council, Run For Something, and The Collective PAC. This partnership was remarkably popular. Since the LP3 program launch, over 90% of participating fellowship graduates have been connected with one of those groups.
We also dedicated ourselves to growing the mentoring and coaching capability of our leaders. As the fellows program evolved, we paired participants with volunteer coaches, and led them through leadership courses on conflict resolution, emotional intelligence, and uncovering personal leadership styles. We saw fellows and fellows leaders take this knowledge and go on to work with other progressive organizations or volunteer for campaigns. In fact, 70% of OFA fellows surveyed volunteered for a progressive campaign in the 2018 elections, adding their skills and value to help take back the House in 2018.
Issue Advocacy: Changing Hearts, Minds, And Policies
Over the past six years, OFA has helped lead mobilization efforts around a slew of critical fights for progress, holding well over 30,000 grassroots events across all 50 states on all the issues we care about.
On some issues, the impact was tangible and the results were overwhelming — like when a surge of grassroots action defeated the Obamacare repeal effort last cycle, despite the fact that the party that had campaigned to repeal the law for eight years were in control of the White House and both chambers of Congress.
In other fights where Congress has failed to act, we made significant gains in the form of shifting political dynamics and moving public opinion. Volunteers and chapters also worked with their elected officials and other partners on the ground to take action on issues at the state and local level — from gun violence prevention ballot measures to state climate change legislation.
While redistricting offers the most sweeping opportunity to unlock progress across the board, it’s worth considering how much has changed on key issues since OFA’s launch:
Health Care: In 2013, Obamacare was considered politically toxic, but things are a bit different these days. OFA ran a sweeping years-long campaign around this flagship issue, including an initial campaign to support enrollment in which OFA volunteers pledged over half a million volunteer hours to help people learn about the law and sign up for coverage during the first enrollment period. When Republicans shut down the government to try and force repeal in 2013, OFA volunteers flooded their phone lines and offices until they backed down. After a sustained campaign to show the harm the government shutdown had on families across the country, 81% of Americans disapproved of the shutdown. More recently, as conservatives worked to sabotage the law, we fought back again, continuing to educate Americans about its benefits, boost enrollment, and amplify success stories. And when repeal seemed inevitable after Republicans won control of Congress and the White House, OFA played a leading role in the game-changing grassroots movement to save the landmark legislation, and an untold number of lives along with it. At the end of the day, not only did we preserve Obamacare, but it became the defining issue of the 2018 midterms as Democrats took back the House.
Climate Change: Climate change was famously absent from the 2012 presidential election, and when OFA launched in 2013, observers were surprised to see it as a top-tier issue for us. OFA climate volunteers recognized the urgency of this issue however, and they became one of our most dedicated cohorts, fighting for the Clean Power Plan, the Paris Agreement, and our country’s switch to clean energy. Our goal was to change the conversation on climate change — and we succeeded, with this campaign playing a significant role in bringing climate change from a niche issue for environmentalists into the crucial mainstream issue it is today.
Gun Violence: Even after Sandy Hook, 2013 efforts to pass common-sense reforms were thwarted by the gun lobby’s seemingly unshakable grip on Congress. OFA members were devastated — but we never gave up. Volunteers never stopped organizing events, demanding action, and holding the gun lobby accountable. They marched alongside the inspiring Parkland students last year as they galvanized the nation. By fall of 2018, an astounding 93% of firearm-related ads in toss-up House races were in support of stronger laws to prevent gun violence, and the NRA had grown so politically toxic they stopped publicizing candidate grades.
LGBTQ Rights: In 2012, when President Obama endorsed marriage equality, Gallup polling showed that just half the country stood with him. When OFA launched the next year, we quickly made the issue a priority. On top of national advocacy campaigns, we lent our grassroots power to statewide efforts, including helping to win a long-odds victory for marriage equality legislation in Illinois. Needless to say, the Supreme Court eventually made marriage equality the law of the land — and Gallup found in 2018 that net approval had skyrocketed by 34 points.
Gerrymandering: Republicans used a 2010 electoral wave to draw themselves a historically undemocratic advantage at the Congressional and state legislative level, wreaking havoc on progressive priorities across the country. Until recently, gerrymandering had been, as the New York Times recently put it, a “preoccupation of wonky party strategists and good-government groups.” But redistricting is going mainstream. In 2018, fueled by grassroots activism, five states had anti-gerrymandering initiatives on the ballot. OFA and Attorney General Holder’s redistricting effort backed all five initiatives — and all five were passed by voters, most of them overwhelmingly.
Electoral Politics: Applying OFA’s Model To The Midterms
Until the recent midterms (other than a handful of statewide ballot initiatives), this iteration of OFA had never engaged in elections. But last year, we launched a new program called Organizing for ‘18 designed to harness our grassroots capacity, training expertise, and proven organizing model to help notch key electoral victories.
It was an ambitious campaign that aimed to tap into our greatest strengths and maximize our impact. We wanted to boost progressives’ field capacity by preparing organizers in priority districts to fill volunteer leadership roles for local campaigns.
We had three buckets of targets: 27 Republican-held House seats where OFA had or created a strong volunteer presence; state-level elections with redistricting implications; and select ballot measures.
We interviewed hundreds of OFA supporters who applied to be ‘Team 18 Leaders’ — high-level volunteers who were committing 10+ hours per week to this program, and would go on to develop local grassroots teams, train activists, run phonebanks, canvasses, and staging locations as volunteers for the campaigns they were supporting.
In addition to grassroots organizing, we built a unique online education resource that provided in-depth contrasts between the Republican and Democratic candidates in targeted House districts. And we built a new open-source tech tool called EveryVoter — an automated email platform that provided OFA supporters with geo-targeted voter registration, early voting, and Election Day information, as well as specific messaging on local House, Senate, gubernatorial, and state legislative races.
In the end, the Organizing for ‘18 program exceeded all of our goals and expectations:
When we put it all in one place, it’s overwhelming to look at how much the OFA family has accomplished. And that’s just what we did over the last six years, as Organizing for Action — before that, it was this movement that twice elected Barack Obama president, helped pass health care reform in the first place, and so much more. But our work has only just begun.
As I said before, OFA’s core purpose has always been to build a more accessible and participatory democracy. And that’s exactly what the next chapter for this movement is all about.
OFA is putting it All On The Line to reverse undemocratic gerrymanders — devoting our grassroots power to drawing more fair maps for the progress we can achieve.
Something is fundamentally wrong when politicians feel emboldened to spend nine years trying to sabotage our health care. Something is fundamentally wrong when they repeal measures to combat climate change even as the country demands far bolder action on this crisis. Something is fundamentally wrong when they fail to enact gun laws backed by 70, 80, or 90% of Americans. Something is fundamentally wrong when comprehensive immigration reform can pass the Senate 68–32 and never even get a vote in the Republican-controlled House.
Something is fundamentally wrong. Self-serving politicians rigged our democracy — but we can fix it.
We have the chance to reshape our politics and unlock progress that has long been out of reach. It’s a chance we can’t afford to miss. Whether you care about expanding access to quality health care, or taking bold action to combat climate change, or reforming our broken immigration system so it lives up to our nation’s values, or finally passing common-sense laws to prevent gun violence, or securing equal rights and opportunities for all Americans… with redistricting, it truly is All On The Line.
OFA has combined forces with All On The Line, a multi-year campaign to make sure our government is more responsive and representative by ensuring we have a fair democratic process and fair maps. The campaign is already off and running with organizing events all across the country, and thousands of people signing up to get involved. This is how we’re carrying forward the OFA torch in that ongoing fight for a fairer, more representative democracy.
To the OFA family: I want to thank you once more, from the bottom of my heart. Twelve years ago, I was drawn to Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign — and for 12 years, you all have reminded me each and every day why I joined this movement in the first place.
You’ll be hearing more from our friends at All On The Line as they ramp up their efforts to meet this generational challenge. I hope you’ll continue fighting alongside myself, President Obama, and countless others in this family to build a more perfect union. | 0 | train |
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VIDEO: Special Preview Of Jersey Shore In Miami! Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
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They’re baaaaaackkk!!!
A preview of the second season of the breakout hit Jersey Shore aired prior to the MTV Movie Awards on Sunday night.
Watch the video on RadarOnline.com
In the clip, we get to see the cast migrating south like a flock of tanned, juiced-up birds, as it’s explained how the snowy weather in the Northeast this past February brought a halt to the antics the show is based on, hence the change of scenery.
Said Pauly D: “We love Jersey, but you can’t tan in this weather, you can’t creep in this weather. I think the beaches in Miami Beach are topless — so I’m gonna be spendin’ a lot of time on the beach.”
In the clip, Snooki introduces us to her new “gorilla juicehead” boyfriend Emilio Masella, while offering political analysis on President Barack Obama’s tanning tax.
HOTOS: Snooki Works In Miami
“I don’t go tanning-tanning anymore because Obama put a 10 percent tax on tanning,” Snooki complained as Masella shot her with spray tan. “He did that because of us.”
The new season of Jersey Shore, featuring the cast in both South Florida and New Jersey, premieres on MTV Thursday, July 29 at 10/9c. | 0 | train |
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URGENT: proposed law would charge protesters with terrorism A version of this action that uses less javacript and may be usable for those who don't use javascript is available at https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/urgent-new-law-would-charge-protesters-with-terrorism?nowrapper=true&referrer=&source= | 1 | train |
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U.S. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky Services for Kentucky
It is an absolute honor to represent the people of Kentucky in the United States Senate. One of my responsibilities is to assist individuals with federal agencies. As a resident of Kentucky, you may contact my State Office in Bowling Green at (270) 782-8303 to receive help with any federal government agency. | 0 | train |
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H.R.6060 - 109th Congress (2005-2006): Department of State Authorities Act of 2006 Array ( [actionDate] => 2006-12-08 [displayText] => Passed/agreed to in House: On motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill, as amended Agreed to by voice vote.(text: CR H9188-9190) [externalActionCode] => 8000 [description] => Passed House )
Here are the steps for Status of Legislation:
There are 3 summaries for H.R.6060. Public Law (01/11/2007) Passed Senate without amendment (12/09/2006) Introduced in House (09/13/2006) Bill summaries are authored by CRS
Shown Here:
Public Law No: 109-472 (01/11/2007)
(This measure has not been amended since it was passed by the Senate on December 9, 2006. The summary of that version is repeated here.)
Department of State Authorities Act of 2006 - (Sec. 2) Amends the Immigration and Nationality Act to permit the use of H-1, H-2, and L-visa fraud prevention fees for other visa fraud prevention in addition to being used primarily for H-1, H-2, and L-visa fraud prevention.
(Sec. 3) Amends civil service law to grant an allowance for an employee's dependents for travel expenses to and from a secondary or post-secondary educational institution, except for the 12 months following the dependent's arrival at the educational institution. Authorizes as part of such allowance a limited payment or reimbursement for the dependent's baggage storage costs incurred during one trip per year between the school and the employee's duty station.
(Sec. 4) Amends federal criminal law to provide that any person who knowingly and willfully obstructs, resists, or interferes with a federal law enforcement agent engaged, within the United States or the special maritime territorial jurisdiction of the United States, in the performance of specified protective functions shall be fined and/or imprisoned for up to one year.
(Sec. 5) Permits passport fee waiver for an individual returning from abroad for humanitarian or law enforcement purposes.
(Sec. 6) Authorizes, as of FY2007, the Secretary of State to administratively amend consular service surcharges related to border security that are in addition to passport and immigrant visa fees in effect as of January 1, 2004. Sets forth surcharge requirements.
(Sec. 7) Amends the International Organizations Immunities Act to authorize the President to extend privileges and immunities to the African Union Mission to the United States of America and to the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations in New York.
(Sec. 8) Amends the Omnibus Diplomatic Security and Antiterrorism Act of 1986 to repeal the provision making persons doing business with Libya ineligible for contracts awarded under such Act.
(Sec. 9) Amends the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 2003 with respect to the International Broadcasting Bureau personal services contracting pilot program to: (1) extend the program through December 31, 2007; and (2) include broadcasting specialists in the program.
(Sec. 10) Amends the Foreign Service Assistance Act of 1961 to authorize the President to provide assistance to friendly foreign countries for (nuclear, chemical, biological, and conventional) proliferation detection and interdiction activities and for developing complementary capabilities. Directs the President to report to the House Committee on International Relations and the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations (Committees) respecting proliferation and interdiction assistance.
Authorizes the President to conclude agreements, including reciprocal maritime agreements, with other countries to prevent the transportation of proliferation-related items to non-state actors and states of proliferation concern.
Directs the Secretary to notify the Committees within 30 days after making a determination that any friendly country is eligible for priority assistance.
(Sec. 11) Authorizes the Secretary to secure, remove, or eliminate stocks of man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS), small arms and light weapons, stockpiled munitions, abandoned ordnance, and other conventional weapons (including tactical missile systems and related equipment and facilities) located outside the United States that pose a proliferation threat.
States that nothing in this section shall be construed to affect the authorities of the Secretary of Defense.
(Sec. 12) Declares that it should be U.S. policy to hold foreign governments accountable for knowingly transferring MANPADS to state-sponsors of terrorism or terrorist organizations.
States that if the President determines that a foreign government knowingly transfers MANPADS to a foreign government that has repeatedly supported terrorism or to a terrorist organization the President shall: (1) report to the Committees; and (2) impose foreign assistance (other than humanitarian assistance), munitions list export, and defense article and military financing sanctions on the transferring foreign government. Authorizes sanctions waiver for national security purposes.
(Sec. 13) Amends the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2005 to extend authority to transfer to Israel certain war reserves that are stockpiled in Israel for an additional two years (effective on August 5, 2006).
Amends the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 to increase through FY2008 the fiscal year value of additional defense articles that may be stockpiled in foreign countries, including Israel.
Amends the Emergency Wartime Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2003 to extend loan guarantee authority for Israel through September 30, 2011. | 0 | train |
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Trump asking Congress, not Mexico, to pay for border wall Washington (CNN) President-elect Donald Trump's transition team has signaled to congressional Republican leaders that his preference is to fund the border wall through the appropriations process as soon as April, according to House Republican officials.
The move would break a key campaign promise when Trump repeatedly said he would force Mexico to pay for the construction of the wall along the border, though in October, Trump suggested for the first time that Mexico would reimburse the US for the cost of the wall.
Trump defended that proposal Friday morning in a tweet, saying the move to use congressional appropriations was because of speed.
"The dishonest media does not report that any money spent on building the Great Wall (for sake of speed), will be paid back by Mexico later!" Trump tweeted Friday.
The dishonest media does not report that any money spent on building the Great Wall (for sake of speed), will be paid back by Mexico later!
New York Rep. Chris Collins said Friday that American taxpayers would front the cost for the wall but that he was confident Trump could negotiate getting the money back from Mexico.
"When you understand that Mexico's economy is dependent upon US consumers, Donald Trump has all the cards he needs to play," Collins, congressional liaison for the Trump transition team, told CNN's Alisyn Camerota on "New Day." "On the trade negotiation side, I don't think it's that difficult for Donald Trump to convince Mexico that it's in their best interest to reimburse us for building the wall."
The Trump team argues it will have the authority through a Bush-era 2006 law to build the wall, lawmakers say, but it lacks the money to do so. Transition officials have told House GOP leaders in private meetings they'd like to pay for the wall in the funding bill, a senior House GOP source said.
"It was not done in the Obama administration, so by funding the authorization that's already happened a decade ago, we could start the process of meeting Mr. Trump's campaign pledge to secure the border," Indiana Republican Rep. Luke Messer said on Thursday.
Messer admitted it's "big dollars, but it's a question of priorities." He pointed to a border security bill that Homeland Security Chairman Mike McCaul proposed last year that cost roughly $10 billion.
"Democrats may well find themselves in the position to shut down all of government to stop the buildout of a wall, or of a barrier, or of a fence," Messer said.
Mexican leaders have repeatedly said they will not pay for the wall.
If Mexico refuses to pay for the wall, the GOP could add billions of dollars into the spending bill that needs to pass by April 28 to keep the government open. But doing so would force a showdown with Senate Democrats and potentially threaten a government shutdown.
No decisions have been made, GOP sources said.
Republicans point out that then-Sen. Barack Obama, Sen. Chuck Schumer and then-Sen. Hillary Clinton voted for the 2006 bill and argued that since Democrats backed that bill, they should support efforts to fund the current effort.
The thinking behind the strategy is that it is harder for Democrats to filibuster spending bills because of the high stakes involved if they fail to pass in time.
Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 3 Republican in the House leadership, declined to say Thursday if Congress would pay for the wall.
"We want President Trump to have all the tools he needs to build the wall," Scalise said. "We're in talks with him on the details of it as they're still putting together their team. We still got a few months before there's another funding bill that's going to move. We're going to work with him to make sure we can get it done. We want to build a wall. He wants to build a wall."
Could Mexico pay for the border wall?
Trump himself has estimated his border wall would cost $8 billion, though other analysts have estimated the price would be as much as $10 billion . And the proposals Trump has outlined to coerce Mexico into paying for the wall involve controversial measures that would still likely fail to cover the wall's full cost.
According to Trump's website , those steps could include: remittance seizure, potential tariffs and foreign aids cuts, increasing fees on temporary visas issued to Mexican CEOs and diplomats, increasing fees on border crossing cards, increasing fees on NAFTA worker visas; and increasing fees at ports of entry to the US from Mexico.
A major challenge for judging Trump's proposal is that most of those steps amount to a drop in the bucket -- less than $1 billion -- compared to the proposed cost of the wall. And the one step that could provide the required amount of money -- remittance seizure -- would face major legal obstacles, in addition to the likelihood of severe domestic and international backlash.
Total US foreign aid to Mexico is less than $200 million a year ( $186,000,000 in the 2014 fiscal year ), so redirecting all of that money to a border wall would only put a mild dent in the $8 billion bill. And it's difficult to know the amount of revenue generated from a tariff on Mexican exports -- or to account for potential losses from a retaliatory tariff -- without the specifics of the tax.
Moving next to fee increases, Trump says on his website that "even a small increase in visa fees would pay for the wall. This includes fees on border crossing cards, of which more than 1 million are issued a year." But the fees for visas and border crossing cards range from around $150 to $200 each, according to State Department data. Accounting for all the fees on over a million border crossing cards and visas in a year year -- and even accounting for a twofold increase in those fees -- that would still only generate about half a billion dollars, well short of an $8 billion price tag.
The biggest potential source of money for the wall would come from remittance seizure: remittance payments are money that immigrants, legal and illegal, earn in their country of residence and send back to their families in their native country.
Trump says on his website that he would use the Patriot Act to require legal identification for money transfer transactions, according to his website. But CNN legal analyst Paul Callan says Trump's plan would likely face multiple legal battles.
"The Mexican immigrants Trump seeks to target are clearly not the 'Radical Islamic Terrorists' that the Patriot Act was designed to fight," says Callan. "The courts are likely to view Mr. Trump's use of the always controversial Patriot Act as an improper and illegal use. The proposal may also fail to place pressure on the Mexican government as money can be smuggled back to Mexico in many other creative ways if wire transfers are cut."
The size of Mexico's remittance revenue far surpasses any other revenue-raising proposal from Trump, and would probably be the most effective way to pay for the border wall. But looking at the obstacles that such an action would face, it's difficult to envision a path to impounding those payments to pay for the wall. | 0 | train |
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Obama Promises Abortion in Public Plan 自動再生 自動再生を有効にすると、関連動画が自動的に再生されます。
次の動画 | 0 | train |
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Leonard Lance claims federal tax code contains 4 million words, is 7 times as long as Bible "The Internal Revenue code has ballooned to a 5,600-page, 4 million-word complicated mess that is seven times as long as the Bible with none of the good news."
The U.S. Internal Revenue code may make War and Peace read like a novella.
That’s how onerous and confounding the nation’s tax code is, according to Rep. Leonard Lance (R-7th), who issued a news release April 15 calling for "meaningful tax reform" and blasting the complexity of the tax code.
"The Internal Revenue code has ballooned to a 5,600-page, 4 million-word complicated mess that is seven times as long as the Bible with none of the good news," Lance said in the news release.
But not all the news is bad for Lance.
Let’s first review the size of the tax code and then compare that with the size of the Bible.
A 2010 report by the Internal Revenue Service’s Taxpayer’s Advocate Office found that the tax code contained 3.8 million words. That calculation was made by downloading a zipped file of the code, unzipping it and running it through Microsoft Word’s word-count feature, according to a footnote in the report. A 2012 version of the report puts the number of words in the code at ‘about 4 million.’
We also reached out to CCH, the Riverwoods, Ill.-based publisher of the two-volume 2013 Winter version of the tax code and was told the best estimate of word length was 4 million. CCH is a Wolters Kluwer business.
So Lance’s claim about the number of words is generally accurate.
Next, let’s look at number of pages. Lance said 5,600, based on the same figure cited by articles in the Washington Post, the Harvard Business Review and other publications, according to Todd Mitchell, Lance’s chief of staff.
Mark Luscombe, a principal federal tax analyst for CCH, said the publisher’s version of the tax code is 5,036 pages.
"Private publishers do a print version of the Internal Revenue code, but then you’re looking at one private publisher’s version of the code," he said. "We do it in two volumes and we keep condensing it."
The key point here? Letter size, font and spacing matter when counting pages in the tax code and even in the Bible.
Dennis Olson, the Charles T. Haley professor of Old Testament Theology at the Princeton Theological Seminary said an approximation of 800,000 words for the Old and New testaments combined is fair.
"The King James Version would be 823,156 while the more recent New Revised Standard Version would be 774,746 words," Olson said in an e-mail.
Hellen Mardaga, an assistant professor of New Testament at Catholic University in Washington, said there’s no standard way to measure the size of the Bible, given its numerous translations and texts but said she, too, was aware of estimates that put the Bible at 800,000 words.
Mardaga also noted that dividing 4 million – the number of words in the tax code – by 800,000 - would mean the tax code is five times longer than the Bible -- not Lance’s seven.
We looked at versions of the King James and New American Standard versions of the Bible on Amazon.com, an online retailer of books and other merchandise. The four Bibles we looked at ranged in size from 512 pages to 1,112. Accordingly, Mitchell said he has seen numerous references comparing the size of the tax code with the Bible, ranging from 4 times as long to 10 times as long. Seven, he said, is in the middle.
"It all depends on what version (of the Bible) you have in front of you," he said. "I’m not sure there’s a right or wrong answer to the question."
Our ruling
Lance said, "The Internal Revenue code has ballooned to a 5,600-page, 4 million-word complicated mess that is seven times as long as the Bible with none of the good news."
It’s generally accepted that the code is about 4 million words in length, according to previous published reports and the publisher of the 2013 winter version of the tax code. Lance also based his figure of 5,600 pages on previous reports from publications such as the Harvard Business Review. Opinions also differ on the code’s length when compared with the Bible, given the many versions, translations and texts of it. And while the tax code isn’t seven times as long as the Bible, even given a standard word count for the good book, we get Lance’s overall point: the tax code is long and complex. We rate his claim Mostly True.
To comment on this story, go to NJ.com. | 0 | train |
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WATCH LIVE: Tim Kaine and Corey Stewart meet for first U.S. Senate debate in Virginia 尾崎豊は最期に"大切な仲間との決裂"を悔やんでいた…尾崎の横暴な態度にお手上げだった男たちが"決裂の瞬間"を明かす｜『徹の部屋#40』2019.3.31アベマTVで放送
- 長さ: 1:45:24。
AbemaTV【アベマTV】公式
148,720 回視聴 | 0 | train |
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United States Senator Jim DeMint A day after the Senate adjourned for Easter recess President Obama said he was going to appoint 15 of his nominees during the break, depriving the Senate the opportunity to vet and vote on any of them.
Circumventing constitutional Senate vetting is dangerous because President Obama’s track record in vetting nominees and other high-level appointees has been very poor. At least 10 of them have already resigned or withdrawn in disgrace.
Just yesterday, Maj. Gen. Robert A. Harding withdrew his nomination to become the director of the Transportation Security Administration after it was discovered he claimed “service disabled veteran” status for sleep apnea. President Obama’s first nominee for that position, Erroll Southers, withdrew after refusing to respond to requests relating to false testimony he gave to Congress and his censure by the FBI for improperly accessing files.
Many of the people President Obama is granting recess appointments will hold high level positions that will greatly influence job creation in this country.
One of them, Craig Becker, is a former super lawyer for the AFL-CIO and Service Employees International Union.
Becker supports union-friendly, job-killing “card check” legislation to eliminate the secret ballot requirement to organize a workplace. Now, President Obama is installing him into a position to do it administratively, as Mr. Becker has advocated doing in the past.
This is being done over the will of the Senate. On February 9, on a bipartisan vote the Senate rejected Becker’s nomination to the 5-member National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Democrat Senator Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska) said at the time that Mr. Becker, "would take an aggressive personal agenda to the NLRB, and that he would pursue a personal agenda there." Moreover, all 41 Republican senators wrote President Obama a letter earlier this week asking him not to overturn this vote and give Becker a recess appointment.
Yet, President Obama is ramming his “card check czar” through the Senate, just like he did with health care earlier this month.
There are many unanswered questions and concerns about the other 14 nominees as well. That’s why it’s critical that the Senate have the opportunity to vet and vote on nominees.
Below is the “Top 10” list of President Obama’s nominees and appointees who have resigned in disgrace.
1. Obama’s nominee to chair the National Intelligence Council, Chas Freeman, withdrew over questions about payments from the Saudi Arabian government, business ties to the state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corp., and negative statements he made about U.S. support for Israel. After he resigned he issued a combative public statement blaming the “Israel lobby” for “character assassination.”
2. White House “Green Jobs” czar Van Jones resigned after he it was discovered he signed a statement in support of a 9/11 “Truther” group.
3. Former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-South Dakota) withdrew his nomination to become Health and Human Services Secretary after it was discovered he failed to properly pay his taxes.
4. Nancy Killefer, Obama’s nominee to serve as the government’s chief performance officer, withdrew due to tax problems.
5. Governor Bill Richardson (D-New Mexico) withdrew his nomination to become Commerce Secretary because of an ongoing investigation into whether he doled out government contracts in exchange for campaign money.
6. White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers resigned after posing for photos at a White House dinner that a couple crashed through security to attend.
7. Jonathan Z. Cannon, nominated to serve as deputy director at the Environmental Protection Administration, withdrew over questions about a defunct non-profit, America’s Clean Water Foundation, where he served as a board member. In 2007, EPA auditors accused the non-profit of mismanaging $25 million in taxpayer funding.
8. Jide Zeitlin, Obama’s nominee to serve as U.S ambassador to the United Nations for management and reform withdrew his name while being accused of identify fraud and improper business practices.
9. Erroll Southers, Obama’s nominee to serve as director of the Travel Security Administration, withdrew after refusing to answer questions about collective bargaining and false testimony he presented to Congress.
10. Maj. Gen. Robert A. Harding, Obama’s second nominee to service as director of the Travel Security Administration, withdrew his name after it was discovered he received “service disabled veteran” status for sleep apnea.
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3,000-Pound Great White Shark Captured in Great Lakes 218.9k SHARES Share Tweet Share
Waukegan, IL | The capture of a huge 3,000-pound great white shark in Lake Michigan yesterday could explain the disappearance of missing people in the area in the last decade, has confirmed the U.S. Coast Guard this morning.
Canadian tourist, John O’Keef and his friend from Chicago, Allan Brooks captured the 3,000-pound beast while fishing for sturgeon in Michigan Lake.
“We reeled in the beast for a good 4-5 hours before my friend Allan finally shot it with a rifle and wounded it to the head” explains O’Keef.
“I’d heard of the Lake Michigan monster, but never did I expect to catch it myself,” claims the 63-year-old Canadian tourist.
The great white shark estimated at more than 1.2 tons is the biggest fish ever caught in the region, believe experts.
Professor of biology at the University of Illinois, Allan Jameson said: “This is not common to find such a beast so far inland. Either rising sea temperatures and depleted fish stocks possibly led the shark to adventure itself further into the Great Lakes region.” he admits, visibly puzzled. “It is also possible it traveled to the region through underwater tunnels that interconnect between the Great Lakes,” he told reporters.
According to authorities more than a hundred people reported missing in the area in the last decade may have fallen under the fangs of the gigantic beast, several local residents even suspecting its presence for a long time.
U.S. Coast Guards reassured local residents that the occurrence of such a predator in the region’s waters “is highly unlikely” as sharks are not well adapted to freshwater systems.
In 1916, a deadly shark attack near Presque Ile beach, in Lake Eerie, made national headlines, forcing local authorities to ban swimming in the region for over 14 years until the ban was lifted in 1930. | 1 | train |
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Wilmington Regional Film Commission LOCATION. LOCATION. LOCATION.
Since the 1980s, the Wilmington area has persisted as an active film production hub, supporting feature films, TV series, independent productions, and more. The Wilmington Regional Film Commission, Inc., takes up the mantle of marketing southeastern North Carolina’s many assets and location advantages to the industry; our staff knows the region inside and out, and can use working local knowledge to navigate everything from site location to scouting and production logistics. Contact us to start your film venture today. | 1 | train |
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The Obameter: Introduce a comprehensive immigration bill in the first year Immigration reform was a major component of President Barack Obama's campaign platform. He promised to secure the border, crack down on employers who hire undocumented immigrants, and provide a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
While watching ABC's This Week as part of our fact-checking partnership with the show, we learned of a promise that we hadn't heard before. During the campaign, then-candidate Obama was interviewed by Univision's Jorge Ramos, a prominent voice within the Latin American community. During that interview, Obama said he would pursue immigration reform aggressively. "I cannot guarantee that it is going to be in the first 100 days," Obama said. "But what I can guarantee is that we will have in the first year an immigration bill that I strongly support and that I'm promoting. And I want to move that forward as quickly as possible."
We checked our database of promises, and found that that while we did have promises from Obama on immigration reform, we missed this one with its specific deadline. So we're adding it, along with a rating.
Obama set a timetable for this promise, saying he would "strongly support" an immigration bill in his first year. But, well into his second year, no comprehensive immigration reform measure supported by Obama has been introduced in Congress.
We searched his speeches on VoteSmart.org and found numerous mentions of immigration reform. In April 2009, in response to a question about the one-year deadline, he said that he saw the "process moving this first year." In June 2009, he assigned Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano to begin putting together a comprehensive immigration reform framework. Finally, in September 2009, he said that he anticipated "that before the year is out we will have draft legislation, along with sponsors potentially in the House and the Senate who are ready to move this forward, and when we come back next year, that we should be in a position to start acting."
Alas, the year came to an end with no Obama-endorsed bill in sight. On December 15, 2009, Democratic Rep. Luis Gutierrez introduced a bill of his own, but a spokesman for the Center for Immigration Studies said that Obama administration has not promoted or publicly supported Gutierrez's bill.
Over the course of 2010, Obama continued to push for immigration reform in his speeches. He mentioned it in his State of the Union address and announced in March that Senators Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., finished working on a bipartisan framework "to fix our broken immigration system." That was followed by a release of a 26-page immigration reform proposal in April, which the President called a "a very important step."
Finally, Obama reiterated his call for bipartisan reform in a major speech at American University on July 1, 2010. "In recent days, the issue of immigration has become once more a source of fresh contention in our country, with the passage of a controversial law in Arizona and the heated reactions we"ve seen across America. Some have rallied behind this new policy. Others have protested and launched boycotts of the state. And everywhere, people have expressed frustration with a system that seems fundamentally broken," said Obama.
Obama promised to strongly support a comprehensive immigration reform bill that would be introduced during his first year in office. As president, he has repeatedly called for reform and several immigration-related bills are pending in Congress. But we're well into the second year of Obama's presidency, and all that we've seen are proposals and frameworks, no actual bills. Unless the White House has a time machine that we don't know about, this is a Promise Broken. | 0 | train |
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Ryan's plan includes $700 billion in Medicare "cuts," says Stephanie Cutter Mitt Romney’s pick of U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate has rekindled a heated debate over Medicare.
Ryan, R-Wis., is the head of the Budget Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives and the architect of a plan to dramatically restructure Medicare.
Today, Medicare operates as a government-run health insurance plan for Americans over age 65.
Ryan’s idea is to eventually move Medicare toward private insurance companies by giving people a set amount to buy their own health insurance plans. The new system would be for people who are under age 55 now, and it would give them voucher-like credits to buy traditional fee-for-service Medicare or competing private insurance plans. (The credits are sometimes called "premium support.")
Though House Republicans voted overwhelmingly for Ryan’s plan, polling shows public opinion is mixed, with older voters the most wary of the plan.
The Republican response to attacks on the Ryan plan has been to attack back, saying President Barack Obama has cut "$700 billion" out of Medicare. And the Democratic response to that: Well, Paul Ryan cuts that amount, too!
For this check, we’re looking specifically at what Obama campaign spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said on Face the Nation when debating Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom.
"You know, I heard Mitt Romney deride the $700 billion cuts in Medicare that the president achieved through health care reform," Cutter said. "You know what those cuts are? It’s taking subsidies away from insurance companies, taking rebates away from prescription drug company. Is that what Mitt Romney wants to protect? And interestingly enough Paul Ryan protected those cuts in his budget."
It’s a lot to digest if you’re not already a Medicare policy wonk, so let us sort it out for you. For now, we are going to put aside the question of whether it is accurate to call them "cuts" -- a claim we're checking in another item -- and focus on the question of whether Cutter is correct that Ryan relies on those same reductions in his budget.
$700 billion in Medicare cuts?
Because we’re wonks ourselves at PolitiFact, our ears pricked up at the claim in recent days that Obama cut $700 billion out of Medicare. Just a few weeks ago, the oft-cited number was $500 billion. How did he manage to cut another $200 billion when no one was looking?
Well, there are cuts and then there are CUTS. Neither Obama nor his health care law literally "cut" a dollar from the Medicare program’s budget.
Rather, the health care law instituted a number of changes to reduce the growth of Medicare costs. At the time the law was passed, those reductions amounted to $500 billion over the next 10 years.
What kind of spending reductions are we talking about? They were mainly aimed at insurance companies and hospitals, not beneficiaries. The law makes significant reductions to Medicare Advantage, a subset of Medicare plans run by private insurers. Medicare Advantage was started under President George W. Bush, and the idea was that competition among the private insurers would reduce costs. But in recent years the plans have actually cost more than traditional Medicare. So the health care law scales back the payments to private insurers.
Hospitals, too, will be paid less if they have too many re-admissions, or if they fail to meet other new benchmarks for patient care.
Still, the overall Medicare budget is projected to go up for the foreseeable future. The health care law tries to limit that growth, making it less than it would have been without the law, but not reducing its overall budget. So claims that Obama would "cut" Medicare need more explanation to be fully accurate. In the past, we’ve rated similar statements Half True or Mostly False, depending on the wording and context.
Because Medicare spending gets bigger every year, the cost-saving mechanisms in the health care law also get bigger. Also, it takes a few years for the health care law’s savings mechanisms to kick in. In fact, the effects of time are the main reason the $500 billion number has turned into $700 billion.
The CBO determined in 2011 that the federal health care law would reduce Medicare outlays by $507 billion between 2012 and 2021. In a more recent estimate released this year, the CBO looked at the years 2013 to 2022 and determined the health care law affected Medicare outlays by $716 billion.
So it’s timing that’s making the "cuts" bigger, not changes to Medicare.
Does the Ryan budget ‘protect those cuts’?
Now onto our second question: Does Ryan’s budget keep the reductions in Medicare spending? The short answer is yes.
Here’s what Ryan said in an interview with George Stephanopolous of ABC News in June, before his selection as Romney’s running mate:
Stephanopoulos: "You know, several independent fact-checkers have taken a look at that claim, the $500 billion in Medicare cuts, and said that it's misleading. And in fact, by that accounting, your budget, your own budget, which Gov. Romney has endorsed, would also have $500 billion in Medicare cuts.
Ryan: "Well, our budget keeps that money for Medicare to extend its solvency. What Obamacare does is it takes that money from Medicare to spend on Obamacare. ..." (Read the full exchange.)
So Ryan has confirmed his budget includes the Medicare savings.
The Romney campaign got questions on this point the day after Cutter’s remarks, and issued a statement saying that Romney intended to fully repeal the federal law, including the savings for Medicare.
"Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have always been fully committed to repealing Obamacare, ending President Obama’s $716 billion raid on Medicare, and tackling the serious fiscal challenges our country faces," said Lanhee Chen, Romney’s policy director, in a statement reported by NBC News. "A Romney-Ryan administration will restore the funding to Medicare, ensure that no changes are made to the program for those 55 or older, and implement the reforms that they have proposed to strengthen it for future generations."
Cutter, though, was talking about the Ryan budget. We should point out that the Ryan budget is a congressional resolution that doesn’t have the force of law. And its plan for Medicare hasn’t been turned into legislation that could be analyzed in detail by the Congressional Budget Office.
Still, Ryan himself said his plan did include the reductions in future spending that were part of the federal health care law.
That’s because both sides agree on one point: Medicare spending is growing too rapidly, and it needs to reined in.
Our ruling
Cutter said that Romney attacked Obama for cutting $700 billion out of Medicare, but "Paul Ryan protected those cuts in his budget." Again, with this item we are not addressing whether they are cuts, but simply whether she is correctly characterizing Ryan's plan.
Cutter is correct that the Ryan budget plan included cost savings that were part of the future health care law. Just recently, the Romney campaign backed away from that play, saying Romney’s plan would restore the spending that the health law is set to curtail, such as extra funding for private insurers under the Medicare Advantage plan.
Still, Cutter was right about the Ryan plan. We rate her statement True. | 0 | train |
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Attorney General Sessions Statement on Recusal Attorney General Jeff Sessions today issued the following statement:
“During the course of the confirmation proceedings on my nomination to be Attorney General, I advised the Senate Judiciary Committee that ‘[i]f a specific matter arose where I believed my impartiality might reasonably be questioned, I would consult with Department ethics officials regarding the most appropriate way to proceed.’
“During the course of the last several weeks, I have met with the relevant senior career Department officials to discuss whether I should recuse myself from any matters arising from the campaigns for President of the United States.
“Having concluded those meetings today, I have decided to recuse myself from any existing or future investigations of any matters related in any way to the campaigns for President of the United States.
“I have taken no actions regarding any such matters, to the extent they exist.
“This announcement should not be interpreted as confirmation of the existence of any investigation or suggestive of the scope of any such investigation.
“Consistent with the succession order for the Department of Justice, Acting Deputy Attorney General and U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Dana Boente shall act as and perform the functions of the Attorney General with respect to any matters from which I have recused myself to the extent they exist.” | 1 | train |
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Lady Gagaさんのツイート: ".@MELANIATRUMP to say u will stand for "anti-bullying" is hypocrisy. Your husband is 1 of the most notorious bullies we have ever witnessed." 位置情報付きでツイート
ウェブサイトやサードパーティアプリケーションから、都市や正確な現在地などの位置情報をツイートに追加できます。ツイートの位置情報履歴はいつでも削除できます。 詳細はこちら | 1 | train |
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CQ Vote Studies Congressional Quarterly has studied the voting behavior of members of Congress since 1953 to assess how often lawmakers stick with members of their own caucus on votes when the two parties divide and how often they back the president on votes where he has a clear position. With Congress out of town until after the national conventions, CQ's editors are digging into their votes database to compile expanded vote analysis packages for CQ.com.
New! Partisanship and Presidential Support in the Bush Era
CQ has completed a study of all roll-call votes during the seven-and-a-half years of President Bush's two terms — up to Congress' August recess. It is a first-ever look at the way lawmakers voted over an entire presidency. It underscores the high level of Capitol Hill partisanship that has been a hallmark of the period, and shows that while Republican support for President Bush was quite high, Democratic support was almost nonexistent in the House and very limited in the Senate.
The searchable table shows both party unity and presidential support scores over the entire Bush presidency for individual lawmakers who are currently serving in the 110th Congress. It also flags the races CQ Politics has determined will be competitive on Election Day.
How CQ Calculated the Bush Administration Scores | Previous CQ Weekly Coverage: Moderates Come Front and Center (July 28) | 0 | train |
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Thinking about writing in a candidate on Election Day? Read this before you do. Getting ballot access can be hard for smaller campaigns with fewer resources. Darrell Castle, the candidate for the Constitution Party, is on the ballot in more than two dozen states. Castle said his campaign has faced ballot access obstacles in California, Texas and Oklahoma. “Those states are virtually impossible for a party like mine because they cost so much money,” Castle said.
Castle isn’t on the ballot in Oklahoma. To be on the ballot there required signatures from at least 3 percent of all votes cast in the state in 2012, or about 40,000 signatures. Castle says this would likely require hiring professionals who often charge a few dollars for each signature.
Roque “Rocky” De La Fuente is running as an independent and is on the ballot in 20 states. As other non-major-party candidates have promised to do, De La Fuente has mounted several legal challenges for ballot access. | 1 | train |
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Donald Trump Sets Conditions for Defending NATO Allies Against Attack CLEVELAND — Donald J. Trump, on the eve of accepting the Republican nomination for president, explicitly raised new questions on Wednesday about his commitment to automatically defending NATO allies if they are attacked, saying he would first look at their contributions to the alliance.
Asked about Russia’s threatening activities, which have unnerved the small Baltic States that are among the more recent entrants into NATO, Mr. Trump said that if Russia attacked them, he would decide whether to come to their aid only after reviewing if those nations have “fulfilled their obligations to us.”
“If they fulfill their obligations to us,” he added, “the answer is yes.”
Mr. Trump’s statement appeared to be the first time that a major candidate for president had suggested conditioning the United States’ defense of its major allies. It was consistent, however, with his previous threat to withdraw American forces from Europe and Asia if those allies fail to pay more for American protection.
Mr. Trump also said he would not pressure Turkey or other authoritarian allies about conducting purges of their political adversaries or cracking down on civil liberties. The United States, he said, has to “fix our own mess” before trying to alter the behavior of other nations. | 0 | train |
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The Return of the Viral Email Viewing this video requires Adobe Flash Player 8 or higher. Download the free player.
Dear Friend,This is probably one of the longest emails I’ve ever sent, but it could be the most important.Across the country we are seeing vigorous debate about health insurance reform.Unfortunately, some of the old tactics we know so well are back — even the viral emails that fly unchecked and under the radar, spreading all sorts of lies and distortions.As President Obama said at the town hall in New Hampshire, "where we do disagree, let's disagree over things that are real, not these wild misrepresentations that bear no resemblance to anything that's actually been proposed."So let’s start a chain email of our own. At the end of my email, you’ll find a lot of information about health insurance reform, distilled into 8 ways reform provides security and stability to those with or without coverage, 8 common myths about reform and 8 reasons we need health insurance reform now.Right now, someone you know probably has a question about reform that could be answered by what’s below. So what are you waiting for? Forward this email.Thanks,DavidDavid AxelrodSenior Adviser to the PresidentP.S. We launched www.WhiteHouse.gov/realitycheck this week to knock down the rumors and lies that are floating around the internet. You can find the information below, and much more, there. For example, we've just added a video of Nancy-Ann DeParle from our Health Reform Office tackling a viral email head on. Check it out: | 0 | train |
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Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics survey (National) Home Page The Current Employment Statistics (CES) program produces detailed industry estimates of nonfarm employment, hours, and earnings of workers on payrolls. CES National Estimates produces data for the nation, and CES State and Metro Area produces estimates for all 50 States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and about 450 metropolitan areas and divisions.
Each month, CES surveys approximately 142,000 businesses and government agencies, representing approximately 689,000 individual worksites.
Next Releases: The Employment Situation for April 2019 is scheduled to be released on May 3, 2019, at 8:30 A.M. Eastern Time.
Real Earnings for April 2019 is scheduled to be released on May 10, 2019, at 8:30 A.M. Eastern Time.
Current Employment Statistics Contacts Staff members of the Current Employment Statistics are available Monday through Friday 8:30 AM TO 4:30 PM EASTERN TIME for your assistance. Telephone: (202) 691-6555
Fax: (202) 691-6641
If you have a specific CES data question, please contact us via e-mail. Written inquiries should be directed to:
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Division of Current Employment Statistics
Suite 4840
2 Massachusetts Avenue, NE
Washington, DC 20212-0001
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'This Week' Transcript: Hillary Clinton (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR (voice-over): This week, people power making history, a revolt in the Midwest and a revolution sweeping across the Middle East. State of siege. We take you to Wisconsin, where firefighters and teachers have stormed the capitol, lawmakers are in hiding, and the Tea Party is fighting back. Bob Woodruff with the real story, inside the battle in the heartland.
(UNKNOWN): We won in November. Elections have consequences.
AMANPOUR: Our roundtable will ask, will this spread around the rest of the country? As cuts get deep, who should bear the pain?
And freedom fever, the very latest from the Middle East, where bloody protests force another key ally to do the unthinkable. My exclusive with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the young Internet revolutionaries who tell us how they engineered the fall of America's staunchest ally with American tech, not tanks. "This Week," "People Power," starts right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Good morning.
Populist frustration is boiling over this week, as we said, not just in the Middle East, but in the middle of this country, as well. A budget war threatens to shut down the federal government, and now union workers fighting back are tying state and local governments in knots. Ground zero: Madison, Wisconsin.
ABC's Bob Woodruff is there, and he joins me now with the very latest. Good morning, Bob.
WOODRUFF: Good morning, Christiane.
AMANPOUR: So there have been six days of protests there so far, state employees fighting the proposed cuts to their benefits and their union's right to bargain, Democratic legislators hiding in order to stop a vote. Bob, what's driving the people that you've met there? Does it look like there's an end in sight?
WOODRUFF: Well, that's a good question. You know, this has been just a huge event. The weather is now starting to change today. They think there might be about six inches of snow today. Hopefully that's going to come to an end, as well.
But, really, the numbers are really impressive. You know, they now estimate that about 68,000 people were here yesterday. Most of them were teacher union members. But also then, for the first time yesterday, the Tea Party supporters.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WOODRUFF (voice-over): Is this what the future of American politics looks like?
(UNKNOWN): I don't think we've ever had anything like this.
(UNKNOWN): This is unprecedented for -- for our times. WOODRUFF: In Madison, the capitol building is still swelling with protesters, a near total takeover. Tens of thousands in the streets, too, determined to thwart a bill they see as a frontal assault on public labor unions.
(UNKNOWN): What's disgusting?
(UNKNOWN): Union busting.
(UNKNOWN): What's disgusting?
(UNKNOWN): Union busting.
(UNKNOWN): How do you get better teachable moments than this? If you don't like what somebody's doing, we don't just sit back and -- and watch. We don't wait four years for the next budget or election cycle. We tell them right away we don't like it.
WOODRUFF: The protesters are furious with Governor Scott Walker's plan to drastically curtail the bargaining power of their unions. Outraged public workers and their allies have dominated the scene here since last Monday. But for the first time this weekend, they had company.
(on-screen): Really what this is, is a tale of two rallies. You've got the one side, the union on this side, and then you come on over here to the Tea Party. So on one side, you've got kill the bill. On the other side, you've got pass the bill.
(voice-over): The crowd supporting the governor, smaller in size but not in conviction, came from around the state to deliver a clear message.
(UNKNOWN): But we're not going to negotiate. Why would we negotiate? We won -- we won in November. Elections have consequences. That's -- it's as simple as that. I can't make it any plainer. We won; they lost. That's what's going to happen. The bill is going to be passed.
WOODRUFF: We met Lou Debraccio (ph) early in the morning, 110 miles away from the capitol, as he and a clutch of fellow Tea Party supporters boarded a bus bound for Madison. Debraccio (ph) is a small government conservative, eager for his voice to be heard in the debate.
DEBRACCIO (ph): I want to -- I want to see the state move forward. And in order to do that, many of us in the private sector have had to sacrifice and I think necessary that -- that we all share that sacrifice. It does hit home for me. My wife is a teacher. It's going to cost our family money. But it's the right thing to do, so I support it.
WOODRUFF: While Debraccio (ph) was heading to town, chemistry teacher Anthony Schnell (ph) and his family were deep in their morning routine. J. SCHNELL: The immediate effect to our family is that we will make about $500 a month less on Anthony's paycheck. And we are just hanging on by our fingernails right now. My husband loves being a teacher. He's tried other things, and he loves education, he loves kids, he loves working with families. And for him to say I think I might have to leave this again is just heart-breaking, because it's his passion.
A. SCHNELL: This isn't about the money. It's not about the benefits. Of course, that's going to hit us, and we don't like that. But it's really about having input in the classes, you know, having input with the school board, having input with what happens.
WOODRUFF: Anthony's been coming to the protests all week, but the Tea Party's presence weighed on his mind as he approached the capitol.
A. SCHNELL: I'm a little nervous about today. I just don't know what's going happen.
WOODRUFF: Once inside the rotunda, he lost the butterflies and began working the crowd.
A. SCHNELL: Is this a budget fight?
CROWD: No.
A. SCHNELL: Is this just about money?
CROWD: No.
A. SCHNELL: Is this about us doing the best in our classrooms?
CROWD: Yes.
WOODRUFF (on-screen): They're all saying this is huge. And if it happens here, it's going to happen everywhere in the rest of the country.
(voice-over): In the rotunda, there is now a flavor of a '60s- era sit-in. In fact, some told us it's the biggest demonstration they've seen here since the Vietnam War.
(on-screen): You doing this every day until this thing -- this bill is killed?
OWEN: I think this is going to happen every day until this bill is killed. I don't think there's any way that the people in this building are going to give up the right to collective bargaining.
(UNKNOWN): I'm here because this is wrong, that this sort of shotgun legislation, ramming it through, it's the wrong way to deal with problems. This isn't about me. It's about trying to do the best we can for society and communities.
WOODRUFF: Do you think it's going to be peaceful? (UNKNOWN): I think so. I think the tensions are going to be high, but I think it's going to stay civil.
WOODRUFF: But what if this...
(UNKNOWN): Well, wait. Not civil, it's going to stay peaceful.
WOODRUFF: Lou Debraccio (ph) got an earful from the pro-labor crowd as he made his way to the Tea Party demonstration.
DEBRACCIO (ph): I'm not going to change any of their minds. They're committed enough to drive here and make signs, just like they're not going to change my mind. It's not about that. So there's limited return in talking to them.
WOODRUFF: Even some families are divided. Julie Hansen (ph) supports the governor. Her 13-year-old daughter does not.
HANSEN (ph): My 13-year-old is for collective bargaining. She went to school yesterday, and the teachers spoke to her about it.
WOODRUFF: Think she believes it and -- or just because of the one lesson from the teacher?
HANSEN (ph): We had a pretty adamant discussion.
WOODRUFF (voice-over): Jeff Strobel (ph) is here with the Tea Party. His brother-in-law is on the other side.
STROBEL (ph): And my brother-in-law is a union worker. We had a big e-mail exchange on Facebook last night. The best thing is, it was civil, it was, you know, courteous. But we kind of tried to educate each other, but we're never going to agree. He's on this side; I'm on this side. But we can talk about it.
WOODRUFF (on-screen): Still going to have a peaceful Christmas dinner together?
STROBEL (ph): As long as there's beer there, we'll be peaceful.
WOODRUFF (voice-over): Late Saturday, the governor issued a statement, turning down a compromise offer from the unions. And so here in Wisconsin, the standoff continues, for now.
For "This Week," I'm Bob Woodruff in Madison, Wisconsin.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: And so is Wisconsin just the beginning? States from coast to coast are grappling with this fundamental question: In desperate economic times, which Americans should sacrifice the most? I'll put that to the roundtable coming up next.
And later, revolt in the Middle East engulfs more of America's strongest allies, with the Obama administration struggling to stay ahead of events. I'll get an exclusive progress report from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: Some of what I've heard coming out of Wisconsin, where you're just making it harder for public employees to collectively bargain generally, seems like more of an assault on unions. And I think it's very important for us to understand that public employees, they're our neighbors, they're our friends. They make a lot of sacrifices and make a big contribution. And I think it's important not to vilify them or to suggest that somehow all these budget problems are due to public employees.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: President Obama igniting a national conversation about which Americans should feel the pain of the budget axe. With pitched battles going on right now here in Washington and in statehouses from Florida to Wisconsin to California, with me now, our roundtable, George Will, Congressman Steve Southerland, a Republican freshman from Florida, he was elected to public office for the very first time last November and sent here to Washington on a mission to cut spending. Also with us, ABC senior political correspondent Jonathan Karl and political strategist Donna Brazile, who calls herself a labor Democrat.
Thank you all for being here. So, George, Wisconsin. Is this the sort of battle that we're going to see shaping up around the country? Is this really the sort of political and philosophical debate that's going on right now about what these cuts are going to mean?
WILL: It would have been even if the president hadn't intervened. But in the span of three days, Christiane, he first submits a budget that would increase the federal deficit and, two days later, he mobilizes his party, his own political machine, and organized labor, which is an appendage to his party, to sabotage Wisconsin's attempt to do what he will not do, which is deal with the insolvency of their government. In doing so, he has set the stage for 2012 by saying the Democratic Party is the party of government, not just in having an exaggerated view of the scope and competence of government, but because its base is in public employees.
AMANPOUR: So, Donna, mobilizing his troops, sabotaging the effort to cut the budget, he did use the word "assault," the president. Is that too much? I mean, what is going on here? BRAZILE: Well, first of all, they're entering day seven of the protests. And my recollection is that President Obama commented on it in day four of the protest. So the fact is, is that this is a grassroots movement that had nothing to do with people or politicians in Washington, D.C. This has everything to do with the workers there in Wisconsin and all across the country who are feeling the effects of these draconian budget cuts.
Look, state and local workers have taken the brunt of a lot of these cuts. And they're willing to come to the table to talk to the governor to put forward more wage cuts, more pension -- pay up more money for their pension, more for their health care. Why won't the government sit down with them? That's all they want. They want the governor to sit down with them, to talk about these items, but they want their collective bargaining right, their voice at the table removed from the discussion.
AMANPOUR: Is this a defining moment for -- for the labor movement?
BRAZILE: Absolutely. Look, union membership is at an all-time low over the previous 20-year high. This is an assault on workers across the country. And people believe that they're using the pretense of a budget battle to destroy collective bargaining rights.
AMANPOUR: So, Representative Southerland, a freshman to this process, is this about fiscal responsibility? Or what is happening? Because it's happening in your state, as well.
SOUTHERLAND: It is. And as you know, with nearly all of the states requiring a balanced budget amendment, they don't have any choice. The governors have to balance their budget. I know our own governor, Governor Scott, we see similar measures being taken in the state of Florida.
And I think you're seeing this in New Jersey, you're seeing this in Wisconsin, so I think that, because they're bound by that limit of a balanced budget -- which I am in favor of at the federal level -- I think that you're going to see this around the country.
You -- look, the American family is learning they have to do more with less. And the same expectation, I think, is fair of the governments, both state and federal.
AMANPOUR: And, Jon, is it just about the budget? Or is Madison, Wisconsin, have a bigger political implication?
KARL: Oh, it clearly has a bigger political implication. Look, the president was quicker and more forceful in his denouncement of Governor Scott Walker than he was of in denouncing Hosni Mubarak. I mean, this happened, it was more forceful, it was quicker.
Madison, Wisconsin, the state of Wisconsin, this is arguably ground zero for the 2012 presidential campaign. Look, this is a state that if President Obama loses, he almost certainly is going to not win re-election. This is a state that's been solidly Democratic and (inaudible) more in the direction of Republicans, a bigger move than any other state in 2010.
I mean, look what happened. You saw the Republicans capture the governorship, capture the state legislature, two House seats, a Senate seat, and, you know, Democrats see the momentum and see real danger signs for next year.
WILL: Governor Walker was elected promising to do what he's doing. He did the same thing as county executive in Milwaukee, where he was -- there were protests, union uprisings, and he was handily re- elected.
Donna, as I'm sure you know, such heroes of the labor movement as Franklin Roosevelt and Fiorello La Guardia said there's no place in the public sector for unionization at all. As I'm sure you know, 24 states limit or deny entirely collective bargaining rights for public- sector unions. And all Mr. Scott is planning to do is limit collective bargaining to wages. What is draconian about that?
BRAZILE: Well, what these workers would like, George, since they've already given up furloughs, paid leave, unpaid leave, what they would like is -- is to have a voice at the table. They don't want their collective bargaining rights.
And, look, what we're talking about is that the governor has cherry-picked what public workers he will subject to this so-called removal of their collective bargaining rights. The firefighters, the policemen and others who supported him in his election bid, well, guess what? They don't have to worry about their collective bargaining rights.
Christiane, over 400,000 state and local employees have lost their jobs over -- during the -- the duration of the recession. They are willing -- what we've seen across the country is, these workers are willing to come to the table to talk to these governors about reducing the -- the budget deficit, but not on the backs of working people.
AMANPOUR: Let me ask you, because you brought up, George, when the governor was the county executive in Milwaukee. And there's an interesting story today. It -- it boils down, perhaps, as some might say, to sort of shared sacrifice. Where is the sacrifice going to be borne the most? And is it equitable?
I just want to ask you, you know, the articles talks about the layoffs that the governor had announced back then, in 2003, quote, "decimated" the country's public parks, the staff, reduced the number of county social workers, correction officers, janitors. As a result, park bathrooms shuttered, pools closed, and trash piled up so high. I mean, does it get to a point where too much is too much or not?
WILL: And he's re-elected.
AMANPOUR: That was my next question.
WILL: The public liked what he did.
AMANPOUR: OK. All right, well, that's the answer.
BRAZILE: They liked what he did in one county. But what you see today is an organic movement. Just like the Tea Party went out there and grabbed the microphone, what you have is grassroots people out there saying, "No more," no more budget cuts on the back of working people. The governor has proposed tax giveaways to corporations. I know he campaigned on that...
(CROSSTALK)
AMANPOUR: ... but people like Representative Southerland came here to -- to make those massive cuts.
SOUTHERLAND: And -- and let me say this about working people. You know, that's not just federal employees. I mean, I come from a small business, and 40 percent of the jobs lost in this recession came from small business, which makes up 85 percent of our economy.
So, you know, and I look at the retirement benefits and the benefit packages that most small businesses offer to their employees, and they pale in comparison to -- to many of the federal programs that federal employees have the benefit of. So, you know, I think many people that work in small businesses are depending upon their Social Security as their retirement.
(CROSSTALK)
WILL: Donna, what you call the grassroots is a tiny minority of this tiny minority of Wisconsin people who work for the government. Three hundred thousand public employees in Wisconsin went to work -- while the teachers were clutching their little signs that say it's all about the kids, they're abandoning their classrooms, lying to their supervisors, saying they were sick, and going off to protest in defense of perquisites, which if the governor cuts them as much as he plans to do, would still leave them better off than their private sector...
(CROSSTALK)
BRAZILE: But why should workers bear the brunt of this recession? Why are we scapegoating just public-sector employees when, in fact, the -- the folks on Wall Street and others who caused this recession, George, they're enjoying huge bonuses. Bankers are not lending to small businesses, which is why we're not creating the kind of jobs that we need. But we're trying to balance the budgets on the backs of the poor and the middle class, and that's why workers are standing up for their rights.
AMANPOUR: And do you think, though, that as some have said this is just an opportunity for union-busting?
SOUTHERLAND: Well, you know, I'm not sure if -- if that is -- if that is the focus.
AMANPOUR: I mean, some are saying that. But do you think...
(CROSSTALK)
SOUTHERLAND: I want to say something about, you know, Donna's comments.
BRAZILE: Now, remember, you're a freshman.
SOUTHERLAND: I remember. I remember. But let me say this...
BRAZILE: And I'm your first woman on national TV, other than Christiane. Now, be careful.
SOUTHERLAND: But I'm not a freshman at -- at -- at running our small business. And you talk about bankers lending. You know, community banks are being hammered, you know, because they're coming in, they're being taken over. They -- they can't -- they can't loan money, OK? You can't get appraisals. You look at the thrift and how they're coming in and capturing the small banks, and the small banks in our communities are -- are -- are critical to the flavor of our communities. We can't get capital. So I think -- and that's a regulation issue.
(CROSSTALK)
BRAZILE: ... Congress should address.
KARL: But, clearly -- clearly, what Walker is going...
SOUTHERLAND: I think we will.
KARL: I mean, Walker is going right at the public employee unions. And part of it's because of that experience he had in 2003. He has said that he wouldn't have had to make all those cuts if he could have gotten a better deal with concessions.
AMANPOUR: And it's not just Republican governors. It's -- it's some Democrats, as well. Mario Cuomo and others are having to...
(CROSSTALK)
KARL: But one of the things he's doing is he's saying...
BRAZILE: Andrew. Andrew.
(CROSSTALK)
KARL: Yeah, don't do that. One of the things that he's doing is saying that no longer will union dues be automatically taken out of public employee paychecks, so the unions would have to go out and collect those dues. This is something that's going right at the heart not necessarily of the union employees, but the union leadership.
BRAZILE: But the unions want to come to the table.
WILL: Because they know what happens.
BRAZILE: They want to come to the table, George. They've got 12 percent. They say, here, we want to contribute 12 percent. We want to give you $30 billion for this fiscal year, which ends on June 30th, and over the next two years, $300 million in concessions. Now, you don't walk away from the table or you don't come to the bargaining table when labor is ready to negotiate.
AMANPOUR: All right. We're going to continue this after a break. Tea Party revolutionaries on Capitol Hill, Washington braces for a possible government shutdown. The big question: Which side will blink first?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOEHNER: Our goal here is to cut spending. When we say we're going to cut spending, read my lips: We're going to cut spending.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: House Speaker John Boehner drawing a line in the sand. And sure enough, yesterday the House, with its Tea Party-powered freshmen, passed the biggest spending cut in modern American history.
But now it goes to the Democrat-controlled Senate, and it sets up an epic clash of ideas over how to solve a massive budget crisis. And it sets the stage for a possible government shutdown.
Joining me once again, George Will, Congressman Steve Southerland of Florida, a conservative freshman elected with Tea Party support, Jonathan Karl, and Donna Brazile.
So, you're a man on Capitol Hill. This was the first shot in this big battle over -- over spending cuts. And, really, people like Congressman Southerland showed their muscle.
KARL: This is the Tea Party's moment. I mean, imagine this. We are talking not only about cutting government spending -- Washington has never really done that -- but we're talking about how much.
I mean, even the Democrats -- even Nancy Pelosi came out with -- with a measure that would continue government funding temporarily, freezing it at last year's level. That is what Democrats traditionally would call a cut, because you're not going with inflation. So this is -- this is really a moment. This is also the Chris Christie phenomenon. Will politicians be rewarded for making tough choices, again, something I don't think we've ever seen happen?
AMANPOUR: Do you care about being rewarded about tough choices?
SOUTHERLAND: Well, I think the American people are ready. They recognize the brutal reality that we're broke. And -- and -- and you're seeing that. We just talked in the last segment about the state level, and it certainly applies here.
We've seen record deficits. And the budget that the president, you know, introduced this past week just continues to put the pedal to the metal. So, I mean, we're talking about this year alone, we're at a $1.5 trillion deficit. And, you know, we talk about draconian measures of the C.R., but that draconian is leaving our children with debt that smothers them.
AMANPOUR: Right. But in the real world, what happens if this doesn't get past the Senate or past the president? Then what?
SOUTHERLAND: Well, look, we -- I'm not -- I'm not naive to the -- to the fact that when it goes to the Senate, they're going to make their -- their changes, and then it's got to go to the president. So, you know, it will not be in the form that we produced yesterday morning at 5 a.m. when we left the House being on the floor all night.
AMANPOUR: So you're prepared for maybe half that figure?
SOUTHERLAND: Well, I'm interested. I'm eager to see what's going to happen. I don't -- I don't know what's going to happen. But I don't expect it's going to be in the same form that we produced yesterday morning.
AMANPOUR: Where is this going, George? Everybody, of course, talks about government shutdown or not. Some do.
WILL: Well, that's premature. The Democratic senators have to decide, as does the president, whether they want to spend the next two years blocking in the Senate or vetoing on the president's desk spending bills because they're too small, because they believe the government isn't spending enough.
The Democratic senators have to decide if, out of a $15 trillion economy, the economy is going to be hurt by cutting $60 billion from the federal budget. They have to decide whether, out of a $3.7 trillion budget, there isn't $60 billion of inessential spending.
AMANPOUR: But it's still the hugest proposed cut. Who's going to blink first, Donna? You've been briefed. And I know you've been talking to -- to leadership about these matters.
BRAZILE: This is very difficult. And we all recognize that we have to begin to cut spending. As Jonathan mentioned, the House Democrats, the Senate Democrats, the president has submitted a budget, the 2012 budget, that -- that will slow the rate of growth and bring down the federal deficit to 3 percent of GDP by 2015. Yeah, President Obama has a little bit of fiscal conservativism in him.
But the point is, is that this is primal scream politics; $61 billion at the current spending levels is draconian. It cuts essential, vital, necessary services.
George, it's people -- it's students who are in college right now with Pell Grants that will have to face significant cuts. It's -- it's preschoolers in Head Start that may not be able to go to school on the morning after May 4th, if we don't continue with the continuing resolution at 2010 levels.
So I think this is draconian. It's bad for the country. It's bad for the economy. And it slows down economic growth at a time when things are finally moving up.
AMANPOUR: And, Jon, do you think it's going to lead to a shutdown?
KARL: Well, it might. I think there's a real possibility of that. I can tell you this: John Boehner has been telling people privately, his Republican colleagues, that he will not allow a government shutdown. But the question is, will he be able to -- you know, to produce?
Here's the time line, though, is -- is that they just did this. The House and the Senate are gone for the next week. They have four days when they get back to work out some kind of an agreement. And if they don't do it by the end of the four days, we are at a government shutdown.
AMANPOUR: So what's going to happen? What sort of pressure -- are you going to put on the speaker?
SOUTHERLAND: Well, I think -- I think, the Republicans, we have no desire to have a government shutdown. I think that Speaker Boehner has been very, very clear. I think that he wanted to produce a bill that was legitimate. We saw over the last five days -- we saw the first C.R. that went through open rules. We had over 500 amendments. We voted on 70. And it was amazing to see the process, to see Democrats voting with Republicans on amendments. I mean, the will of the floor...
KARL: But are your colleagues going to go along with something that doesn't cut spending?
SOUTHERLAND: It's going have to cut spending.
(CROSSTALK)
KARL: See, that's...
SOUTHERLAND: Look, I -- I mean, we're going have to cut spending. I think...
BRAZILE: But the appropriation chair came up with $30 billion in spending cuts. And then the House can -- the ultra-conservatives -- I have no other way of describing you -- you guys decided that you needed $30 billion more.
(CROSSTALK)
AMANPOUR: ... the politics of a shutdown, it sunk Newt Gingrich. Would it sink Speaker Boehner?
WILL: It would do anyone any good on either side. But our viewers can do the arithmetic. They can take $60 billion for $3.7 trillion. And if that's draconian, what wouldn't be draconian?
BRAZILE: But, George, we're talking about over the next seven months. We've got -- we've got food safety workers that will be impacted. We have people who will be impacted across the board.
WILL: This budget includes $7,500 bribes for anyone who will buy a Chevrolet Volt.
(CROSSTALK)
AMANPOUR: ... will be...
BRAZILE: ... the Metro. We're going to need to get the bicycle out, George.
AMANPOUR: You can carry on your challenges in the green room, where the roundtable will continue.
And we turn next to the Middle East, as people-powered revolutions sweeps the region. I ask Hillary Clinton what it means for the United States. My exclusive interview, when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: In the Middle East overnight, the popular uprising sweeping the region have taken their most violent turn yet. It happened in Libya. Protesters there have been calling for the removal of the strong man, Moammar Gadhafi, for the last five days. He's been in power for more than 40 years. And eyewitnesses are reporting that the military has now been firing on protesters after gaining their confidence and being welcomed into the crowd. A doctor gave a dramatic radio interview. Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(UNKNOWN): Oh, my god. They're firing on the civilians here. They're crazy. They're going crazy here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: There are reports of hundreds dead and thousands injured in Libya.
In Yemen this morning, thousands marched again in the streets of the capital, Sana'a. The president, an important American ally in the war on terror, blamed the unrest on a foreign plot.
And in Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, which protects crucial oil-shipping lanes, demonstrators retook the square where their calls for reform have now given way to calls for the king to step down.
Bahrain, of course, is also a logistical hub and command center for U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. And last night, in a 180-degree turn, the crown prince offered to open up a dialogue with the protesters. ABC's Miguel Marquez is there.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARQUEZ: Christiane, it is amazing, the difference that 24 hours makes. This time yesterday, this country appeared poised for civil war; now it is a celebration down here at Pearl Square, as you can see. And it appears we're headed for a negotiated political settlement.
In order the get the settlement they want, these protesters are now willing to stay for the long haul. You can see they've set up tents all the way around Pearl Square here. They're even serving food out here. That tea, by the way, is called Freedom Tea, and they are very organized. This area over here is the men's section. And then right back here, all these people in black, that's the women's section.
The big question is, what will get these protesters to go home? They want a constitutional democracy. They want the king to back off of politics and become a figurehead. They want the prime minister, who's been in power for 40 years, to go home. But so much blood has been spilled here in the past week, these protesters want a significant deal. Will they get it? It's not clear. It's not clear what will get them to stop protesting, pack up their tents, and go home.
Christiane?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: And we'll keep watching Bahrain and the other uprisings.
President Obama has called Bahrain's king -- he did that on Friday -- urging him to respect the rights of the protesters. The administration once again finds itself in a bit of a bind, as freedom activists face off against an authoritarian ally.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton walked a fine line when I spoke to her exclusively on Friday.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Madame Secretary, thank you for joining us.
CLINTON: Thank you for having me.
AMANPOUR: About Bahrain.
CLINTON: Uh-huh.
AMANPOUR: How do you assess Bahrain right now? Is it stable?
CLINTON: You know, Christiane, we've been very clear from the beginning that we do not want to see any violence. We deplore it. We think it is absolutely unacceptable.
We very much want to see the human rights of the people protected, including right to assemble, right to express themselves, and we want to see reform. And so Bahrain had started on some | 0 | train |
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Ad says Obama apologized, showed weakness on Iran A new ad from an independent group claims President Barack Obama apologized and showed weakness on Iran.
The ad comes from Secure America Now, which calls itself a "broad-based grassroots coalition of 2 million national security activists." A reader in Florida asked us to check it out. It uses clips from an interview Obama gave in the White House during his first days in office with the Arab network Al Arabiya.
A female voiceover says, "For his first interview as president, Barack Obama chose Arab TV for an apology." (The words "an apology" flash across the screen.)
Then it cuts to Obama telling the interviewer, "Start by listening, because all too often the United States starts by dictating."
The voiceover says, "He reached out."
Obama: "It is important for us to be willing to talk to Iran."
Voiceover: "Iran answered with terror, attacks on our troops and nuclear weapons development. …Tell President Obama: no apologies, no weakness. It’s time to stop Iran."
The claim that Obama has apologized for America has been used and reused countless times -- always falsely -- and we found that this incarnation is only a hair closer to the truth.
His first interview
Obama sat down with Hisham Melhem, Al Arabiya’s Washington bureau chief, on Jan. 27, 2009. The network, based in Dubai, is regarded as a less-radical format than Al Jazeera and has been criticized for having a pro-Saudi Arabia bias.
News coverage at the time billed the interview as Obama’s "first television interview in the White House," according to the New York Times, and "his first formal television interview as president," per the Washington Post. A spokesman for Secure America Now also pointed us to an MSNBC story characterizing the interview as the new president’s first.
The Al Arabiya interview was part of a coordinated unveiling of Obama’s diplomatic initiatives. He had just named former Maine Sen. George Mitchell as special envoy to the Middle East, and before he sent Mitchell off on a tour of the region, he called Arab and Israeli leaders on his first full day in office.
So it’s fair to say this was Obama’s first interview as president.
No apology
The interview begins with Melhem asking Obama about Mitchell's appointment and how the administration plans to pursue peacemaking between Israelis and Palestinians.
Obama responds:
Well, I think the most important thing is for the United States to get engaged right away. And George Mitchell is somebody of enormous stature. He is one of the few people who have international experience brokering peace deals.
And so what I told him is start by listening, because all too often the United States starts by dictating -- in the past on some of these issues --and we don't always know all the factors that are involved. So let's listen. He's going to be speaking to all the major parties involved. And he will then report back to me. From there we will formulate a specific response.
Ultimately, we cannot tell either the Israelis or the Palestinians what's best for them. They're going to have to make some decisions. But I do believe that the moment is ripe for both sides to realize that the path that they are on is one that is not going to result in prosperity and security for their people. And that instead, it's time to return to the negotiating table.
And it's going to be difficult, it's going to take time. I don't want to prejudge many of these issues, and I want to make sure that expectations are not raised so that we think that this is going to be resolved in a few months. But if we start the steady progress on these issues, I'm absolutely confident that the United States -- working in tandem with the European Union, with Russia, with all the Arab states in the region -- I'm absolutely certain that we can make significant progress.
The ad uses only his comments, "Start by listening, because all too often the United States starts by dictating." But Obama was discussing how to begin brokering a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians. He was not referring to Iran, as the ad implies.
In addition, we don’t agree that those words equate to an apology. In that statement, and a few others, Obama seemed to be acknowledging that past efforts in the Middle East have been imperfect.
Later, speaking about the wider Arab world, Obama said, "My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy. We sometimes make mistakes. We have not been perfect. But if you look at the track record, as you say, America was not born as a colonial power, and that the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago, there's no reason why we can't restore that."
Nowhere in the interview did Obama use the word "apology," "apologize" or "sorry."
PolitiFact has examined the apology claim numerous times. Mitt Romney, the likely Republican presidential nominee, wrote in his book and repeated many times that Obama has apologized for America around the world.
But again, there isn’t an "I’m sorry" anywhere to be found in Obama’s speeches or remarks. One expert we’ve talked to before says Obama is using conciliatory language for diplomatic purposes, not apologizing.
"It's much more a sense of establishing of reciprocity," John Murphy, a communications professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, told PolitiFact in 2010. "Each side says, okay, we haven't done great, but we have a new president and we're going to make a fresh start and move forward. I don't think that's an apology."
Our ruling
Secure America Now’s ad says, "For his first interview as president, Barack Obama chose Arab TV for an apology." The ad particularly emphasizes that Obama apologized.
Obama’s first television interview after taking office was with the Al Arabiya network at the White House. But the ad gets nothing right beyond that.
By saying "all too often the United States starts by dictating," Obama was not apologizing but being diplomatic about past strategies that failed to yield results. What’s more, the ad criticizes Obama’s approach to Iran, but his quote actually referred to the Israelis and the Palestinians.
The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts and gives an inaccurate impression. We rate it Mostly False. | 0 | train |
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Laws Affecting Reproductive Health and Rights: 2013 State Policy Review by Elizabeth Nash, Rachel Benson Gold, Andrea Rowan, Gwendolyn Rathbun and Yana Vierboom
Reproductive health and rights were once again the subject of extensive debate in state capitols in 2013. Over the course of the year, 39 states enacted 141 provisions related to reproductive health and rights. Half of these new provisions, 70 in 22 states, sought to restrict access to abortion services. In sharp contrast to this barrage of abortion restrictions, a handful of states adopted measures designed to expand access to reproductive health services. Most notably, California enacted the first new state law in more than seven years designed to expand access to abortion, and five states adopted measures to expand access to comprehensive sex education, facilitate access to emergency contraception for women who have been sexually assaulted and enable patients’ partners to obtain STI treatment.
Abortion
Twenty-two states enacted 70 abortion restrictions during 2013. This makes 2013 second only to 2011 in the number of new abortion restrictions enacted in a single year. To put recent trends in even sharper relief, 205 abortion restrictions were enacted over the past three years (2011–2013), but just 189 were enacted during the entire previous decade (2001–2010).
Forty-five percent of the abortion restrictions enacted over the last three years fall into four categories: targeted restrictions on abortion providers (TRAP), limitations on insurance coverage of abortion, bans on abortions at 20 weeks postfertilization (the equivalent of 22 weeks after a woman’s last menstrual period) and limitations on medication abortion. States enacted 93 measures in these four categories from 2011 through 2013, compared with 22 during the previous decade.
The number of new abortion restrictions ballooned from 43 enacted in 2012 to 70 in 2013. Four states were key to this increase. North Dakota and Texas, which did not have legislative sessions in 2012, together enacted 13 restrictions in 2013. In addition, the 2012 elections brought changes to the legislature in Arkansas and the governor’s mansion in North Carolina that created environments more hostile to abortion; after adopting no abortion restrictions in 2012, these two states together enacted 13 new restrictions in 2013.
This legislative onslaught has dramatically changed the landscape for women needing abortion. In 2000, the two states that were the most restrictive in the nation, Mississippi and Utah, had five of 10 major types of abortion restrictions in effect (see Appendix). By 2013, however, 22 states had five or more restrictions, and Louisiana had 10.
In 2000, 13 states had at least four types of major abortion restrictions and so were considered hostile to abortion rights (see Troubling Trend: More States Hostile to Abortion Rights as Middle Ground Shrinks); 27 states fell into this category by 2013. In contrast, the number of states supportive of abortion rights fell from 17 to 13, while the number of middle-ground states was cut in half, from 20 to 10. The proportion of women living in restrictive states went from 31% to 56%, while the proportion living in supportive states fell from 40% to 31% over the same period.
Against this backdrop, it is particularly noteworthy that California moved to significantly improve access to early abortion services by expanding the types of providers permitted to perform either medication or surgical abortions. Legislation enacted in September allows physician assistants, certified nurse midwives and nurse practitioners to provide abortions during the first trimester. Thirty-nine states limit the provision of abortion services to licensed physicians (see Overview of Abortion Laws). Also this year, Colorado repealed its pre-Roe abortion law. Although these measures are not enforced, 12 states continue to have pre-Roe laws on the books (see Abortion Policy in the Absence of Roe).
Despite this progress, the overwhelming preponderance of legislation concerning abortion was aimed at restricting access to the procedure. Four types of restrictions dominated the legislative scene during 2013: abortion bans, restrictions on abortion providers, limitations on the provision of medication abortion and restrictions on coverage of abortion in private health plans. Together, legislation in these four categories accounted for 56% of all restrictions enacted over the year.
Bans on Abortion
Overtly flouting the standard established by Roe v. Wade, two states enacted laws banning abortion early in pregnancy. In March, the Arkansas legislature overrode a veto by Gov. Mike Beebe (D) to ban abortions occurring more than 12 weeks after a woman’s last menstrual period. Later that month, North Dakota enacted a ban on abortions occurring after a fetal heartbeat is detected, something that generally occurs at about six weeks after a woman’s last menstrual period. Legal challenges were quickly filed to both measures and enforcement is blocked while litigation proceeds. Additionally, the North Dakota legislature also approved an initiative that will be placed on the November 2014 ballot to ban abortion entirely by defining a person as a “human being at any stage of development.” Currently, no state has a law in effect prohibiting abortions early in pregnancy (see Abortion Policy in the Absence of Roe).
Antiabortion legislators in 11 states introduced measures aimed at banning abortion later in pregnancy based on the spurious belief that a fetus can feel pain at that point of development, and three new laws were enacted in Arkansas, North Dakota and Texas. These laws ban nearly all abortions performed at or beyond 20 weeks postfertilization (the equivalent of 22 weeks after the woman’s last menstrual period). All three have gone into effect, bringing to nine the number of states with a 20-week ban in effect (see State Policies on Later Abortions ). (A similar 20-week ban was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in June; although introduced in the Senate late in the year, the measure was not voted on.)
Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP)
Eight states enacted onerous and irrelevant licensing requirements targeting abortion clinics and providers in 2013. These laws are designed to discourage medical professionals from providing abortion and make it impossible for clinics to remain open (see TRAP Laws Gain Political Traction While Abortion Clinics—and the Women They Serve—Pay the Price). Most often, these restrictions require abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a local hospital, mandate transfer agreements with hospitals or impose onerous structural requirements on clinics.
Four states (Alabama, North Dakota, Texas and Wisconsin) enacted laws that require providers to have admitting privileges at a local hospital. These measures effectively give hospitals veto power over clinics’ ability to provide services. All four were immediately challenged in court; enforcement of the Alabama, North Dakota and Wisconsin laws was temporarily blocked, but the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for implementation of the Texas requirement as the litigation proceeds. Nine states now have laws requiring abortion providers to have hospital privileges; four are in effect (see State Policies on Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers).
Ohio has long required abortion providers to have an agreement with a hospital allowing the transfer of patients needing emergency care. In June, the state adopted a new provision prohibiting public hospitals from entering into these transfer agreements. Including Ohio, nine states require abortion providers to have transfer agreements, measures that do little to add to existing patient safeguards in the event of an emergency.
Over the course of 2013, five states implemented new structural standards for abortion providers. North Carolina and Texas enacted measures requiring abortion clinics to meet essentially the same standards required for comprehensive ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs) that provide more invasive and risky procedures and use higher levels of anesthesia. Alabama adopted somewhat more limited requirements relating to emergency care and fire safety. Virginia, meanwhile, finalized regulations to implement its 2011 TRAP law. Finally, Indiana, which had already required sites where surgical abortion was performed to adhere to standards similar to those for ASCs, extended these requirements to apply to sites where only medication abortion is performed. Including these new requirements, 26 states now require abortion facilities to essentially meet ASC standards.
Medication Abortion
Seventeen states have adopted restrictions on medication abortion over the last three years— making it one of the most frequent targets of abortion opponents (see Medication Abortion Restrictions Burden Women and Providers—and Threaten U.S. Trend Toward Very Early Abortion). In 2013 alone, eight states moved to ban the use of telemedicine in administering the medication, despite the fact that telemedicine is rapidly gaining acceptance as a way to expand access to health care. Over the course of the year, seven states (Alabama, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina and Texas) enacted laws effectively banning the use of telemedicine for medication abortion. In addition, the Iowa Board of Medicine adopted regulations prohibiting the use of telemedicine for medication abortion. Over the course of the year, courts blocked enforcement of the Iowa regulations, as well as earlier laws that had been enacted in North Dakota and Wisconsin. As of December, 14 states have measures in effect blocking the use of telemedicine to provide medication abortion (see State Policies on Medication Abortion).
The second way states have moved to restrict access to medication abortion is by requiring use of an outdated protocol that mandates a high dose of the medicine (in contrast to a widely used evidence-based protocol that permits a lower dose), prohibits its use after 49 days of pregnancy and requires the woman to make an extra trip to the clinic. In 2013, Texas adopted a variation on this approach by permitting use of the lower dose but retaining the two other limitations. The state joins Ohio in requiring use of the outdated protocol.
Finally, Oklahoma adopted a law in 2010 designed to ban medication abortion entirely. In 2012, the state’s supreme court overturned the law and in November, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take the case. As a result, the ban is not in effect.
Private Insurance Coverage of Abortion
States adopted three types of restrictions on insurance coverage of abortion. Michigan’s new measure is the most expansive of those enacted in 2013, it prohibits abortion coverage in private health plans except when the woman’s life is endangered. This brings to nine the number of states with restrictions that apply to all private health plans (see State Policies on Restricting Insurance Coverage of Abortion).
The Michigan provisions also specifically prohibit plans participating in the health exchange from providing coverage beyond situations when the woman’s life is endangered. Three other states (Arkansas, North Carolina and Pennsylvania) also enacted provisions that greatly restrict abortion coverage in the health exchanges established under the Affordable Care Act and only allow coverage in cases of life endangerment, rape and incest. Additional abortion coverage in Arkansas, Michigan and Pennsylvania is available only through the purchase of a separate rider at an additional cost. Including these four states, 24 states have banned abortion coverage in health exchanges.
North Carolina enacted a measure prohibiting health plans for county or municipal employees from covering abortion except in cases of life endangerment, rape or incest. The Georgia Board of Community Health approved a health plan for state employees that will not cover abortion except in cases of life endangerment. Nineteen states now limit abortion coverage for state employees.
Other Major Abortion Restrictions
States adopted a wide range of other major abortion restrictions in 2013.
Parental Involvement. Three states enacted provisions designed to make it more difficult for minors to obtain abortions without parental involvement. Arkansas enacted a measure that makes it a crime to assist a minor in obtaining an abortion without parental consent, even if the procedure is performed in a state where parental involvement is not required. Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D) allowed a parental consent requirement to go into effect without his signature; enforcement of the law is blocked pending a legal challenge. Oklahoma, which has long required parental consent and notification, adopted a measure that made the process for complying with the law more cumbersome by adding requirements such as documentation from parents proving parenthood. Finally, the Illinois Supreme Court cleared the way for the state’s 1995 parental notice law to go into effect, bringing the number of states requiring parental involvement before a minor receives an abortion to 39 (see State Policies on Parental Involvement in Minors’ Abortions).
Public Funding for Abortion. Iowa continued its policy of paying for abortions only in cases of life endangerment, rape, incest and fetal impairment. However, the state now requires the governor’s office to approve all instances where reimbursement is provided. Most states pay for abortion only in cases of life endangerment, rape or incest; Iowa is one of six states with a slightly broader standard see State Policies on State Funding of Abortion Under Medicaid). Seventeen states pay for all or most medically necessary abortions for low-income women (see Insurance Coverage of Abortion: Beyond the Exceptions for Life Endangerment, Rape and Incest).
Waiting Periods. South Dakota effectively extended its 72-hour waiting period by declaring that weekends and holidays could not be counted toward the requirement; this could extend the waiting period to a maximum of six days in some cases, giving the state the most restrictive waiting period requirement of the 26 such requirements in the country (see State Policies on Counseling and Waiting Periods).
Counseling. Ohio and Kansas expanded their existing counseling requirements. Ohio moved to require providers to test for a fetal heartbeat at least 24 hours before an abortion and inform the woman of the “statistical probability” of carrying the pregnancy to term if a fetal heartbeat is detected. Kansas enacted a measure requiring that abortion counseling materials include information on fetal pain, the risk of breast cancer and premature birth; the measure also delineates the exact text for written counseling materials (see State Policies on Counseling and Waiting Periods).
Ultrasound. Wisconsin and Indiana both adopted measures that require women to undergo an ultrasound prior to obtaining an abortion and listen to a detailed description of the image; the provider must offer her the option to view the image and listen to the heartbeat. Twenty-two states now regulate the provision of ultrasound by abortion providers (see State Policies on Requirements for Ultrasound).
Sex Selection and Genetic Impairment. Kansas, North Carolina and North Dakota enacted provisions criminalizing abortion for the purposes of sex selection. The North Dakota measure also prohibits the provision of an abortion because the fetus has been “diagnosed with either a genetic abnormality or the potential for a genetic abnormality.” This brings to six the number of states that ban abortion for purposes of sex selection, in line with a recent push by abortion opponents both in the U.S. and internationally (see A Problem-and-Solution Mismatch: Son Preference and Sex-Selective Abortion Bans).
Withholding Information. Kansas and Montana enacted laws that shield medical professionals from liability for withholding information that may have resulted in a woman obtaining an abortion.
State Employees. Kansas enacted a measure prohibiting state employees from participating in or facilitating abortions unless the procedure is performed outside of normal working hours at a facility not funded or operated by the state.
Refusal. A new law adopted in North Carolina allows any health care facility to refuse to provide abortion services; the previous law had allowed only hospitals to refuse. The law also expands the types of medical providers who may refuse to participate in an abortion to include professionals such as pharmacists, counselors and social workers, or their employees; previous law had applied only to physicians and nurses (see Refusing to Provide Health Services).
Family Planning
Twenty states enacted measures relating to access to family planning services in 2013, including measures that set funding levels, determine the types of providers eligible for funding and affect access to emergency contraception.
Family Planning Programs
Of the 17 states that passed budgets with line items for family planning funding, only Maine cut funding drastically; following on the heels of a 25% cut in 2012, the state slashed funds by an additional 33% in 2013. In contrast, New Hampshire reversed the 57% cut to family planning funding that had been adopted in 2011, restoring funds to their previous level. A similar attempt to reverse funding cuts in New Jersey came up short when Gov. Chris Christie (R) vetoed family planning funding for the fifth time.
Although family planning funding remained relatively stable in 2013, attempts to restrict family planning providers’ eligibility for state and federal funds continued apace. A new tiered system for determining priority for state and federal family planning funds in Ohio puts family planning providers at the bottom of a long list. A similar system in Oklahoma excludes specialized family planning providers not affiliated with health departments from receiving funds. Colorado, Kansas, Michigan and Texas re-enacted their existing restrictions, although the measure in Kansas is blocked due to a legal challenge. At year’s end 10 states have abortion-related restrictions on family planning providers (see State Family Planning Funding Restrictions).
Federal courts blocked measures enacted in Arizona and Indiana that would have excluded family planning providers who have any association with abortion services from being able to participate in the massive Medicaid program, citing that Medicaid patients have the right to seek treatment from the Medicaid provider of their choice (see Besieged Family Planning Network Plays Pivotal Role).
These injunctions cleared the way for abortion providers in Arizona and Indiana to be reimbursed for the family planning services they provide to Medicaid enrollees. In sharp contrast, Texas abolished its longstanding and successful federal-state family planning expansion after being told by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services that it was impermissible for the state to exclude providers who had some association with abortion. The state replaced it with a much smaller and entirely state-funded program (see State Medicaid Family Planning Eligibility Expansions).
Emergency Contraception
Hawaii enacted a new law requiring that a woman who has been sexually assaulted receive medically accurate and unbiased information on emergency contraception from the hospital treating her injuries. The law also requires the hospital to dispense the medication when requested by the woman. Hawaii is the 18th state to provide protections to women who have been sexually assaulted (see Emergency Contraception).
However, two states moved to restrict access to emergency contraception. In May, Oklahoma enacted a measure that would have required a minor younger than 17 to obtain a prescription to access the medication, despite the fact that the federal Food and Drug Administration ruled that minors of any age may obtain emergency contraception without a prescription; in August, a state court temporarily blocked enforcement of the measure. Also in 2013, Missouri passed a measure prohibiting the state from requiring pharmacies to carry prescription or nonprescription drugs or devices, including contraceptives, such as emergency contraception.
Sexually Transmitted Infections
In 2013, Hawaii, Nebraska and Vermont expanded access to treatment for STIs. Hawaii and Nebraska enacted provisions allowing health care practitioners to prescribe or dispense prescriptions for gonorrhea or chlamydia to a patient’s partner without first seeing the partner. Vermont, which had had a law allowing partner treatment for some STIs, enacted a new law expanding the conditions for which partner treatment is permitted. Twenty-eight states now explicitly permit treatment of a patient’s partner (see Partner Treatment for STIs).
Sex Education
Two states enacted measures to expand access to sex education in 2013. A new law in Colorado effectively prohibits abstinence-only instruction by requiring sex education in the state to be scientifically proven to delay sexual debut, reduce adolescents’ number of sexual partners, reduce the frequency of sex, and increase their contraceptive use. Illinois enacted three separate laws related to sex education. Although school districts can still decide for themselves whether to provide sex education, the new law requires any sex education that is taught in the state to be medically accurate and age-appropriate and include instruction on contraception and abstinence. The package also requires health education, which is mandatory for all school districts, to contain medically accurate information on abstinence as well as age-appropriate instruction on teen dating violence and child sexual abuse prevention. These new laws bring to nine the number of states requiring that the sex education provided in the state be medically accurate and include information on contraception (see State Policies in Brief: Sex and HIV Education.)
At the other end of the spectrum, new laws in North Carolina and Kansas could limit access to comprehensive and medically accurate sex education. A new law enacted in Kansas prohibits an individual who is associated in any way with an abortion provider from providing sex education. Meanwhile, a new law in North Carolina requires that sex education in the state must inform students that having an abortion increases the risk of a subsequent preterm birth. In Montana, Gov. Bullock (D) vetoed a measure that would have required parental consent for students participating in sex education.
Fetal Issues
Three states enacted laws regarding assault on pregnant women or fetal homicide. Arkansas adopted a measure allowing a fetus to be considered a victim of homicide at any point in gestation; a similar measure was allowed to go into effect in Montana without the governor’s signature. Instead of considering a fetus an independent victim, Colorado amended its statute criminalizing assault on a pregnant woman to include penalties for causing a pregnant woman to miscarry.
Pregnancy
Tennessee enacted a law requiring publicly funded substance abuse facilities to give preference to pregnant women, there are now 10 states that require facilities give pregnant women priority access (see Substance Abuse During Pregnancy). It also prohibits the state from filing for protective services for a newborn if a woman who is less than 20 weeks into her pregnancy seeks substance abuse treatment as part of prenatal care. (A similar bill in New Mexico was effectively vetoed when Gov. Susana Martinez (R) took no action on it.) Finally, the budget adopted in Indiana allocated $250,000 for “prenatal substance use and prevention.”
APPENDIX: STATES BY HOSTILITY TO ABORTION RIGHTS, 2000 AND 2013 | 0 | train |
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John McCain YouTube をでご覧いただいています。 この設定は下で変更 できます。 | 0 | train |
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Debbie Wasserman Schultzさんのツイート: "Syria and Nicaragua are the only nations that didn't sign the Paris Agreement. Nicaragua said it wasn't tough enough. What's Trump's excuse?" 位置情報付きでツイート
ウェブサイトやサードパーティアプリケーションから、都市や正確な現在地などの位置情報をツイートに追加できます。ツイートの位置情報履歴はいつでも削除できます。 詳細はこちら | 0 | train |
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The CNN porn scare is how fake news spreads Last night, a twitter account by the name of @solikearose tweeted out a surprising image of CNN broadcasting porn instead of Anthony Bourdain’s scheduled show Parts Unknown. And then without really much questioning, a bunch of news sites ran with it, claiming that the network showed the footage for about 30 minutes. Here are some screenshots grabbed by Mediaite.
It looks like the chaos all started when The Independent wrote up a story from this person’s tweets, which was then tweeted out by the Drudge Report. After that, it spread fast. Mashable, The New York Post, The Daily Mail, Esquire, and Variety have all published a story, and pretty much all of these articles are based on one or two tweets from @solikerose. Plus, many of the original stories didn’t include statements from CNN or RCN, the cable company that supposedly aired the porn.
Fact-checking largely didn’t begin until the stories were published. The @solikearose account has since turned private, and there don’t seem to be any reports of porn airing on CNN last night. RCN also released statements on twitter saying there is no evidence that porn was aired last night in Boston, where @solikearose is supposedly based. "We are in the process of researching this incident but see no evidence our CNN network feed was compromised last evening in Boston," Jeff Carlson, SVP and general manager of RCN Boston, said in a statement to multiple outlets.
CNN has also released a statement: “The RCN cable operator in Boston aired inappropriate content for 30 minutes on CNN last night. CNN has asked for an explanation.” But that still doesn’t really verify that anything occurred.
@solikearose 800-746-4726. We have not had any reports of the programming issue you mentioned on CNN in Boston. If you're still having an — RCN (@RCNconnects) November 25, 2016
@solikearose issue with that channel, please DM us your address so we can troubleshoot when you're home. Thanks, Melissa — RCN (@RCNconnects) November 25, 2016
The appeal of the story is obvious: a network news may have aired porn for a full 30 minutes. Hilarious! And the CNN program that was supposed to be on was Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown. It’s a layup for body-part puns.
This is exactly how fake news spreads
But this is exactly how fake news spreads. Even if porn was aired on CNN, it’s clear that a lot of publications ran with a story based on tweets from one person before verifying the facts. Many of the headlines already implicate CNN, claiming the channel aired 30 minutes of porn without giving any context.
The stakes might not seem very high in this case, but fake news seems to have played a major role during the 2016 presidential campaign. Mistakes like this won’t be very funny when they cost us more than a laugh. | 1 | train |
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South African firm ordered to lay off 3,389 white employees A South African utility company has been given an ultimatum to reduce it’s number of white employees by 44.3% over the next five years. This means 3,389 whites have to go. It is part of the Federal “Black Empowerment” program.
For years, Eskom has been under orders to only hire non-whites as new employees. The firm says it is having major problems finding enough qualified non-white applicants. Currently, Eskom’s middle managers are 30% white and it’s skilled labor force is 21% white.
The South African government has also ordered Eskom to reduce it’s safety requirements to make it easier for non-white applicants to qualify for jobs.
Eskom is ordered to reduce the number of white engineers by 1,081, and the number of white skilled laborers by 2,179.
South Africa is currently experiencing a rapid collapse of it’s electrical infrastructure and power routinely goes out all over the country.
Source (South Africa Channel 24) | 1 | train |
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CHIP Enrollment: June 2011 Data Snapshot This data snapshot provides the latest data on Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) enrollment and policy trends nationally and across the states through June 2011, based on survey responses and data provided by CHIP directors in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The report finds that in June 2011, the number of children enrolled in CHIP reached 5.3 million. From June 2010 to June 2011, an additional 178,000 children enrolled in CHIP programs across the country, a rate of growth (3.5 percent) similar to the prior annual period (3.3 percent). While enrollment continues to grow, enrollment growth in the program appears to have moderated since the start of the recession.
Data Snapshot (.pdf) | 0 | train |
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All Nobel Peace Prizes The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded 99 times to 133 Nobel Laureates between 1901 and 2018, 106 individuals and 27 organizations. Since the International Committee of the Red Cross has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize three times (in 1917, 1944 and 1963), and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize two times (in 1954 and 1981), there are 24 individual organizations which have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Click on the links to get more information.
The Nobel Peace Prize 2019 The 2019 Nobel Peace Prize has not been awarded yet. It will be announced on Friday 11 October, 11:00 a.m.
The Nobel Peace Prize 2018 Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad “for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict”
The Nobel Peace Prize 2017 International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) “for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons”
The Nobel Peace Prize 2016 Juan Manuel Santos “for his resolute efforts to bring the country’s more than 50-year-long civil war to an end”
The Nobel Peace Prize 2015 National Dialogue Quartet “for its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution of 2011”
The Nobel Peace Prize 2014 Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai “for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education”
The Nobel Peace Prize 2012 European Union (EU) “for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe”
The Nobel Peace Prize 2010 Liu Xiaobo “for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China”
The Nobel Peace Prize 2009 Barack H. Obama “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”
The Nobel Peace Prize 2008 Martti Ahtisaari “for his important efforts, on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts”
The Nobel Peace Prize 2005 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Mohamed ElBaradei “for their efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is used in the safest possible way”
The Nobel Peace Prize 2003 Shirin Ebadi “for her efforts for democracy and human rights. She has focused especially on the struggle for the rights of women and children”
The Nobel Peace Prize 2002 Jimmy Carter “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development”
The Nobel Peace Prize 2000 Kim Dae-jung “for his work for democracy and human rights in South Korea and in East Asia in general, and for peace and reconciliation with North Korea in particular”
The Nobel Peace Prize 1999 Médecins Sans Frontières “in recognition of the organization’s pioneering humanitarian work on several continents”
The Nobel Peace Prize 1998 John Hume and David Trimble “for their efforts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland”
The Nobel Peace Prize 1993 Nelson Mandela and Frederik Willem de Klerk “for their work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa”
The Nobel Peace Prize 1992 Rigoberta Menchú Tum “in recognition of her work for social justice and ethno-cultural reconciliation based on respect for the rights of indigenous peoples”
The Nobel Peace Prize 1990 Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev “for his leading role in the peace process which today characterizes important parts of the international community”
The Nobel Peace Prize 1987 Oscar Arias Sánchez “for his work for peace in Central America, efforts which led to the accord signed in Guatemala on August 7 this year”
The Nobel Peace Prize 1972 No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money for 1972 was allocated to the Main Fund.
The Nobel Peace Prize 1967 No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section.
The Nobel Peace Prize 1966 No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section.
The Nobel Peace Prize 1956 No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section.
The Nobel Peace Prize 1955 No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section.
The Nobel Peace Prize 1948 No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section.
The Nobel Peace Prize 1943 No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section.
The Nobel Peace Prize 1942 No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section.
The Nobel Peace Prize 1941 No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section.
The Nobel Peace Prize 1940 No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section.
The Nobel Peace Prize 1939 No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section.
The Nobel Peace Prize 1932 No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section.
The Nobel Peace Prize 1928 No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section.
The Nobel Peace Prize 1924 No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section.
The Nobel Peace Prize 1923 No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section.
The Nobel Peace Prize 1918 No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section.
The Nobel Peace Prize 1916 No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section.
The Nobel Peace Prize 1915 No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section. | 0 | train |
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Remarks by the First Lady on What Health Insurance Reform Means for Women and Families THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the First Lady
_____________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release September 18, 2009
REMARKS BY THE FIRST LADY
ON WHAT HEALTH INSURANCE REFORM MEANS
FOR WOMEN AND FAMILIES
Eisenhower Executive Office Building
Room 450
11:33 A.M. EDT
MRS. OBAMA: Thank you. Thank you all. Please, sit. Rest. (Laughter.) First of all, good morning. I am so thrilled to see so many of you here this morning at the White House. Welcome. And that's including my good friend, Dr. Dorothy Height. (Applause.) You know, she is always there, for the past eight months and before. If there was a big event, an important event, she finds a way to be here. She is my inspiration, and it is wonderful to see you again today. Thank you so much. (Applause.)
Thank you all for joining us today for the outstanding work you're doing every day on behalf of women and families all across this country. I have to thank our extraordinary Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, for taking the time to be here. (Applause.) And for her tireless efforts to keep our nation healthy. And that includes not just pushing for health insurance reform but preparing us for H1N1, pursuing cutting-edge research to find treatments and cures for tomorrow. Clearly this is not the easiest portfolio she could have, but she is doing a terrific job, and we are grateful for her leadership.
And I also want to thank Tina Tchen, who you all know, for emceeing today. (Applause.) She, too, is doing a fabulous job as Director of our Office of Public Engagement, and she played a critical role in pulling together today's event -- not just as an emcee but as a key figurehead, making sure that we're all aware of what's going on.
And finally, I want to thank the three women behind me -- to Debi, Easter, and Roxi. (Applause.) It is not easy to come here and tell your story. And these stories aren't new. You know, these stories are happening all over this country, not just for thousands of women -- for millions of them. For two years on the campaign trail, this was what I heard from women, that they were being crushed, crushed by the current structure of our health care. Crushed. But these stories that we've heard today, and all of us -- if we're not experiencing it, we know someone who is. These are the stories that remind us about what's at stake in this debate. This is really all that matters. This is why we are fighting so hard for health insurance reform. This is it. This is the face of the fight.
And that's why I'd like to talk to you today. That's why I'm here. That's why reform is so critical in this country -- not tomorrow, not in a few years, but right now. People are hurting in this country right now.
But there is also a reason why I invited this particular group to talk today. There's a reason why we've invited the leaders not only from family advocacy groups and health care advocacy groups, but for so many organizations that have been fighting for decades for empowerment for women. And that's because when it comes to health care, as the Secretary said, as we all know, women play a unique and increasingly significant role in our families. We know the pain, because we are usually the ones dealing with it.
Eight in 10 women, mothers, report that they're the ones responsible for choosing their children's doctor, for getting them to their checkups, for managing that follow-up care. Women are the ones to do it. Mothers are the ones that do it. And many women find themselves doing the same thing for their spouses. (Laughter.) And more than 10 percent of women in this country are currently caring for a sick or elderly relative. It's often a parent, but it could a grandparent, or a mother -- or a relative of some sort -- but it's often a parent. So they're making critical health care decisions for those family members as well.
In other words, being part of the sandwich generation, is what we are now finding, raising kids while caring for a sick or elderly parent, that's not just a work/family balance issue anymore. It's not just an economic issue anymore. More and more it is a health care issue. It's something that I have thought a great deal about as a mother.
I will never forget the time eight years ago when Sasha was four months that she would not stop crying. And she was not a crier, so we knew something was wrong. So we fortunately were able to take her to our pediatrician that next morning. He examined her and same something's wrong. We didn't know what. But he told us that she could have meningitis. So we were terrified. He said, get to the emergency room right away.
And fortunately for us, things worked out, because she is now the Sasha that we all know and love today -- (laughter) -- who is causing me great -- excitement. (Laughter.)
But it is that moment in our lives that flashes through my head every time we engage in this health insurance conversation. It's that moment in my life. Because I think about what on earth would we have done if we had not had insurance. What would have happened to that beautiful little girl if we hadn't been able to get to a pediatrician who was able to get us to an emergency room? The consequences I can't even imagine. She could have lost her hearing. She could have lost her life if we had had to wait because of insurance.
And it was also fortunate that we happened to have good insurance, right? Because if we hadn't had good insurance, like many of the panelists up here, we would have been saddled with costs for covering that emergency room visit for her two days in the hospital. We would have still been paying off those bills.
And this issue isn't something that I've thought about as a mother. I think about it as a daughter. As many of you know, my father had multiple sclerosis. He contracted it in his twenties. And as you all know, my father was a rock. He was able to get up and go to work every day, even though it got harder for him as he got sicker and more debilitated. And I find myself thinking, what would we have done as a family on the South Side of Chicago if my father hadn't had insurance, if he hadn't been able to cover his treatments? What would it have done to him to think that his illness could have put his entire family into bankruptcy? And what if he had lost his job, which fortunately he never did? What if his company had changed insurance, which fortunately never happened, and we became one of the millions of Americans, families, who can't get insurance because of a preexisting condition?
So these are the thoughts that run through my mind as I watch this debate and hope that we get it right.
But let's be clear: Women aren't just disproportionately affected by this issue because of the roles that we play in families. As Tina and Kathleen mentioned, women are affected because of the jobs that we do in this economy. We all know that women are more likely to work part-time, or to work in small companies or businesses that don't provide any insurance at all.
Women are affected because, as we heard, in many states, insurance companies can still discriminate because of gender. And this is still shocking to me. These are the kind of facts that still wake me up at night; that women in this country have been denied coverage because of preexisting conditions like having a C-section or having had a baby. In some states, it is still legal to deny a woman coverage because she's been the victim of domestic violence.
And a recent study showed that 25-year-old women are charged up to 45 percent more for insurance than 25-year-old men for the exact same coverage. And as the age goes up, you get to 40, that disparity increases to 48 percent -- 48 percent difference for women for the exact same coverage in this country.
But it's not just women without insurance, as we've heard, as we know who are affected. Plenty of women have insurance. But it doesn't cover basic women's health services like maternity care or preventative care like mammograms or pap smears, which we all know we have to have. We can't go without these basic services. But many insurance policies don't even cover it.
Or policies cap the amount of coverage that you can receive, as you've heard, or it drops coverage when people get sick and they really need the care. Or maybe people have coverage but they're worried about losing it if they lose their jobs or if they change jobs or if the company changes insurance carriers. Out-of-pocket costs get higher and higher. It's hard to be able to plan your monthly bills when you don't know what your premiums are going to be. So a lot of people find they have to drop their insurance because they can no longer afford it.
Just think about it. Many women are being charged more in health care coverage, but as we all know, women are earning less. We all know that women earn 78 cents on the dollar to every men -- to a man. So it's not exactly surprising when we hear statistics that more than half of women report putting off needed medical care simply because they can't afford it.
Now, we have trouble putting ourselves first when we have the resources -- just making the appointment when you have insurance to get your regular screenings, to take care of those illnesses, those bumps and lumps and pains that we tend to ignore. But then not to be able to do it because you can't have insurance, you don't have insurance -- it's not surprising that so many millions of women around this country are simply going without insurance at all.
See, and the thing that we all know is that the current state -- this current situation is unacceptable. It is unacceptable. (Applause.) No one in this country should be treated that way. It's not fair. It's not right. And these are hard-working people we're talking about, right? People who care about their kids, care about their lives. And these circumstances could happen to any of us. This is one of those, "There but for the grace of God go I" kind of situations. None of us are exempt -- ever.
So I think it's clear that health insurance reform and what it means for our families is very much a women's issue. It is very much a women's issue.
And if we want to achieve true equality for women, if that is our goal; if we want to ensure that women have opportunities that they deserve, if that is our goal; if we want women to be able to care for their families and pursue things that they could never imagine, then we have to reform the system. We have to reform the system. The status quo is unacceptable. It is holding women and families back, and we know it.
Fortunately, that is exactly what my husband's plan proposes to do, and it's important for us to understand some of the basic principles of that plan. Under his plan, if you don't have insurance now, or you lose your insurance at some point in the future, you'll be able to purchase affordable coverage through an insurance exchange -- a marketplace with a variety of options that will let you compare prices and benefits. This is exactly the approach that is used to provide members of Congress with insurance. So the thought is that if it's good enough for members of Congress, it should be good enough for the people who vote them in. (Applause.)
And this is also an important part of the plan. If you already have insurance -- and it seems that there are a lot of people who are worried that they'll lose what they have under this plan -- but under this plan, if you already have insurance, you're set. Nothing changes. You keep your insurance, you keep your doctors -- and you're blessed. (Laughter.) This plan just puts in place some basic rules of the road to protect you from the kinds of abuses and unfair practices that we've heard.
Under this plan, insurance companies will never again be allowed to deny people like Debi and her son coverage for preexisting conditions. Sounds like a good thing. So whether you have breast cancer, diabetes, asthma, or hypertension -- or even just had a C-section, or some mental health treatment that you had in your past -- none of that will be a reason to refuse you coverage under the plan that my husband is proposing. Because when you're fighting an illness, he believes that you shouldn't also have to be in the process of fighting the insurance companies at the same time. (Applause.) It's a basic idea.
Under this plan, insurance companies will no longer be able to drop your coverage when you get too sick, or refuse to pay for the care that you need, or to set a cap on the amount of coverage that you can get. And it will limit how much they can charge you for out-of-pocket expenses, because getting sick in this country shouldn't mean that you go bankrupt. That's a basic principle of this plan.
And finally, this plan will require insurance companies to cover basic preventative care. Seems simple. (Applause.) From routine checkups, to mammograms, to pap smears -- and this would come at no extra charge to the patient, so folks like Roxi can get the chance to get the kind of screenings that she needs to save her life, because we already know that if we catch diseases like cancer early -- we know this -- it's much less costly to treat, and we might just be able to save some lives. We know this.
So, under this plan, we can save lives and we can save money. It's not just good medicine but it's good economics as well.
So I think this is a pretty reasonable plan. I don't know about you. (Applause.) But I know many of you believe it's a good plan as well. And I know that many of the groups that you represent believe that what we're doing here, this fight, is important. It's important to this country, it's important to women, it's important to families that we succeed.
And now more than ever, as Tina said, as Secretary Sebelius said, we need to act. No longer can we sit by and watch the debate take on a life of its own. It is up to us to get involved, because what we have to remember is that now more than ever, we have to channel our passions into change.
That's nothing that you all haven't done before, right? (Laughter.) You all have been the driving force behind so many of our greatest health care achievements, whether it's been children's health insurance; to funding breast cancer research, stem cell research; to passing the Family Medical Leave Act. The folks in this room, you're the ones that made those phone calls, right? That you wrote those letters, you knocked on those doors. You're the ones that helped make that happen.
And that's exactly what we need you to do today for health insurance reform. We are going to need you over the next few weeks to mobilize like you've never mobilized before. We need you to educate your members about what the plan really is and what it isn't, because education is the key to understanding, and it's going to take phone calls to explain, to talk things through, to make sure that people understand not just what's at stake but what this all means.
And we know there will be all sorts of myths and misconceptions about what the plan is and isn't, so it's so important that you make sure that people know the facts, and at least they make their decisions based on the truth of what this plan is and isn't. We need you to make your voices heard right here in Washington. And you all know how to do that. (Laughter.)
And no, it won't be easy, because there are always folks who are a little afraid of change. We all understand that. We talked about this all during the campaign. Change is hard. Sometimes the status quo, even if it isn't right, feels comfortable because it's what we know. So it is understandable that people are cautious about moving into a new place in this society. There will always be folks who will want things to stay just the way they are, to settle for the world as it is. We talked about that so much. This is one of those times.
But look, I am here today, standing before you as the First Lady of the United States of America, because you all didn't settle for the world as it is, right? (Applause.) You refused to settle. And as a result of many of your efforts, as a young girl, I was able to dream in ways that I could have never imagined, that my mother could never have imagined, that my grandmother could never have imagined. And thanks to so many of you, I am raising these beautiful young women, you know -- (applause) -- who are going to be able to think so differently about their place in the world because of the work that you've done.
Health care reform is part of that movement. Health insurance reform is the next step. So we're going to need you all, focused and clear, picking up the phones, talking, calling, writing your congressmen and women, making this something that is the highest priority for all of us, so that we can make sure that every single family in this country can move forward as we hope that they can; that they don't have to worry about whether they can insure themselves. They don't have to worry about whether their kids are going to break an arm. That's what kids do, they break stuff. (Laughter.)
So I am grateful for all of you, for the work that you've done, and for what I know that we can do together over the next several weeks. But we have to be, what, fired up and what?
AUDIENCE: Ready to go!
MRS. OBAMA: And ready to go. A little fired up and ready to go. So thank you so much. God bless you all, and God bless America. (Applause.)
END
11:57 A.M. EDT
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Donald Trump featured in new jihadist recruitment video Last month, The Washington Post reported that white nationalists have begun using Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump as a recruitment tool.
Now, the polarizing Republican presidential front-runner has become the recruitment fodder for another group of marginalized extremists.
A propaganda video released by the Somali-based al-Qaeda affiliate al-Shabab includes a clip of Trump calling on the United States to bar Muslims from entering the country, according to news reports. Trump made the statement following the Islamic State-inspired shootings in San Bernardino, Calif., last month.
The video was produced to look similar to a documentary and calls upon African Americans to join a holy war against the United States, according to the BBC.
[Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Donald Trump ‘is ISIS’s greatest triumph’]
Claiming the United States is a hotbed of racial inequality, police brutality and anti-Muslim sentiment, the film is an indictment of U.S. race relations and also includes historical civil rights-era footage of Malcolm X, an unnamed white supremacist and African Americans in prison, according to CNN.
3) New #Shabaab vid shows #Trump proposing Muslim travel ban & Awlaki predicting bigotry & "concentration camps" pic.twitter.com/2KMpzYf3ui — Rita Katz (@Rita_Katz) January 1, 2016
The clip showing Trump, the BBC noted, arrives 10 minutes into the 51-minute propaganda video.
On either side of the Trump footage, NBC reported, are clips of Anwar al-Awlaki, the late al-Qaeda recruiter, urging Muslims in the United States to move to Islamic countries or wage war against the West at home. A U.S. citizen, al-Awlaki was killed in a drone strike carried out in Yemen in 2011.
“Yesterday, America was a land of slavery, segregation, lynching and Ku Klux Klan, and tomorrow, it will be a land of religious discrimination and concentration camps,” Awlaki can be heard saying in recorded footage.
He adds: “The West will eventually turn against its Muslim citizens.”
The al-Kataib Media Foundation released the video on Twitter on Friday, according to NBC.
Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment. But Saturday afternoon, news of the video did nothing to dim the ardor of supporters gathering for his rally in Biloxi, Miss. They began lining up seven hours before the candidate was scheduled to speak, and they utterly rejected the premise that Trump was providing grist for propagandists.
Some wondered whether the video was real. More insisted that the al-Qaeda affiliate was attacking Trump out of fear.
“ISIS, Al-Shabaad, al-Qaeda, all those groups — they don’t want Trump in office,” said Richard Coyne, 52, an Army veteran from nearby Gulfport, who retired last year. “They want the status quo, which is unfortunately pro-ISIS, pro-Al-Qaeda, pro-Muslim.” ISIS is another name for the extremist group Islamic State.
Sarah Anderson, 57, of Hattiesburg, also an Army veteran who had once worked at the checkpoint at the Berlin Wall, said that any terrorist group that cited Trump was doing so because it is “scared to death of him.”
“He’s a threat to them,” she said. “That’s the opposite of promoting what the terrorists want.”
Some voters were unaware of the video but well aware that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had warned of Trump’s rhetoric being promoted to recruit terrorists. Tom Simmons, a 68-year-old Vietnam War veteran from nearby Vancleave, was reminded of a time 45 years ago when liberals worried so much about winning hearts and minds that they did not do what was necessary for victory.
“I can’t comprehend anything that the Democrats say,” Simmons said. “The terrorists fear Trump right now. They’re going to do anything they can to make him look ridiculous and sound ridiculous.”
In controversial remarks made after the San Bernardino attack, Trump called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.”
[Donald Trump would strongly consider closing some mosques in the United States]
The propaganda video includes that line, but bleeps out the word “hell,” according to CNN.
In the wake of the Paris attacks, Trump said he would “strongly consider” shutting down some mosques and heavily surveilling others.
“I would hate to do it, but it’s something that you’re going to have to strongly consider because some of the ideas and some of the hatred — the absolute hatred — is coming from these areas,” Trump said in an interview on “Morning Joe.”
The video arrives on the heels of several heated exchanges between Trump and Hillary Clinton, in which Clinton has claimed Trump’s language aids jihadists.
“If you go on Arabic television, as we have, and you look at what is being blasted out — video of Mr Trump being translated to Arabic,” Clinton said at an Iowa town hall last month. “ ‘No Muslims coming to the United States,’ other kinds of derogatory, defamatory statements — it is playing into the hands of the violent jihadists.”
Trump’s comments, Clinton added, “lights an even bigger fire for them to make their propaganda claims through social media and in other ways.”
[Hillary Clinton revises contested claims about Islamic State recruiters using Donald Trump video]
Trump responded to Clinton’s assertion by calling her “a liar.”
“It’s just another Hillary lie,” Trump said on NBC News’s “Meet the Press” late last month. “She’s a liar, and everybody knows that.”
David Weigel contributed to this report from Biloxi, Miss.
MORE READING:
Muhammad Ali on Donald Trump: ‘Muslims have to stand up’ to anti-Islamic speech
Why Donald Trump’s call for a Muslim ban may work for him, in two charts | 0 | train |
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Colorado Rockies Baseball Team To Sell Marijuana Brownies At Their Concession Stands Colorado Rockies Baseball Team To Sell Marijuana Brownies At Their Concession Stands
DENVER, COLORADO –
With the new laws in effect in Colorado, major sports organizations are looking for ways to cash in on the newest legal cash crop in the state.
Sources are reporting that Major League Baseball’s Colorado Rockies plan to sell food items which contain marijuana at concession stands during games next season.
The first item on the list? Pot Brownies.
An official within the Rockies organization stated that the Rockies organization has given the green light to concession stands selling marijuana brownies.
High ranking officials in the Rockies organization say they are thrilled at the new menu item since they note that it will bring in tens of thousands of dollars per month.
The Rockies head office is hoping that the sale of marijuana brownies will also boost sales of other concession items. What better way to sell concessions that to give everyone in the stadium the munchies?
SIDENOTE: An inside source with the organization said that it appears that the strain of marijuana that will be used in the making of the marijuana brownies will be Durango Bango which is considered to be the very best weed in the Rocky Mountain State. | 1 | train |
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New Star Wars Movie Filming Near Rosenberg, Texas, Large Number of Extras Needed – WBN 12 News ROSENBERG, Texas – Reports out of Hollywood this morning are confirming that a portion of the next Star Wars movie will be filmed near Rosenberg, Texas. The undisclosed location near Rosenberg will represent a previously unknown planet in the Star Wars universe.
No details were released as to exactly when production would take place in the Rosenberg area but they stated that it should begin no later than this fall. A casting call for extras will be announced well before that time period, however. Local fans of the film series were understandably excited about the news and especially excited about the prospect of becoming an extra in the film after producers made this short statement released to the press earlier today:
“We think that Rosenberg is a great place to find the hundreds of extras for our alien population and we’re very excited about filming here.”
Let us know what you think about this exciting news in the comments section below.
photo by Gage Skidmore / CC BY-SA 3.0 / cropped & photo by Gage Skidmore / CC BY-SA 3.0 / cropped | 1 | train |
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David Plouffe, Sen. Joe Lieberman and Gen. Michael Hayden talk national security leaks So, this is very, very important, that this is a two-year period so that people can apply. And it allows our law enforcement officials to focus on criminals who really posed a threat and ought to be the focus here. But the only permanent way to fix our immigration system, certainly to provide a permanently relief for DREAM Act eligible populations is for Congress to act.
WALLACE: You mentioned Governor Romney. I don't to get into the whole thing about the differences will get to the economy in a minute. But specifically for Hispanic voters, do you think there's a clear choice between Obama and Romney?
PLOUFFE: I think there's a clear choice for everybody.
WALLACE: Well, I'm asking about Hispanics.
PLOUFFE: Well, first of all --
WALLACE: On this issue of immigration.
PLOUFFE: Well, first of all, Hispanic voters highly support the health care bill, what we're trying to do in education. On immigration, yes, this is a president who's tried to get immigration done in a comprehensive way. We're getting close to getting the DREAM Act done.
So, this is someone who believed that we are a nation of laws, but also a nation of immigrants. And that people who want to staff our labs and start businesses and serve their country ought to be able to do that. Governor Romney has said he would veto the DREAM Act. Governor Romney essentially said the 11 million here ought to just go home. They ought to self deport.
So, this is someone you're not going to be able to trust. And this one of the important choices that the president talked about earlier this week in Ohio. President Romney if he's elected is not going to fix our immigration system. He's been very clear about that. You watch Republican debate after Republican debate, many of them on your network, where Governor Romney was very clear, he would veto the DREAM Act. He thinks these 11 million people ought to just be sent home.
So, I think that's a clear choice just not for the Latino community, but for the American electorate at large.
WALLACE: All right. Let's turn to the economy. The president gave a major economic speech this week in Ohio in which he called for targeted investments for things like energy and education and state workers, first responders and teachers, and tax hikes for the wealthy. But there was -- forgive me -- nothing new.
Is that the president's agenda for the next four years -- pass the jobs plan that I have been pushing for over the last 12 months and that will fix the economy?
PLOUFFE: What the president laid out is a clear choice facing the American people. And the contrast could not be clear. This is a president who believes we need to grow the economy by putting the middle class first, creating middle class jobs, by reducing the deficit in a fair or balanced way, and making sure we can invest in things like innovation and infrastructure and science and research.
The congressional Republican approach, Governor Romney's approach -- by the way, it's fitting, he's with John Boehner today -- because Governor Romney is going to rubber stamp the Republican agenda, which basically gives huge tax cuts for the wealthy. They believe the economy works best from the top down. That's failed.
By the way, Governor Romney wouldn't reduce the deficit. Every independent economists who's looked at this plan says he would add to the deficit, he would starve investment in education, he would allow infrastructure to deteriorate even more. This is not a recipe for growing the economy, reducing the deficit or helping the middle class. So, that's the stark choice --
WALLACE: Does the president's agenda -- because I did not hear anything new in Ohio -- is the president's agenda for the next four years more of the same?
PLOUFFE: Well, what it is, is what this country needs to do, which is reduce the deficit in a right way, fair and balanced way.
WALLACE: I like the fact that you keep saying fair and balanced.
PLOUFFE: Well, it's the right way, which is we need to cut more spending. This president has already signed into law, by the way, over -- almost $2 trillion on spending cuts. We have to focus on what is going to grow this economy for the middle class. And that's going to be continuing to focus on our manufacturing --
WALLACE: But you would agree, there is no new agenda beyond what he is pushing for the last year?
PLOUFFE: This is the direction he thinks that the country needs to go.
Now, let's look at the other direction, it failed miserably. When Governor Romney led Massachusetts, number one debt in the country -- think about that. Added debt. For all of this talk about government, for every private sector job created in Massachusetts by Governor Romney, six public sector jobs.
This is someone who -- his state was 47 in job creation. And he wants to return to the same policies that led to the great recession that, you know, caused a huge harm to our businesses, our economy and people in this country.
So, the choice is clear here.
WALLACE: OK.
PLOUFFE: The choice is clear.
WALLACE: I have a couple of minutes left and I want to get to these campaign questions. You were the Obama campaign manager in 2008. I ask about whether there's anything new, because you are taking hits right now -- you, the campaign -- from some notable Democrats like James Carville and Bill Clinton, who are saying that you need to stop talking about the progress we've made and start talking about a new agenda, how things in the next four years are going to be different than they were in the last one.
Are they wrong?
PLOUFFE: First of all, President Clinton, he's appeared with President Obama. He said very clearly that we are beginning to grow again. We're beginning to make progress. We can't return to the same policy.
President Clinton is someone knows something about reducing the deficit, about creating jobs, and he's been very clear -- he thinks Mitt Romney would be a disaster for this country.
So, listen, those other Democrats aren't paying attention to what the president said, which is everyday, not just on what he said, but what he does -- he understands our economy is not strong as it needs to be, that this didn't happen overnight, it's going to take us a long time to recover, there's a lot of people out there hurting.
So, we are making progress. We need to make a lot of more. That's very clear.
WALLACE: But you said, just a few months ago, that trajectory in the economy is going well. We had fewer and fewer jobs, each of the last four months. GDP growth is 1.9 percent, 69,000 jobs, the lowest in the year created. The trajectory is not going like this anymore, sir. It's going like this.
PLOUFFE: Well, compared to where we were in recession we had over 4 million jobs created over the last 26 months. We had that private sector jobs --
WALLACE: But you've got three and a half years to fix it. PLOUFFE: Well, listen, this is a deep hole caused by the same policies Mitt Romney wants to go back to. This is what folks need to focus on. We just went through recession.
Remarkably, what Mitt Romney and the congressional Republicans want to do is, hey, I guess that worked out well. Let's go back to the same rules. Let Wall Street writes its own rules, make it easier to polluters to foul our air more, huge tax cuts to people like Mitt Romney and basically paid for by raising taxes on working Americans, and making it harder for people to get education, not believing in the new energy future, not rebuilding this country.
So, listen, this is a tough recession we are recovering from. We are making slow and steady progress. Nobody is satisfied. The president most of all knows we have to recover more quickly, create jobs more quickly. But the choice is, are we going to continue and move forward -- are we going to go back to the same policies that caused the recession?
WALLACE: I got it. One last question --
PLOUFFE: It's important. Nothing is more important than this, Chris.
WALLACE: One more question real quickly, any chance you'll leave the White House, go back to Chicago and run this campaign. | 0 | train |
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Sale of the Etch A Sketch Brand In February of 2016, we announced the sale of our Etch A Sketch and Doodle Sketch brands in a move designed to allow us to focus on its metal lithography business and invest in its manufacturing operations in Bryan.
Begin official Release:
The Ohio Art Company, a business and community leader for more than 100 years, announced today that it has sold its Etch A Sketch and Doodle Sketch brands in a move designed to allow it to focus on its metal lithography business and invest in its manufacturing operations in Bryan. Ohio Art’s first lithography press was installed in its Bryan, Ohio facility in 1912 and the company has since specialized in precision printing and beautiful color reproduction that is protected to withstand the rigors of stamping and fabrication. The company has been a leader in the metal lithography business for more than a century and company CEO Elena West confirms that, “Ohio Art is squarely focused on continuing to build its reputation as one of the premier metal lithographers in North America.”
The company also underscored its continued commitment to the Bryan, Ohio community and has been working with local business leaders to more effectively utilize its Bryan facility. G&M Media Packaging and Reece Brothers Digital Printers have both signed on as tenants and Wilton Keck Recycling has purchased warehouse space for their upstart commercial recycling business. The company is also leasing warehouse space to two local manufacturers in need of additional staging.
“We are very pleased to be able to partner with these local businesses to provide them with quality space and support services and, most importantly, keep these companies and jobs right here in Bryan,” notes Martin Killgallon, President. “Our commitment to the community is important to our strategy and we look forward to continuing to partner with other local businesses.”
The Etch A Sketch and Doodle Sketch brands have been sold to Spin Master Corp., a leading global children’s entertainment company that creates, designs, manufactures and markets a diversified portfolio of innovative toys, games, products and entertainment properties. “We are very happy that children around the world will continue to be able to enjoy Etch A Sketch, one of the world’s most iconic toys, as Spin Master is committed to building upon the success that The Ohio Art Company has created and sustained for more than 50 years,” West concludes. | 0 | train |
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Briefing by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, 9/10/09 THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary
___________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release September 10, 2009 PRESS BRIEFING
BY PRESS SECRETARY ROBERT GIBBS James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
1:45 P.M. EDT
MR. GIBBS: Good afternoon. Before we get started, let me just run through real quickly, just for your planning purposes, some events that the President will be doing in and around the meeting later this month at the United Nations General Assembly. We'll have more detail on this for you then, but I just wanted to give you just a quick sketch.
The President of course will deliver his first address to the U.N. General Assembly. Secondly, he will attend and deliver remarks at Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's climate change summit.
Q Can you give us some dates?
MR. GIBBS: That would be good if I had them. I don't at the moment.
Third, the President will attend the Secretary General's luncheon for heads of state and host the traditional American reception for other heads of state. The President will also host a lunch for heads of states and governments from sub-Sahara Africa to discuss building a 21st century partnership to increase economic and social development.
Here's one date I do have. On September 24th, the President will chair a summit-level meeting of the U.N. Security Council on the topic of nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament. This is only the fifth time in the history of the U.N. that a head of state-level Security Council summit has been convened, and the first time ever that a U.S. President will chair a U.N. Security Council summit.
Q Did you ask for it?
MR. GIBBS: We did ask for it, and are heading it. And then lastly, the President will host a meeting with countries that contribute the largest numbers of troops and police to U.N. peacekeeping operations. Again, more detail on this as we get a little closer to U.N., but wanted to walk --
Q Can you repeat that last one?
MR. GIBBS: Yes. Host a meeting with countries that contribute the largest number of troops and police to U.N. peacekeeping operations.
Q Are all the heads of state invited to the reception?
MR. GIBBS: I don't have a list of who's RSVP'd.
Q Will President Ahmadinejad be invited?
MR. GIBBS: I doubt it.
Q Who controls the invite list?
MR. GIBBS: Burton does.
Q No, but I mean, is it -- (laughter) -- is it the U.S. or --
MR. GIBBS: Yes, yes, this is an American reception, so yes.
All right, now back to our regularly scheduled programming. Yes, ma'am.
Q Why would he be left out?
MR. GIBBS: Because Iran is failing to live up to its international obligations.
Q There's no other nation in the U.N. --
MR. GIBBS: No, I don't -- I think there are others that might miss out on the hors d'oeuvres.
Yes, ma'am.
Q Earlier today, Speaker Pelosi said that she sees little support in the country or in Congress for sending more troops to Afghanistan. Has the President decided what he's going to do in Afghanistan? Do her comments kind of box him in in any way?
MR. GIBBS: Look, as we've discussed before, obviously the assessment that has been delivered to Central Command, to the Pentagon, and to the White House from General McChrystal is part of a rigorous assessment process that the President wanted instituted upon coming into office, and to reassess our strategy in this very important region of the world. That continues to be discussed here and at the Pentagon.
As we've also talked about, separate resource decision reports will be coming in the next few weeks, but have not been received as of yet. The President will make a decision based on what he thinks is in the best national security interest of this country.
Q What is his time frame for making a decision? And when he does make a decision, how will he --
MR. GIBBS: Well, it's hard -- again, the evaluation process is ongoing on the original assessment. We've not received yet a resource report from commanders in Afghanistan to begin to consider. So there are several different assessments that will happen prior to that, and this is an ongoing process.
Q Haven't they been told not to ask for more troops?
MR. GIBBS: Not in any way, shape, or form.
Yes, ma'am.
Q Speaking of Iran, yesterday you said the administration wanted to see progress from Iran in the proposals that it submitted yesterday. Now that you've had a chance to look at them, did you see what you wanted? Also, Iran is saying that the proposals did not deal directly with its nuclear activities. Is that the case? And finally, Russia came out a little bit ago and said the U.N. Security Council would not support oil sanctions. Does this administration agree?
MR. GIBBS: I have not seen the Russian comments. Let me speak more broadly about Iran and -- obviously this week's discussion at the IAEA makes further clear the concern that the international community has and the gravity that we have about Iran's illicit nuclear program. Iran has failed to address past violations, failed to comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions to suspend its nuclear activity. The offer is still being evaluated by the P5-plus-1. I would say Iran's proposals have time and again failed to live up to its international obligations. And we've discussed that Iran obviously has two paths that they can choose. One of those paths leads to increased international isolation if they don't take concrete steps to end their program.
As we get closer to the U.N. and the G20, obviously there will be a period of discussion and evaluation as to where we are as we move forward together with the international community.
Yes, sir.
Q The President yesterday, last night, said that the bills, the health care reform bills, whatever he signs will be deficit-neutral and will bend the cost curve. The Democratic bills that have been introduced in the House and Senate so far, at least according to the Congressional Budget Office, will not do that. They will increase the deficit, according to Doug Elmendorf, and they will not bend the cost curve. In fact, the cost curve will continue to go up. Does the White House accept what the CBO director says about these bills? And if so, what pressure is the White House conveying or using on Congress and Democrats to improve these two elements that the President said were so important to him?
MR. GIBBS: Well, let's -- let me take these separately. First and foremost, it's not up to us to judge -- well, obviously we take at face value whatever the CBO says about legislation, as we've discussed in here. The proposal that the President outlined last night is obviously in some ways different than what we -- what has been discussed on Capitol Hill thus far. I think CBO would be one of the first to tell you that one way to bend that cost curve is to go after and discuss how to prevent what the President called Cadillac health insurance plans last night, that tend to make steeper that curve going upwards.
I think one of the things that the CBO has said is addressing that will put that downward pressure on cost, and obviously the President, as part of his plan, last night outlined a fee on insurance companies that offer these Cadillac plans after -- at a certain rate. So I think that, first and foremost, is one of the things that the President outlined. And I think, secondly, the President outlined a trigger, a deficit trigger that would evaluate whether or not savings have been achieved. And if savings haven't been achieved before moving forward, how that savings can be achieved before the plan is fully implemented in 2013. I think those are two ways that the President outlined last night to address those concerns.
But, Jake, you heard him I think say pretty clearly that this was -- this has to change the direction of our -- of government spending on health care, and this has to not add a dime to the deficit. The President is very serious about keeping those promises.
Q How firm is he being with Democratic leaders, because they -- I mean, we've heard from Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi that they're 90 percent there. You guys have said that there's 80 percent agreement. It seems to be that they're -- and I understand the President --
MR. GIBBS: I put some of the proposal the President outlined in that sort of 10 to 20 percentage range.
Q Well, is it going to be that significant? I mean, are these major steps that are actually going to change the impacts of these bills, according to the CBO announcing --
MR. GIBBS: I mean, again, I think the CBO has evaluated a number of cost-cutting mechanisms that have been outlined. And the one that they think has the greatest ability is to -- deals with these Cadillac health insurance plans, which the President talked about last night.
So I do think the President believes that will have a -- will have an impact on the cost curve.
Yes, ma'am.
Q Congressman Wilson's apology -- I don't want to dwell too much -- but how was that apology conveyed to the President?
MR. GIBBS: It's my understanding that Congressman Wilson called the Chief of Staff last night -- I can check on the time in which we got an e-mail on that -- an hour or so after the conclusion of the speech, to express his apology for what he had said, and that the Chief of Staff accepted that on behalf of the President.
Q Was that apology conveyed to the President this morning or --
MR. GIBBS: Last night.
Q Last night.
MR. GIBBS: But, you know, again, the President -- to reiterate what the President said in the Cabinet meeting, we can disagree -- he's said this millions of times -- we can disagree without being disagreeable; that we can have an honest debate about our views on health care and what we think is best for the American people, but we can do so without what you saw last night. And I think it's obvious that Congressman Wilson agrees with that.
Q And do you have details on this meeting with the President and centrist Democrats today in the Senate?
MR. GIBBS: I think we will, if we haven't already, put out a list of senators that will be there. I think there's 15 to 17 that will be there.
Q What time?
MR. GIBBS: I think it's at 4:15 p.m. this afternoon, if I'm not mistaken.
Q And what's the President's message going to be?
MR. GIBBS: Well, I think the President wants to talk through with moderate Democrats and centrist Democrats some of the proposals that he outlined last night, some of which we just talked about that have and enjoy their support, and figuring out how we can move this -- continue to move this process forward. We'll have a short readout from after the meeting, as well.
Q How long do you think it will go?
MR. GIBBS: I think it's on the schedule for probably 30 to 45 minutes, but we'll check.
Yes, ma'am.
Q Do you think he has satisfied the liberal Democrats? And also, what is he going to do now to keep the momentum?
MR. GIBBS: Well, I think most of you have seen that we will travel on Saturday to Minnesota to talk again -- on Saturday -- to talk again about the importance of health care reform and to keep this going. In terms of -- I think what the President outlined last night is something that can appeal to Democrats and Republicans and bring people together to solve this problem that we've been talking about for so long.
I don't want to speak directly for members of Congress, but judging from many of the comments that I've seen in reporting today, I think the President did a good job of appealing across the political spectrum in outlining a proposal that -- the elements of which he thinks can represent an important step forward in health care reform.
Yes, sir.
Q Senator Baucus today said that as far as he's concerned, it sounded like the President was reading his plan -- or "our plan" as he put it. He said, it sounds like we're in sync in openness to co-ops, $900 billion, deficit-neutral, deficit trigger. Was the President making a conscious effort to move in the direction of the Gang of Six/Baucus plan?
MR. GIBBS: Well, look, let me -- obviously the President fully supports and has lauded the efforts of the Finance Committee to continue to work on getting a plan out of their committee. Obviously he talked about four of five committees of jurisdiction -- something that's never happened before -- have completed that work. Senator Baucus announced earlier yesterday that the committee would convene on the 21st to mark up legislation. Again, I think it's a tremendously positive and important development in continuing health care reform through the congressional process.
Look, I think there's plenty of room for agreement. The President has used the figure that Jake cited as about 80 percent agreement, I think a lot of which he reiterated last night. And we certainly hope that the Finance Committee, the Gang of Six, Republicans and Democrats, will find enough to like in all these pieces of legislation and in this proposal to move something forward.
Q A lot of your favorite people, the pundits, are concluding already that what the President was basically doing, by making an argument for public option but then making it so clear that he's open to either the co-op or the trigger, he's basically saying, I'm moving in the direction of Baucus and company, or the trigger, and you 100 or 80, whatever you are, liberal Democrats in the House, you're going to have to face reality here; you're not going to get what you want. Was that the President's message last night?
MR. GIBBS: Well, I mean, I -- again, without referring to my good friends, the pundits, I'd look more directly just exactly at what the President said. I think there's no doubt that the President laid down the notion that we have to have options, particularly in a private insurance or small group insurance market that, as the President noted, 75 percent of -- more than half the states are dominated by just five companies in each state. I have used the example many times of Alabama being dominated -- 89 percent of that insurance market is dominated by exactly one company; that we have to have that choice and competition. And quite frankly we've always thrived in this country with choice and competition in whatever it is.
I think he reiterated that the public option is not the be-all, end-all of health care reform; that he's open to ways to achieve choice and competition and wants to work with Congress to see that happen. I think this is part of the process of bringing people together and getting a solution.
Q A lot of people say what you just said is a death knell, really, for a robust public option.
MR. GIBBS: I think -- I think if you watched what the President said last night, I think he's very clear on that.
Yes, sir.
Q Robert, we heard the President today again say he's open to talking to anybody about any ideas. But is it fair to say that actions are speaking louder than words? Today, the President is meeting with a group of just Democrats. Saturday, he's traveling to Minneapolis, a state that has got two Democratic senators, a state that gave you the 60th U.S. Senate seat.
MR. GIBBS: There's 59 U.S. Senate seats right now.
Q There's 59, I understand that. But it was -- gave you the 60 at the time. Is there --
MR. GIBBS: I remember Minnesota being a swing state at or around this time last year.
Q I was trying to remember when that was.
MR. GIBBS: It was about the time the Republican convention ended in St. Paul, Minnesota -- (laughter) -- with Tim Pawlenty as the governor.
Q My point is the President talked --
MR. GIBBS: At or around then. (Laughter.)
Q -- the President talked a lot about Republican ideas, bipartisanship. Should we expect to see a meeting here at the White House with a group of Republicans?
MR. GIBBS: Look, I presume we will have Republicans and Democrats down here to talk about this proposal. The President didn't go to Capitol Hill just to give lip service to both sides of the aisle. I don't think that you can judge one day's effort, or one afternoon's effort, the one day after the speech.
The President is focused on hearing all of those ideas. Again, as you said, he reiterated that not once, but then a second time at the Cabinet meeting today when you all were in there. I hesitate to -- again, Minnesota was a swing state for quite some time in the general election. So I don't know that I would throw Minnesota in one --
Q But this is about winning votes, and a lot of times we see -- we watch Presidents when they've got initiatives that they're trying to win votes, all of a sudden they show up in states where they're trying to get -- it's obvious you have both Democratic Senate -- but, I mean -- so I'm just saying, should we not read into where you're going?
MR. GIBBS: No, the state wasn't -- the state wasn't picked for who represents it in the Senate, no more than it was than who represents it at any level of government. It's a state the President hasn't been to, and looks forwards to going to going to on Saturday.
Q Who was the last Republican, besides Olympia Snowe, that he's talked with about -- that he's -- the President himself has talked with about health care?
MR. GIBBS: I have to go back and look at my call list.
Q Was it recent?
MR. GIBBS: I don't have the call list. I'd have to go back and look. Let me go back and look.
Q And following up on Afghanistan, does the President believe there should be an exit strategy at some point?
MR. GIBBS: Absolutely. I mean, I think the President -- first and foremost, I think the President has always discussed, and particularly since coming to office, that there isn't a -- there isn't a military solution alone for Afghanistan. We do not have -- we do not have the troops or the money to be there in perpetuity. I think the Secretary of Defense has been pretty clear on this, as well, that we're not there to build some utopian democracy. We have very clear goals. We are working with Congress on those benchmarks -- as the Speaker mentioned in her press availability today -- to disrupt, dismantle, and destroy al Qaeda and its extremist allies. But, no, we're -- the President does not in any way envision us being there -- being there forever.
Q Should the American public expect to see the President say, okay, look, we have an exit strategy, here it is, or (inaudible) happen sooner rather than later?
MR. GIBBS: I think the President will continue to talk about -- I think the President will continue to talk about the objectives and the goals that he has for this policy, and underscore that, again, we don't have -- we don't have the human resources or the material resources to be there forever.
Q Well, what's the strategy?
MR. GIBBS: What's the strategy? Well, the President has outlined --
Q To leave.
MR. GIBBS: Well, the President and Congress are working on very strict benchmarks to measure our progress in, as I just said, dismantling, disrupting, and destroying al Qaeda.
Q So how long will that take?
MR. GIBBS: That's part of the current assessment that is going on. Obviously this is an effort, Helen, that started in 2001, and I think it's fair to say the President was a critic of the lack of attention and focus paid to this effort for quite some time; that he asked that the strategy be reassessed during the transition. Part of that reassessment was changing commanders on the ground. And as part of that change, we now have received General McChrystal's assessment of his first two months in Afghanistan.
Jonathan.
Q Picking up on Chuck's line of questioning -- pre-Afghanistan. Is Democratic unity now the first objective post-speech in the legislative strategy? And what is your thinking right now about avoiding reconciliation --
MR. GIBBS: Well, we have always discussed on any topic the notion that we want, first and foremost, Democrats and Republicans to work together to solve the problem of the magnitude that health care is. I wouldn't put one series of lawmakers above another. I think every vote in Congress is created equal. And the President would be pleased and happy to have each and every one of them.
So, again, I think there will be extensive consultation with Congress -- Democrats, Republicans, and independents -- about how we move forward best on this legislation.
Q And can you tell us what other folks like the Chief of Staff, Jim Messina, Phil Schiliro, what their -- and actually Joe Biden -- what their roles are right now, what they might be doing today and the next couple of days?
MR. GIBBS: All four of those guys spent at least an hour and a half in a Cabinet meeting today where health care was discussed extensively.
Can somebody go check on the -- just have them turn it off if the static is -- but I have no doubt that they will be reaching out throughout Capitol Hill, again, to Democrats and Republicans. Nancy-Ann will be meeting with groups of lawmakers to discuss how best we move forward.
Q Now, on Joe Biden, the Vice President was called on as the pivotal person at the end of the stimulus process. And I wonder what role you see the Vice President taking --
MR. GIBBS: Well, look, obviously the Vice President brings extensive knowledge of a number of members of Congress, knowledge that the President relied on in the buildup in the days ahead of the speech, in the discussions, the policy discussions, that we had here. And he will continue to rely on his knowledge and his expertise in moving this legislation forward. I think Vice President Biden on this topic as well as many other topics plays an incredibly important and crucial role for the President and our team.
Q Robert, can you elaborate beyond the one sentence in your written readout on what the President said to Prime Minister Brown about the release of the Pan Am 103 bomber?
MR. GIBBS: Look, the President restated to Prime Minister Brown our opposition that was conveyed to the Scottish government prior to their decision, and the President relayed during this conversation the disappointment in the decision that had been made. He thought this was a mistake. He continues to think it was a mistake. Obviously nearly 200 Americans lost their lives in that terrorist tragedy. The President and the administration had communicated clearly to the Scottish government that we believed any release would be a mistake and that this individual should serve the remainder of their term in Scotland.
Q Is the President satisfied with what Brown responded?
MR. GIBBS: He is satisfied, but again underscores his opposition to and disappointment at the decision that was made.
Q Did Prime Minister Brown respond differently to what he has said publicly?
MR. GIBBS: I would -- we sort of have a practice not to read out what other governments have said, and I would ask you to speak with the Brits on that.
Q And one more. Is there any health care event beyond Saturday coming up in the early days of next week?
MR. GIBBS: Let me -- I have not looked that far on the schedule.
Lynn, do you have a --
Q Just to follow up on that release situation. Later this month in New York the President is going to host a reception for the world leaders after the U.N. opening. Will Ghadafi be invited to that reception?
MR. GIBBS: We will get a list of who is and who won't be invited to the party.
Q Because usually all the world leaders are.
MR. GIBBS: Let me -- having not been here for an administration's effort at the U.N. General Assembly, let me get NSC to weigh in on that.
Yes, ma'am.
Q Of the $900 billion cost over 10 years that the President said last night, could you outline and break down the specifics to how the White House would --
MR. GIBBS: I don't have some of that paper with me. I'll outline it in sort of broad effect. Obviously we have discussed, I think in some detail, the waste, fraud, and abuse that is prevalent in Medicare -- that strengthening the Medicare trust fund through spending health care dollars more wisely; ending the insurance company subsidies to Medicare Advantage. Obviously you have some amount of revenue from agreements with the hospitals and with the pharmaceutical industry, some of which will be used, in the pharmaceutical industry's example, to close the doughnut hole for seniors and again strengthen the Medicare program as we know it. Also some of that will be used for broader health care reform. And then obviously the fee that we talked about on insurance companies is a broad part of that, as well.
Q Do you have any estimate of how much that fee --
MR. GIBBS: I don't have that -- I don't have that with me.
Q Or even the threshold that the President would like to see?
MR. GIBBS: Well, I think, again, I think that's one of the things that we'll work through and discuss with Congress as we move forward. Obviously there are --
Q You haven't set a threshold.
MR. GIBBS: Not that I know of yet, no.
Q Robert, a couple on health care and then one on trade. How would the medical malpractice aspects that the President talked about last night work, and when are we likely to see action on that?
MR. GIBBS: Well, as you know, the President instructed the Secretary of Health and Human Services to begin working on these projects immediately. I'll give you a couple of different examples of how some of these things might work, and as these get developed obviously we'll report on them for you.
The President introduced legislation with now Secretary of State Clinton in 2005 in the Senate that builds on very successful programs that medical systems and hospitals in areas have tried that seeks mediation over litigation in ways of solving some of these disputes.
I think the President and his team will look at very closely what Congressman Bart Gordon put in the Energy and Commerce legislation, which requires prior to a suit being heard in court, prior to that litigation moving forward, a certificate of merit that is given by a board of medical professionals that certifies the validity of any litigation moving forward to cut down on unnecessary costs, and as the President said, defensive medicine that he hears about from doctors and doctors' groups.
Q Does that suggest that part of this could become a part of the legislation itself? Or would -- you want to handle it entirely through the administrative process?
MR. GIBBS: We -- I think --
Q Open to both?
MR. GIBBS: Open to both.
Q Okay. And the President talked about this trigger or hinge mechanism -- if you're not saving enough, we have to hold back. Is that a must-have in the legislation?
MR. GIBBS: That's a -- that is a -- it is one of the President's proposals, and I think one of the things that he'll insist on being in reform. Again, I think it underscores the promise that he made that this must -- that this must not add to the deficit. And, look, it's probably an uncomfortable moment for Democrats and Republicans when the President reminded many in that chamber that we'd watched over the past many years sometimes very popular programs added to the government's tab without being paid for, right -- $1.6 trillion for tax cuts in 2001 and 2003; several hundred billion dollars, I forget the final price tag, for Medicare Part D; wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that never went through a budget process. We have troops in two countries, and you are going through an emergency supplemental process that is not counted on the deficit. Those are three pretty broad examples of big chunks that we're now paying for that weren't paid for when we started.
I think the President is determined, as we address the challenges that this country faces, that one of the challenges that we face is paying for what we want to do. And I think that's exactly what the President outlined.
Q And that's only up until 2013? Or does that continue on after --
MR. GIBBS: No, no, the -- I think --
Q -- the 10-year window of this legislation?
MR. GIBBS: The President -- the President extended that going forward. Do you have a follow-up on that?
Q If it is so important to keep this deficit-neutral, why not outline specific ways of getting to the $900 billion --
MR. GIBBS: Again, I just outlined some very specific ways that the President seeks to do it.
Q But to break it down dollar -- dollar by dollar?
MR. GIBBS: Again, we're going to work with Congress on -- it would be hard to estimate the total amount raised by the fee on Cadillac insurance plans, the fee on insurance companies, without a threshold. Obviously that's something that we're going to discuss with Democrats and Republicans alike who have come to the table at this point in the debate, understanding that this proposal can do -- can do several things, including bend that cost curve.
Q So you do have some sense to be able to --
MR. GIBBS: Well, I mean, there's a broad range of different things, yes.
Q Let me do the one trade thing, Robert. It's somewhat obscure, but it's pending, so I hope you have some general analysis you can give me on this.
MR. GIBBS: We'll see on that.
Q A union representing U.S. tiremakers won a claim against China for the surge of tire imports in the United States. The President has until the 17th of this month to either follow an International Trade Commission recommendation of three years of tariffs against China, or do something else or nothing at all. What is his approach? How is this being handled? Is he more in favor in sanctions, meaning tariffs, or some sort of negotiated mediation on this?
MR. GIBBS: I am aware, but you probably will find the answer to be semi-unsatisfactory. It's obviously something that the administration was -- we didn't have an Economic Daily Briefing with the President today for some scheduling reasons, but this has been touched on in a couple of those and is being worked on with representatives from the Department of Labor, the Department of Commerce, the U.S. Trade Representative, and the NEC. And as we get closer to that deadline, we'll have more on that.
Q Would a response involving tariffs be viewed by the President as protectionist or within the realm of something that is a natural response if you are a victim of surge or --
MR. GIBBS: Let me just not get ahead of where we are on that at this moment.
Yes, sir.
Q Thanks, Robert. The United States Olympic Committee is meeting today in Chicago about the city's bid to host the 2016 games. The International Olympic Committee makes its decision October 2nd in Copenhagen. Apparently it's very important for a leader to be there. Spain, Tokyo -- the leaders of Spain, Tokyo, and Brazil have committed to being there October 2nd in Copenhagen, I believe. Is the President going to go?
MR. GIBBS: Not that I'm aware of, no.
Q Has he --
Q Really? Why not? (Laughter.)
MR. GIBBS: The -- yes, I was going to -- hometown interest.
Q Chicago wants to know.
MR. GIBBS: Let me double-check on the President's schedule. Obviously I anticipate having representatives there.
Q But we know that Valerie is going, okay, and there had always been a thought, I thought -- thank you for bringing it up -- (laughter) --
Q No, please.
Q All right. (Laughter.)
MR. GIBBS: The gentleman yields his time to the gentle lady from -- representing Chicago. Yes.
Q Well, as you now know, you probably made a few million ears perk up by saying that he's not coming. So if you have some explanation as to why not, that says something.
MR. GIBBS: I should say -- I said that as far as the schedule I had seen, that was not planned. I will -- based on the millions of --
Q Well, you don't hop over to Copenhagen. I mean, obviously --
Q Is the date being held?
MR. GIBBS: This is -- I will, because of those several million ears that have now since perked, check.
Q Is the date being held?
MR. GIBBS: Let me check. It's hard for me to look into my invisible crystal ball.
Q If he's not -- that would -- that he might not come if it was thought the city's bid -- which has a little bumpy road back home right now -- was in trouble. So that would be very useful to get the whole picture from you.
MR. GIBBS: Well, look, I think the last set of articles I read on where the IOC was on Olympic bids had America's bid in Chicago at the top of that list. So I don't -- without getting into Chicago politics on that, I think our bid is -- this country's bid is very well represented and seems to be making progress.
Are you extending your time? (Laughter.)
Q No, I'll pass.
Q Well, now could this be a today thing to get back and clarify?
MR. GIBBS: I will endeavor to call up the schedule when I get back to my office.
Q Thank you.
Q Can you get back to all of us?
MR. GIBBS: I was going to say, I guess these million or so ears incl | 0 | train |
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Leonardo DiCaprio Tells President Obama That He's Going to Mars Leonardo DiCaprio has sailed on the Titanic, battled grizzly bears in the brutal Wild West, and explored dreams. Now, though, the 41-year-old actor says he’s going to travel to Mars — but for real.
Well, at least that’s what he told President Barack Obama.
DiCaprio was at the White House on Monday night as part of the South by South Lawn event. The actor, the president, and climate scientist Dr. Katharine Hayhoe took the stage towards the end of the evening for a conversation on climate change before the U.S. premiere of DiCaprio’s new documentary on the subject, Before the Flood.
The subject of Mars and SpaceX came up while Hayhoe was talking about the need to make people connect with the reality of climate change on a universal, human level. “The most important thing to do is not to pile up scientific reports until they reach a tottering pile of about 8 feet where they tip over and crush somebody,” Hayhoe said, explaining that what really matters when trying to motivate people to combat climate change thing is to connect its real meaning and impact to “what’s in our hearts.”
“The reality of it is, if you’re a human living on this planet — which most of us are, yeah?” she joked. “As long as we haven’t signed up for the trip to Mars. I don’t want to know if anyone has, I think you’re crazy.”
As Hayhoe expressed her belief that anyone who was on board with Elon Musk’s recently detailed plans for a possibly deadly trip to Mars was nuts, DiCaprio chimed in to say, “I did.”
Hayhoe attempted to assure the famous actor that she didn’t actually think he was nuts, but Obama jumped in.
“I think he’ll acknowledge he’s crazy,” the president said with a smile.
It’s unclear if the millionaire actor really plans on traveling to Mars and quite possibly dying in the process. Remember, though, Leo finally won an Oscar for his role in The Revenant, in part due to the brutal conditions he endured while filming it. Maybe, just maybe, he figured the only place tougher than frozen uncharted western territories is the Martian surface. The Academy would love it.
It’s probably method acting, is what we’re saying.
President Barack Obama, Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, and Leonardo DiCaprio talk climate change.
Earlier in the night, Obama made a Star Trek reference while talking about the importance of flawed but useful energy sources like fracking and nuclear power. “Until we invent the perfect energy source — Lithium crystals or whatever, Scotty’s there beaming us up — but until then we need to live in the real world,” Obama said. | 1 | train |
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Remarks by the President on Increasing Oversight on Manipulation in Oil Markets Rose Garden
11:27 A.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Good morning, everybody. Lately, I’ve been speaking a lot about our need for an all-of-the-above strategy for American energy -- a strategy that produces more oil and gas here at home, but also produces more biofuels and fuel-efficient cars, more solar power and wind power and other sources of clean, renewable energy.
This strategy is not just the right thing to do for our long-term economic growth; it’s also the right way for us to reduce our dependence on foreign oil right now. It’s the right way for us to put people to work right now. And ultimately, it’s the right way to stop spikes in gas prices that we’ve put up [with] every single year -- the same kind of increase that we’ve seen over the past couple of months.
Obviously rising gas prices means a rough ride for a lot of families. Whether you’re trying to get to school, trying to get to work, do some grocery shopping, you have to be able to fill up that gas tank. And there are families in certain parts of the country that have no choice but to drive 50 or 60 miles to get to the job. So when gas prices go up, it’s like an additional tax that comes right out of your pocket.
That’s one of the reasons we passed a payroll tax cut at the beginning of this year and made sure it extended all the way through this year, so that the average American is getting that extra $40 in every paycheck right now.
But I think everybody understands that there are no quick fixes to this problem. There are politicians who say that if we just drilled more then gas prices would come down right away. What they don’t say is that we have been drilling more. Under my administration, America is producing more oil than at any time in the last eight years. We’ve opened up new areas for exploration. We've quadrupled the number of operating rigs to a record high. We've added enough new oil and gas pipeline to circle the Earth and then some.
But as I've said repeatedly, the problem is we use more than 20 percent of the world’s oil and we only have 2 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves. Even if we drilled every square inch of this country right now, we’d still have to rely disproportionately on other countries for their oil. That means we pay more at the pump every time there’s instability in the Middle East, or growing demand in countries like China and India.
That’s what’s happening right now. It’s those global trends that are affecting gas prices. So even as we're tackling issues of supply and demand, even as we're looking at the long-term in terms of how we can structurally make ourselves less reliant on foreign oil, we still need to work extra hard to protect consumers from factors that should not affect the price of a barrel of oil.
That includes doing everything we can to ensure that an irresponsible few aren’t able to hurt consumers by illegally manipulating or rigging the energy markets for their own gain. We can't afford a situation where speculators artificially manipulate markets by buying up oil, creating the perception of a shortage, and driving prices higher -- only to flip the oil for a quick profit. We can’t afford a situation where some speculators can reap millions, while millions of American families get the short end of the stick. That’s not the way the market should work. And for anyone who thinks this cannot happen, just think back to how Enron traders manipulated the price of electricity to reap huge profits at everybody else’s expense.
Now, the good news is my administration has already taken several actions to step up oversight of oil markets and close dangerous loopholes that were allowing some traders to operate in the shadows.
We closed the so-called Enron loophole that let traders evade oversight by using electronic or overseas trading platforms. In the Wall Street reform law, we said for the first time that federal regulators will make sure no single trader can buy such a large position in oil that they could easily manipulate the market on their own. So I’d point out that anybody who’s pledging to roll back Wall Street reform -- Dodd-Frank -- would also roll back this vital consumer protection along with it.
I’ve asked Attorney General Holder to work with Chairman Leibowitz of the Federal Trade Commission, Chairman Gensler of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and other enforcement agencies to make sure that acts of manipulation, fraud or other illegal activity are not behind increases in the price that consumers pay at the pump.
So today, we’re announcing new steps to strengthen oversight of energy markets. Things that we can do administratively, we are doing. And I call on Congress to pass a package of measures to crack down on illegal activity and hold accountable those who manipulate the market for private gain at the expense of millions of working families. And be specific.
First, Congress should provide immediate funding to put more cops on the beat to monitor activity in energy markets. This funding would also upgrade technology so that our surveillance and enforcement officers aren’t hamstrung by older and less sophisticated tools than the ones that traders are using. We should strengthen protections for American consumers, not gut them. And these markets have expanded significantly.
Chairman Gensler actually had a good analogy. He said, imagine if the NFL quadrupled the number of teams but didn’t increase the number of refs. You’d end up having havoc on the field, and it would diminish the game. It wouldn’t be fair. That’s part of what’s going on in a lot of these markets. So we have to properly resource enforcement.
Second, Congress should increase the civil and criminal penalties for illegal energy market manipulation and other illegal activities. So my plan would toughen key financial penalties tenfold, and impose these penalties not just per violation, but for every day a violation occurs.
Third, Congress should give the agency responsible for overseeing oil markets new authority to protect against volatility and excess speculation by making sure that traders can post appropriate margins, which simply means that they actually have the money to make good on their trades.
Congress should do all of this right away. A few weeks ago, Congress had a chance to stand up for families already paying an extra premium at the pump; congressional Republicans voted to keep spending billions of Americans' hard-earned tax dollars on more unnecessary subsidies for big oil companies. So here's a chance to make amends, a chance to actually do something that will protect consumers by increasing oversight of energy markets. That should be something that everybody, no matter their party, should agree with. And I hope Americans will ask their members of Congress to step up.
In the meantime, my administration will take new executive actions to better analyze and investigate trading activities in energy markets and more quickly implement the tough consumer protections under Wall Street reform.
Let me close by saying none of these steps by themselves will bring gas prices down overnight. But it will prevent market manipulation and make sure we're looking out for American consumers. And in the meantime we're going to keep pursuing an all-of-the-above strategy for American energy to break the cycle of price spikes year after year. We are going to keep producing more biofuels; we're going to keep producing more fuel-efficient cars; we are going to keep tapping into every source of American-made energy.
And these steps have already helped put America on a path to greater energy independence. Our foreign -- our dependence on foreign oil has actually decreased each year I've been in office -- even as the economy has grown. America now imports less than half of the oil we use for the first time in more than a decade. So we are less vulnerable than we were, but we're still too vulnerable.
We've got to continue the hard, sustained work on this issue. And as long as I'm President we're going to keep placing our bets on America's future -- America's workers, America's technology, America's ingenuity, and American-made energy. That's how we're going to solve this problem once and for all.
Thank you very much, everybody.
END
11:35 A.M. EDT | 0 | train |
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Remarks by the President on the Economy -- Knox College, Galesburg, IL Knox College
Galesburg, Illinois
12:13 P.M. CDT
THE PRESIDENT: Hello, Galesburg! (Applause.) Well, it’s good to be home in Illinois! (Applause.) It is good to be back. It’s good to be back. Thank you. Thank you so much, everybody. (Applause.) Thank you. Everybody, have a seat, have a seat. Well, it is good to be back.
I want to, first of all, thank Knox College -- (applause) -- I want to thank Knox College and your president, Teresa Amott, for having me here today. Give Teresa a big round of applause. (Applause.) I want to thank your Congresswoman, Cheri Bustos, who’s here. (Applause.) We've got Governor Quinn here. (Applause.) I'm told we've got your Lieutenant Governor, Sheila Simon, is here. (Applause.) There she is. Attorney General Lisa Madigan is here. (Applause.)
I see a bunch of my former colleagues, some folks who I haven't seen in years and I'm looking forward to saying hi to. One in particular I've got to mention, one of my favorites from the Illinois Senate -- John Sullivan is in the house. (Applause.) John was one of my earliest supporters when I was running for the U.S. Senate, and it came in really handy because he’s got, like, 10 brothers and sisters, and his wife has got 10 brothers and sisters -- (laughter) -- so they’ve got this entire precinct just in their family. (Laughter.) And they all look like John -- the brothers do -- so he doesn’t have to go to every event. He can just send one of his brothers out. (Laughter.) It is good to see him.
Dick Durbin couldn’t make it today, but he sends his best. And we love Dick. (Applause.) He’s doing a great job. And we’ve got one of my favorite neighbors, the Senator from Missouri, Claire McCaskill, in the house, because we’re going to Missouri later this afternoon. (Applause.)
And all of you are here, and it’s great to see you. (Applause.) And I hope everybody is having a wonderful summer. The weather is perfect. Whoever was in charge of that, good job. (Laughter.)
So, eight years ago, I came here to deliver the commencement address for the class of 2005. Things were a little different back then. For example, I had no gray hair -- (laughter) -- or a motorcade. Didn’t even have a prompter. In fact, there was a problem in terms of printing out the speech because the printer didn’t work here and we had to drive it in from somewhere. (Laughter.) But it was my first big speech as your newest senator.
And on the way here I was telling Cheri and Claire about how important this area was, one of the areas that I spent the most time in outside of Chicago, and how much it represented what’s best in America and folks who were willing to work hard and do right by their families. And I came here to talk about what a changing economy was doing to the middle class -- and what we, as a country, needed to do to give every American a chance to get ahead in the 21st century.
See, I had just spent a year traveling the state and listening to your stories -- of proud Maytag workers losing their jobs when the plant moved down to Mexico. (Applause.) A lot of folks here remember that. Of teachers whose salaries weren’t keeping up with the rising cost of groceries. (Applause.) Of young people who had the drive and the energy, but not the money to afford a college education. (Applause.)
So these were stories of families who had worked hard, believed in the American Dream, but they felt like the odds were increasingly stacked against them. And they were right. Things had changed.
In the period after World War II, a growing middle class was the engine of our prosperity. Whether you owned a company, or swept its floors, or worked anywhere in between, this country offered you a basic bargain -- a sense that your hard work would be rewarded with fair wages and decent benefits, the chance to buy a home, to save for retirement, and most of all, a chance to hand down a better life for your kids.
But over time, that engine began to stall -- and a lot of folks here saw it -- that bargain began to fray. Technology made some jobs obsolete. Global competition sent a lot of jobs overseas. It became harder for unions to fight for the middle class. Washington doled out bigger tax cuts to the very wealthy and smaller minimum wage increases for the working poor.
And so what happened was that the link between higher productivity and people’s wages and salaries was broken. It used to be that, as companies did better, as profits went higher, workers also got a better deal. And that started changing. So the income of the top 1 percent nearly quadrupled from 1979 to 2007, but the typical family’s incomes barely budged.
And towards the end of those three decades, a housing bubble, credit cards, a churning financial sector was keeping the economy artificially juiced up, so sometimes it papered over some of these long-term trends. But by the time I took office in 2009 as your President, we all know the bubble had burst, and it cost millions of Americans their jobs, and their homes, and their savings. And I know a lot of folks in this area were hurt pretty bad. And the decades-long erosion that had been taking place -- the erosion of middle-class security -- was suddenly laid bare for everybody to see.
Now, today, five years after the start of that Great Recession, America has fought its way back. (Applause.) We fought our way back. Together, we saved the auto industry; took on a broken health care system. (Applause.) We invested in new American technologies to reverse our addiction to foreign oil. We doubled wind and solar power. (Applause.) Together, we put in place tough new rules on the big banks, and protections to crack down on the worst practices of mortgage lenders and credit card companies. (Applause.) We changed a tax code too skewed in favor of the wealthiest at the expense of working families -- so we changed that, and we locked in tax cuts for 98 percent of Americans, and we asked those at the top to pay a little bit more. (Applause.)
So you add it all up, and over the past 40 months, our businesses have created 7.2 million new jobs. This year, we’re off to our strongest private sector job growth since 1999.
And because we bet on this country, suddenly foreign companies are, too. Right now, more of Honda’s cars are made in America than anyplace else on Earth. (Applause.) Airbus, the European aircraft company, they’re building new planes in Alabama. (Applause.) And American companies like Ford are replacing outsourcing with insourcing -- they’re bringing jobs back home. (Applause.)
We sell more products made in America to the rest of the world than ever before. We produce more natural gas than any country on Earth. We’re about to produce more of our own oil than we buy from abroad for the first time in nearly 20 years. (Applause.) The cost of health care is growing at its slowest rate in 50 years. (Applause.) And our deficits are falling at the fastest rate in 60 years. (Applause.)
So thanks to the grit and resilience and determination of the American people -- of folks like you -- we’ve been able to clear away the rubble from the financial crisis. We started to lay a new foundation for stronger, more durable economic growth. And it's happening in our own personal lives as well, right? A lot of us tightened our belts, shed debt, maybe cut up a couple of credit cards, refocused on those things that really matter.
As a country, we’ve recovered faster and gone further than most other advanced nations in the world. With new American revolutions in energy and technology and manufacturing and health care, we're actually poised to reverse the forces that battered the middle class for so long, and start building an economy where everyone who works hard can get ahead.
But -- and here's the big “but” -- I’m here to tell you today that we're not there yet. We all know that. We're not there yet. We've got more work to do. Even though our businesses are creating new jobs and have broken record profits, nearly all the income gains of the past 10 years have continued to flow to the top 1 percent. The average CEO has gotten a raise of nearly 40 percent since 2009. The average American earns less than he or she did in 1999. And companies continue to hold back on hiring those who’ve been out of work for some time.
Today, more students are earning their degree, but soaring costs saddle them with unsustainable debt. Health care costs are slowing down, but a lot of working families haven’t seen any of those savings yet. The stock market rebound helped a lot of families get back much of what they had lost in their 401(k)s, but millions of Americans still have no idea how they’re going to be able to retire.
So in many ways, the trends that I spoke about here in 2005 -- eight years ago -- the trend of a winner-take-all economy where a few are doing better and better and better, while everybody else just treads water -- those trends have been made worse by the recession. And that's a problem.
This growing inequality not just of result, inequality of opportunity -- this growing inequality is not just morally wrong, it’s bad economics. Because when middle-class families have less to spend, guess what, businesses have fewer consumers. When wealth concentrates at the very top, it can inflate unstable bubbles that threaten the economy. When the rungs on the ladder of opportunity grow farther and farther apart, it undermines the very essence of America -- that idea that if you work hard you can make it here.
And that’s why reversing these trends has to be Washington’s highest priority. (Applause.) It has to be Washington's highest priority. (Applause.) It’s certainly my highest priority. (Applause.)
Unfortunately, over the past couple of years, in particular, Washington hasn’t just ignored this problem; too often, Washington has made things worse. (Applause.)
And I have to say that -- because I'm looking around the room -- I've got some friends here not just who are Democrats, I've got some friends here who are Republicans -- (applause) -- and I worked with in the state legislature and they did great work. But right now, what we’ve got in Washington, we've seen a sizable group of Republican lawmakers suggest that they wouldn’t vote to pay the very bills that Congress rang up. And that fiasco harmed a fragile recovery in 2011 and we can't afford to repeat that.
Then, rather than reduce our deficits with a scalpel -- by cutting out programs we don’t need, fixing ones that we do need that maybe are in need of reform, making government more efficient -- instead of doing that, we've got folks who’ve insisted on leaving in place a meat cleaver called the sequester that's cost jobs. It's harmed growth. It's hurt our military. It's gutted investments in education and science and medical research. (Applause.)
Almost every credible economist will tell you it's been a huge drag on this recovery. And it means that we're underinvesting in the things that this country needs to make it a magnet for good jobs.
Then, over the last six months, this gridlock has gotten worse. I didn't think that was possible. (Laughter.) The good news is a growing number of Republican senators are looking to join their Democratic counterparts and try to get things done in the Senate. So that's good news. (Applause.) For example, they worked together on an immigration bill that economists say will boost our economy by more than a trillion dollars, strengthen border security, make the system work.
But you've got a faction of Republicans in the House who won’t even give that bill a vote. And that same group gutted a farm bill that America’s farmers depend on, but also America's most vulnerable children depend on.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Booo --
THE PRESIDENT: And if you ask some of these folks, some of these folks mostly in the House, about their economic agenda how it is that they'll strengthen the middle class, they’ll shift the topic to “out-of-control government spending” –- despite the fact that we've cut the deficit by nearly half as a share of the economy since I took office. (Applause.)
Or they’ll talk about government assistance for the poor, despite the fact that they’ve already cut early education for vulnerable kids. They've already cut insurance for people who’ve lost their jobs through no fault of their own. Or they’ll bring up Obamacare -- this is tried and true -- despite the fact that our businesses have created nearly twice as many jobs in this recovery as businesses had at the same point in the last recovery when there was no Obamacare. (Applause.)
AUDIENCE MEMBER: My daughter has insurance now!
THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate that. (Applause.) That’s what this is about. That’s what this is about. (Applause.) That’s what we've been fighting for.
But with this endless parade of distractions and political posturing and phony scandals, Washington has taken its eye off the ball. And I am here to say this needs to stop. (Applause.) This needs to stop.
This moment does not require short-term thinking. It does not require having the same old stale debates. Our focus has to be on the basic economic issues that matter most to you, the people we represent. That’s what we have to spend our time on and our energy on and our focus on. (Applause.)
And as Washington prepares to enter another budget debate, the stakes for our middle class and everybody who is fighting to get into the middle class could not be higher. The countries that are passive in the face of a global economy, those countries will lose the competition for good jobs. They will lose the competition for high living standards. That’s why America has to make the investments necessary to promote long-term growth and shared prosperity -- rebuilding our manufacturing base, educating our workforce, upgrading our transportation systems, upgrading our information networks. (Applause.) That’s what we need to be talking about. That’s what Washington needs to be focused on.
And that’s why, over the next several weeks, in towns across this country, I will be engaging the American people in this debate. (Applause.) I'll lay out my ideas for how we build on the cornerstones of what it means to be middle class in America, and what it takes to work your way into the middle class in America: Job security, with good wages and durable industries. A good education. A home to call your own. Affordable health care when you get sick. (Applause.) A secure retirement even if you’re not rich. Reducing poverty. Reducing inequality. Growing opportunity. That’s what we need. (Applause.) That’s what we need. That’s what we need right now. That’s what we need to be focused on. (Applause.)
Now, some of these ideas I’ve talked about before. Some of the ideas I offer will be new. Some will require Congress. Some I will pursue on my own. (Applause.) Some ideas will benefit folks right away. Some will take years to fully implement. But the key is to break through the tendency in Washington to just bounce from crisis to crisis. What we need is not a three-month plan, or even a three-year plan; we need a long-term American strategy, based on steady, persistent effort, to reverse the forces that have conspired against the middle class for decades. That has to be our project. (Applause.)
Now, of course, we’ll keep pressing on other key priorities. I want to get this immigration bill done. We still need to work on reducing gun violence. (Applause.) We’ve got to continue to end the war in Afghanistan, rebalance our fight against al Qaeda. (Applause.) We need to combat climate change. We’ve got to standing up for civil rights. We’ve got to stand up for women’s rights. (Applause.)
So all those issues are important, and we’ll be fighting on every one of those issues. But if we don’t have a growing, thriving middle class then we won’t have the resources to solve a lot of these problems. We won’t have the resolve, the optimism, the sense of unity that we need to solve many of these other issues.
Now, in this effort, I will look to work with Republicans as well as Democrats wherever I can. And I sincerely believe that there are members of both parties who understand this moment, understand what’s at stake, and I will welcome ideas from anybody across the political spectrum. But I will not allow gridlock, or inaction, or willful indifference to get in our way. (Applause.)
That means whatever executive authority I have to help the middle class, I’ll use it. (Applause.) Where I can’t act on my own and Congress isn’t cooperating, I’ll pick up the phone -- I’ll call CEOs; I’ll call philanthropists; I’ll call college presidents; I’ll call labor leaders. I’ll call anybody who can help -- and enlist them in our efforts. (Applause.)
Because the choices that we, the people, make right now will determine whether or not every American has a fighting chance in the 21st century. And it will lay the foundation for our children’s future, our grandchildren’s future, for all Americans.
So let me give you a quick preview of what I’ll be fighting for and why. The first cornerstone of a strong, growing middle class has to be, as I said before, an economy that generates more good jobs in durable, growing industries. That's how this area was built. That's how America prospered. Because anybody who was willing to work, they could go out there and they could find themselves a job, and they could build a life for themselves and their family.
Now, over the past four years, for the first time since the 1990s, the number of American manufacturing jobs has actually gone up instead of down. That's the good news. (Applause.) But we can do more. So I’m going to push new initiatives to help more manufacturers bring more jobs back to the United States. (Applause.) We’re going to continue to focus on strategies to make sure our tax code rewards companies that are not shipping jobs overseas, but creating jobs right here in the United States of America. (Applause.)
We want to make sure that -- we’re going to create strategies to make sure that good jobs in wind and solar and natural gas that are lowering costs and, at the same time, reducing dangerous carbon pollution happen right here in the United States. (Applause.)
And something that Cheri and I were talking about on the way over here -- I’m going to be pushing to open more manufacturing innovation institutes that turn regions left behind by global competition into global centers of cutting-edge jobs. So let’s tell the world that America is open for business. (Applause.) I know there’s an old site right here in Galesburg, over on Monmouth Boulevard -- let’s put some folks to work. (Applause.)
Tomorrow, I’ll also visit the Port of Jacksonville, Florida to offer new ideas for doing what America has always done best, which is building things. Pat and I were talking before I came -- backstage -- Pat Quinn -- he was talking about how I came over the Don Moffitt Bridge. (Applause.) But we’ve got work to do all across the country. We’ve got ports that aren’t ready for the new supertankers that are going to begin passing through the new Panama Canal in two years’ time. If we don’t get that done, those tankers are going to go someplace else. We’ve got more than 100,000 bridges that are old enough to qualify for Medicare. (Laughter and applause.)
Businesses depend on our transportation systems, on our power grids, on our communications networks. And rebuilding them creates good-paying jobs right now that can’t be outsourced. (Applause.)
And by the way, this isn’t a Democratic idea. Republicans built a lot of stuff. This is the Land of Lincoln. Lincoln was all about building stuff -- first Republican President. (Applause.) And yet, as a share of our economy, we invest less in our infrastructure than we did two decades ago. And that’s inefficient at a time when it’s as cheap as it’s been since the 1950s to build things. It’s inexcusable at a time when so many of the workers who build stuff for a living are sitting at home waiting for a call.
The longer we put this off, the more expensive it will be and the less competitive we will be. Businesses of tomorrow will not locate near old roads and outdated ports. They’ll relocate to places with high-speed Internet, and high-tech schools, and systems that move air and auto traffic faster, and not to mention will get parents home quicker from work because we’ll be eliminating some of these traffic jams. And we can watch all of that happen in other countries, and start falling behind, or we can choose to make it happen right here, in the United States. (Applause.)
In an age when jobs know no borders, companies are also going to seek out the countries that boast the most talented citizens, and they’ll reward folks who have the skills and the talents they need -- they’ll reward those folks with good pay.
The days when the wages for a worker with a high school degree could keep pace with the earnings of somebody who got some sort of higher education -- those days are over. Everybody here knows that. There are a whole bunch of folks here whose dads or grandpas worked at a plant, didn’t need a high school education. You could just go there. If you were willing to work hard, you might be able to get two jobs. And you could support your family, have a vacation, own your home. But technology and global competition, they’re not going away. Those old days aren’t coming back.
So we can either throw up our hands and resign ourselves to diminishing living standards, or we can do what America has always done, which is adapt, and pull together, and fight back, and win. That’s what we have to do. (Applause.)
And that brings me to the second cornerstone of a strong middle class -- and everybody here knows it -- an education that prepares our children and our workers for the global competition that they’re going to face. (Applause.) And if you think education is expensive, wait until you see how much ignorance costs in the 21st century. (Laughter and applause.)
If we don’t make this investment, we’re going to put our kids, our workers, and our country at a competitive disadvantage for decades. So we have to begin in the earliest years. And that’s why I’m going to keep pushing to make high-quality preschool available for every 4-year-old in America. (Applause.) Not just because we know it works for our kids, but because it provides a vital support system for working parents.
And I’m going to take action in the education area to spur innovation that don’t require Congress. (Applause.) So, today, for example, as we speak, federal agencies are moving on my plan to connect 99 percent of America’s students to high-speed Internet over the next five years. We’re making that happen right now. (Applause.) We’ve already begun meeting with business leaders and tech entrepreneurs and innovative educators to identify the best ideas for redesigning our high schools so that they teach the skills required for a high-tech economy.
And we’re also going to keep pushing new efforts to train workers for changing jobs. So here in Galesburg, for example, a lot of the workers that were laid off at Maytag chose to enroll in retraining programs like the one at Carl Sandburg College. (Applause.) And while it didn’t pay off for everyone, a lot of the folks who were retrained found jobs that suited them even better and paid even more than the ones they had lost.
And that’s why I’ve asked Congress to start a Community College to Career initiative, so that workers can earn the skills that high-tech jobs demand without leaving their hometown. (Applause.) And I’m going to challenge CEOs from some of America’s best companies to hire more Americans who’ve got what it takes to fill that job opening but have been laid off for so long that nobody is giving their résumé an honest look.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: More talent!
THE PRESIDENT: That, too.
I’m also going to use the power of my office over the next few months to highlight a topic that’s straining the budgets of just about every American family -- and that’s the soaring cost of higher education. (Applause.) Everybody is touched by this, including your President, who had a whole bunch of loans he had to pay off. (Laughter.)
Three years ago, I worked with Democrats to reform the student loan system so that taxpayer dollars stopped padding the pockets of big banks, and instead helped more kids afford college. (Applause.) Then, I capped loan repayments at 10 percent of monthly incomes for responsible borrowers, so that if somebody graduated and they decided to take a teaching job, for example, that didn’t pay a lot of money, they knew that they were never going to have to pay more than 10 percent of their income and they could afford to go into a profession that they loved. That’s in place right now. (Applause.) And this week, we’re working with both parties to reverse the doubling of student loan rates that happened a few weeks ago because of congressional inaction. (Applause.)
So this is all a good start -- but it isn’t enough. Families and taxpayers can’t just keep paying more and more and more into an undisciplined system where costs just keep on going up and up and up. We’ll never have enough loan money, we’ll never have enough grant money, to keep up with costs that are going up 5, 6, 7 percent a year. We’ve got to get more out of what we pay for.
Now, some colleges are testing new approaches to shorten the path to a degree, or blending teaching with online learning to help students master material and earn credits in less time. In some states, they’re testing new ways to fund college based not just on how many students enroll, but how many of them graduate, how well did they do.
So this afternoon, I’ll visit the University of Central Missouri to highlight their efforts to deliver more bang for the buck to their students. And in the coming months, I will lay out an aggressive strategy to shake up the system, tackle rising costs, and improve value for middle-class students and their families. It is critical that we make sure that college is affordable for every single American who’s willing to work for it. (Applause.)
Now, so you’ve got a good job; you get a good education -- those have always been the key stepping stones into the middle class. But a home of your own has always been the clearest expression of middle-class security. For most families, that’s your biggest asset. For most families, that’s where your life’s work has been invested. And that changed during the crisis, when we saw millions of middle-class families experience their home values plummeting. The good news is over the past four years, we’ve helped more responsible homeowners stay in their homes. And today, sales are up and prices are up, and fewer Americans see their homes underwater.
But we’re not done yet. The key now is to encourage homeownership that isn’t based on unrealistic bubbles, but instead is based on a solid foundation, where buyers and lenders play by the same set of rules, rules that are clear and transparent and fair.
So already, I’ve asked Congress to pass a really good, bipartisan idea -- one that was championed, by the way, by Mitt Romney’s economic advisor -- and this is the idea to give every homeowner the chance to refinance their mortgage while rates are still low so they can save thousands of dollars a year. (Applause.) It will be like a tax cut for families who can refinance.
I’m also acting on my own to cut red tape for responsible families who want to get a mortgage but the bank is saying no. We’ll work with both parties to turn the page on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and build a housing finance system that’s rock-solid for future generations.
So we’ve got more work to do to strengthen homeownership in this country. But along with homeownership, the fourth cornerstone of what it means to be middle class in this country is a secure retirement. (Applause.) I hear from too many people across the country, face to face or in letters that they send me, that they feel as if retirement is just receding from their grasp. It’s getting farther and farther away. They can't see it.
Now, today, a rising stock market has millions of retirement balances going up, and some of the losses that had taken place during the financial crisis have been recovered. But we still live with an upside-down system where those at the top, folks like me, get generous tax incentives to save, while tens of millions of hardworking Americans who are struggling, they get none of those breaks at all. So as we work to reform our tax code, we should find new ways to make it easier for workers to put away money, and free middle-class families from the fear that they won't be able to retire. (Applause.)
And if Congress is looking for a bipartisan place to get started, I should just say they don’t have to look far. We mentioned immigration reform before. Economists show that immigration reform makes undocumented workers pay their full share of taxes, and that actually shores up the Social Security system for years. So we should get that done. (Applause.)
Good job; good education for your kids; home of your own; secure retirement.
Fifth, I'm going to keep focusing on health care -- (applause) -- because middle-class families and small business owners deserve the security of knowing that neither an accident or an illness is going to threaten the dreams that you’ve worked a lifetime to build.
As we speak, we're well on our way to fully implementing the Affordable Care Act. (Applause.) We're going to implement it. Now, if you’re one of the 85 percent of Americans who already have health insurance either through the job or Medicare or Medicaid, you don’t have to do anything, but you do have new benefits and better protections than you did before. You may not know it, but you do. Free checkups, mammograms, discounted medicines if you're on Medicare -- that’s what the Affordable Care Act means. You're already getting a better deal. No lifetime limits.
If you don’t have health insurance, then starting on October 1st, private plans will actually compete for your business, and you'll be able to comparison-shop online. There will be a marketplace online, just like you’d buy a flat-screen TV or plane tickets or anything else you're doing online, and you'll be able to buy an insurance package that fits your budget and is right for you.
And if you're one of the up to half of all Americans who’ve been sick or have a preexisting condition -- if you look at this auditorium, about half of you probably have a preexisting condition that insurance companies could use to not give you insurance if you lost your job or lost your insurance -- well, this law means that beginning January 1st, insurance companies will finally have to cover you and charge you the same rates as everybody else, even if you have a preexisting condition. (Applause.) That’s what the Affordable Care Act does. That’s what it does. (Applause.)
Now, look, I know because I've been living it that there are folks out there who are actively working to make this law fail. And I don’t always understand exactly what their logic is here, why they think giving insurance to folks who don’t have it and making folks with insurance a little more secure, why they think that’s a bad thing. But despite the politically motivated misinformation campaign, the states that have committed themselves to making this law work are finding that competition and choice are actually pushing costs down.
So just last week, New York announced that premiums for consumers who buy their insurance in these online marketplaces will be at least 50 percent lower than what they're paying today -- 50 percent lower. (Applause.) So folks' premiums in the individual market will drop by 50 percent. And for them and for the millions of Americans who’ve been able to cover their sick kids for the first time -- like this gentlemen who just said his daughter has got health insurance -- or have been able to cover their employees more cheaply, or are able to have their kids who are younger than -- who are 25 or 26 stay on their parents' plan -- (applause) -- for all those folks, you'll have the security of knowing that everything you’ve worked hard for is no longer one illness away from being wiped out. (Applause.)
Finally, as we work to strengthen these cornerstones of middle-class security -- good job with decent wages and benefits, a good education, home of your o | 0 | train |
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'This Week' Transcript: Target Libya (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) AMANPOUR (voice-over): This week, "Target Libya." Missile strikes begin.
OBAMA: Our consensus was strong, and our resolve is clear. The people of Libya must be protected.
AMANPOUR: Another war front opens for the United States. The world unleashes all necessary measures to stop Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. His son, Saif, speaks to "This Week" in a worldwide exclusive. What next for Moammar Gadhafi, the Libyan people, for the United States military? How does it end?
Then, disaster in the Pacific. Nuclear nightmare scenario in Japan. How prepared is the United States? Could it happen here? Libya and Japan, two crises with major consequences for the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Live from the Newseum in Washington, D.C., "This Week" with Christiane Amanpour, "Target Libya," starts right now.
AMANPOUR: As we begin our broadcast, the United States is at war in a third Muslim country, Libya. We'll take you there live in just a moment. ABC's team of correspondents is covering every angle of this story. I will have an exclusive interview with Moammar Gadhafi's son and close adviser, Saif al-Islam. And I'll be joined here in the studio by Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to discuss what's being called Operation Odyssey Dawn.
But first, the latest headlines in this fast-moving story. A defiant Moammar Gadhafi is promising a long war, one day after the United States and a broad international coalition launched military strikes on his country. British and American ships and submarines fired 112 cruise missiles at more than 20 targets on the coast.
American B-2 bombers took out a Libyan airfield, all part of the largest Western military intervention in the Arab world since the start of the Iraq war. The show of force is designed to impose a no- fly zone to prevent the Libyan strongman from firing on his own people.
Sunday, Tripoli shook with the sound of explosions and anti- aircraft fire. Libyan state television reported that 48 people had been killed.
But today, in a phone call to state television, Gadhafi said Libyans stand ready to fight what he calls "crusaders." This is a fight, he says, that he will win.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
M. GADHAFI (through translator): You are not capable of a prolonged -- for a prolonged war in Libya. We consider ourselves ready for a long war. Be aware of that. We're not retreating anywhere, because this is our land. This is where we're staying. Then you're going to return defeated.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Joining me on the line from Tripoli in Libya, Saif al- Islam, Colonel Gadhafi's second son and close adviser.
Saif, thank you for joining me. Can you tell me right now, where are you? And what is happening there right now?
GADHAFI: You know, we are in Tripoli, as you know. But yesterday, we were surprised that -- you know, the Americans and the British and the French attacked Libya, attacked five cities, terrorized people, and (inaudible) children, women were so afraid yesterday, heavy bombing everywhere. So it was a big surprise that, finally, President Obama -- we thought he's a good man and friend of Arab world -- is bombing Libya.
AMANPOUR: Saif, President Obama very explicitly gave your father an ultimatum and said cease fire, stop, and this won't happen. He then had to say that the attacks continue and the United States cannot sit idly by while a leader says that there will be no mercy. Why did your father continue the attacks in Benghazi? Why didn't he have a cease fire?
GADHAFI: First of all, our people went to Benghazi to liberate Benghazi from the gangsters and the armed militia. So if you -- if the Americans want to -- want to help the Libyan people in Benghazi, so go to Benghazi and liberate Benghazi from the militia and the terrorists. So do it.
AMANPOUR: My question, though, is, there is now missile strikes and an air attack against Libya. Will Colonel Gadhafi step down? Will he step aside?
GADHAFI: Step aside why? I mean, to step -- again, there's a big misunderstanding. The whole country is united against the armed militia and the terrorists. You asked -- simply, the Americans and other Western countries, you are supporting the terrorists and the armed militia. That's it.
AMANPOUR: Saif, will there be Libyan retaliation against, let's say, commercial flights around the Mediterranean or other targets?
GADHAFI: No, this is not our target. Our target is how to help our people in Libya, especially in Benghazi. Believe me, they are living a nightmare, a nightmare, really, a nightmare. They have no freedom, nothing under the rule of the armed militia.
So we urge the Americans either to go there themselves and help our people there or let the Libyan people help their brothers in Benghazi. But believe me, one day, you wake up and you will find out that you were supporting the wrong people. And you are being a big mistake with supporting those people. It's like the WMD in Iraq. It's another story.
AMANPOUR: Saif al-Islam, thank you very much, indeed, for joining us from Tripoli.
GADHAFI: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: So that's the view from the Gadhafis in Tripoli. Let's go to eastern Libya, the rebel stronghold where ABC's Alexander Marquardt joins us live.
So what is the mood there where you are?
MARQUARDT: Good morning, Christiane. We are in Tubruq, in eastern Libya, where an opposition spokesman told us this morning that morale is sky high. They've been pleading for military intervention for weeks. They now feel that there's a level playing field, that the rebels will be able to push the Gadhafi forces out of the east, away from cities like Ajdabiya and Benghazi that have seen heavy fighting over the last few days. Eventually, they want to make their way to Tripoli, where they plan to oust Gadhafi.
We spoke with people on the streets. They're understandably very happy, thanking the coalition for what they've done, specifically France and the U.K., for introducing the resolution at the U.N. They believe that this intervention will lead to victory and eventually to a free Libya.
But with this change in tide comes a period of insurgency. The opposition spokesman said that this is the scary part, because of how illogical Gadhafi is and because of -- because of what he calls his thirst for blood.
Christiane?
AMANPOUR: Alex, thanks.
And now let's go to the capital Tripoli, again. That could soon be ground zero in this conflict. Moammar Gadhafi is there, and so is the BBC's Allan Little, who joins us now live.
So, Allan, you heard from the Gadhafis. You heard the mood in Benghazi. What do you think is the next move in Tripoli? And how are they portraying it there?
LITTLE: Well, fighting talk from Colonel Gadhafi, as from his son, Saif, largely for domestic consumption. It's not hard to go around the city and find people willing to echo those sentiments, diehard devotees of Colonel Gadhafi saying that -- people saying they're willing to die along with him if it comes to that.
There's no doubting the sincerity of those people, I think, and the passion with which they speak. Their devotion then seems to get more intense the more isolated he becomes from the world. The question is, how representative is that voice? No other voice can make itself heard here in the prevailing atmosphere in which patriotism for Libya is fused with devotion to the person of Gadhafi himself.
What are those hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people who do not take part in those demonstrations of devotion, really feel and think in the silence of their own heads? What is the real sentiment of Tripoli? That is simply impossible in this atmosphere to gauge.
AMANPOUR: Allan, thank you so much.
And, of course, the leaders of Britain, France, and President Obama is keeping a close tab on the unfolding situation. ABC's Jake Tapper is live at the White House.
And, Jake, what from the White House is the end game here? What's the perspective from there?
TAPPER: Good morning, Christiane. President Obama is in Brazil. But you talked on a very, very difficult question for the White House, because it's been the position of President Obama that there should be regime change in Libya, since March 3rd, when Obama said that Gadhafi has to go.
But that is not the goal of this military operation. The goal of this military operation officially is to impose a no-fly zone and to protect civilians. Gadhafi stepping down is not part of it.
So what I would expect is that you will see more efforts internationally to arm the Libyan rebels so that they will take into their own hands the goal of toppling Gadhafi. But that is not officially the goal of this military operation, so it's a delicate dance for President Obama as he attempts to make this military operation even more international than previous U.S. military operations.
As you know, as we've talked about, there's been a huge effort by the White House to make this seem as though the United States is not playing a leading role, even though, of course, we have 11 ships in the Mediterranean, five of which were firing Tomahawk missiles. There, of course, are other nations participating in the military operation, France, the U.K., and others coming in the coming days, but right now, the U.S. is taking a major leadership role, although the Obama administration wants to make this seem as though it is the world against Gadhafi, not Obama and the U.S. against Gadhafi, Christiane.
AMANPOUR: Jake, just very quickly, do you think the U.S. will arm the rebels?
TAPPER: I think it's a distinct possibility that the U.S. will be part of an international effort to do so. I would doubt very much that the U.S. would do so on its own.
AMANPOUR: Jake, all right.
And let's go now to Martha Raddatz. The U.S. is pledging, as Jake said, to step back to a support role after the initial phase. Martha, you're there. You're covering the military. Is that happening? Do you think it's realistic to go into a support role? It's obviously very unusual in these kinds of military interventions. RADDATZ: It's certainly unusual for the U.S. And right now, a U.S. general is in charge of the operation, General Carter Ham. And you have an admiral, Admiral Scott -- or Sam Locklear, who is on a ship. And he is the tactical commander, meaning he is coordinating all of these air strikes.
But in a few days, the hope is, the U.S. hopes that General Carter Ham can turn over his responsibility to one of the coalition members. That is the plan right now. I don't think they know who that will be.
But in this initial phase, the U.S. does have unique capabilities, as the president keeps saying. You had stealth bombers going in there. You had the B-2 bombers going in there. You had these Tomahawk missiles on the ships. So the U.S. felt it had to take the lead role in this phase.
And this phase is, of course, to wipe out Gadhafi's air defenses. The next phase will be the no-fly zone. I do think the U.S. will be involved in that somewhat and will have fighters involved in that, but the bulk of the no-fly zone will be flown by British pilots, French pilots, and other allies.
AMANPOUR: Martha, thank you so much.
And joining me next, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And we'll put that to him. I'll ask him how the missions will work, when it will end, and whether it can succeed at all if Moammar Gadhafi remains in power.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: Welcome back.
Though his son sounded subdued, Moammar Gadhafi himself was sounding undaunted this morning. He says his supporters are armed and prepared to fight, and he's pledging that this will be, quote, "a long war."
Joining me now, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen.
Thank you for joining us.
MULLEN: Good morning.
AMANPOUR: Is the United States leading this? Or is it in a supporting role?
MULLEN: Well, actually, the French were the first ones in yesterday, in terms of starting to establish the no-fly zone. The United States is taking the lead in terms of the coalition. General Carter Ham, U.S. commander of U.S. AFRICOM, is actually the commander right now. And we look to, in the next few days, transition that to a coalition leadership.
AMANPOUR: So the U.S. will pull back?
MULLEN: The U.S. will essentially take a supporting role, providing unique capabilities, certainly in terms of things like jamming, things like...
AMANPOUR: But not bombing and flying over?
MULLEN: No -- well, certainly, the -- we'll be in transition. I mean, effectively, Christiane, what's happened in the last 24 hours is the no-fly zone has been put -- has essentially started to have its effects. We've got aircraft over Benghazi right now. We have that for 24/7. He hasn't flown any aircraft in the last two days. So the initial part of the operation and the idea of getting a no-fly zone in place is...
AMANPOUR: Is successful?
MULLEN: Well, it has been successful so far.
AMANPOUR: So will it be a long war, as Colonel Gadhafi pledges?
MULLEN: Well, we're very focused on the limited objectives that the president has given us and actually the international coalition has given us, in terms of providing the no-fly zone so that he cannot attack his own people, to avoid any kind of humanitarian massacre, if you will, and to provide for the humanitarian corridors, humanitarian support of the Libyan people.
AMANPOUR: So you say a limited objective, but we've heard from the president, we've heard from the secretary of state, Gadhafi has to go. Is that the military objective?
MULLEN: Well, the military objective is -- is as I just described it, in terms of -- the mission is very clear right now. It's to focus on getting this no-fly zone in place and to support the U.N. objectives of no humanitarian crisis and humanitarian support, protecting Libyan civilians.
AMANPOUR: So it's possible that we could have, like Iraq, a 12- year no-fly zone with the strongman still in place?
MULLEN: Well, again, I think circumstances will drive where this goes in the future. I wouldn't speculate in terms of length at this particular point in time. It's had a pretty significant effect very early in terms of our ability to address his forces -- to attack his forces on the ground, which we did yesterday outside Benghazi, and get the no-fly zone stood up.
AMANPOUR: What about other countries, such as Bahrain, such as Yemen? If the United States military is attacking to protect civilians in Libya, why not in Bahrain and Yemen?
MULLEN: Well, I think, first of all, just back to Libya, a very important part of this has been the Arab League vote to establish a no-fly zone and the -- the partners -- the coalition partners that are coming into play with respect to Libya.
AMANPOUR: Correct. But what's the logic?
MULLEN: In terms of...
AMANPOUR: Of other people being -- civilians being killed in other countries where the U.S. has an interest?
MULLEN: Well, I think -- I think we have to -- to be very careful to treat every country differently. Certainly, there's a tremendous change going on right now throughout the Middle East, including in Bahrain. And Bahrain is a much different -- in a much different situation than Libya.
We haven't had a relationship with Libya for a long, long time. The Bahrainis and that country has been a critical ally for decades. So we're working very hard to support a peaceful resolution there, as tragic as it has been, and we certainly decry the violence which has occurred in Bahrain. I just think the approach there needs to be different. AMANPOUR: Do you think the Libyans have the wherewithal to retaliate against the United States or its allies in the region or here?
MULLEN: I don't think -- from a military standpoint, certainly, they have some capability. And -- and yet, at least if I were to take the first 24 hours or so, they've -- they've not been a very effective force.
Part of what you do when you go into this is you assume they have a fairly significant capability or the capability they have is good until proven otherwise. We've taken out their air defense. We've actually stopped -- attacked -- we've attacked some of their forces on the ground in the vicinity of Benghazi. And yesterday they were on the march to Benghazi. They were lobbing rockets and mortars in Benghazi...
AMANPOUR: So Benghazi is safe?
MULLEN: Well, Benghazi -- they're no longer marching there. I wouldn't describe Benghazi as safe at this particular point in time.
AMANPOUR: But even though you say you have to assume that they have some kind of capability, realistically, do you think Gadhafi can attack civilian aircraft targets and will do?
MULLEN: Well, he still has -- from what I've seen this morning, he still has some surface-to-air capability, where he could attack an aircraft, including one of ours. We haven't seen large-scale indications of that after the action yesterday. He clearly has the ability to continue to attack his own people, and then we're very focused on that, and -- and trying to ensure that his military forces don't do that.
AMANPOUR: Mustard gas stockpiles, is that a problem?
MULLEN: Very closely monitored, and I haven't seen it as a problem thus far.
AMANPOUR: Admiral Mullen, thank you very much, indeed, for joining us.
MULLEN: Thank you, Christiane.
AMANPOUR: And we're covering the unfolding events in Libya from all angles this morning. Up next, I'll speak with a leader of the opposition movement who until recently worked for Gadhafi himself. He joins me with unique insight into the Libyan strongman.
And later, will a new war abroad bring a new threat here in the United States? Could Gadhafi retaliate on American soil? I'll put that question to the former homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
H. CLINTON: The world will not sit idly by while more innocent civilians are killed. We are standing with the people of Libya, and we will not waver in our efforts to protect them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So, as you heard his son, Saif, tell us, Moammar Gadhafi remains in Tripoli, presumably hunkered down. His Tripoli compound is reportedly filled with hundreds of supporters, including women and children. Could they make up a human shield, a possible last line of defense for the embattled leader?
Until just weeks ago, Ali Suleiman Aujali was Gadhafi's voice in the United States, the Libyan ambassador to this country. But Aujali has turned against Gadhafi and is now a leading voice of the opposition. He joins me here at the Newseum in Washington.
And from New York, a man whose country led the call for air strikes we're seeing right now, France's ambassador to the United Nations, Gerard Araud.
Gentlemen, welcome, both, to this program.
AUJALI: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: Let me ask you first, former Ambassador Aujali, what is in the mind of Gadhafi right now? This is a man you know, you served. Under this threat, will he fold?
AUJALI: I think there is one thing in the mind of Gadhafi, that he will not step down at all. He will fight until the end.
AMANPOUR: So everything that his son is telling us, that he's telling us is not just bravado?
AUJALI: Yeah.
AMANPOUR: He will fight?
AUJALI: He will fight. He will fight. He has no other choice. He has no shelter to go. And this is his -- his attitude. He will never give up. ARAUD: Yes.
AMANPOUR: So how will this end?
AUJALI: Well, the end -- now I think there is a good chance after the air strikes, after the revolutionaries being protected by -- from the Gadhafi hitting, I think now they'll start marching to the -- to the east. And we have to -- we have to break the siege against Tripoli. If Tripoli...
AMANPOUR: So you're hoping that the rebels will keep marching on to the capital...
AUJALI: Of course. Of course. Of course.
AMANPOUR: ... and take on Gadhafi himself?
AUJALI: Of course. Yeah, we have to open the road, you know, to Gadhafi's -- where he's staying.
AMANPOUR: Let me ask you, Ambassador Araud. This is pretty much an extraordinary situation. There is a military intervention, and France is the country that has led it and that has really brought the United States to this situation. You're listening to the ambassador here, Aujali. Why is it that France took that decision?
ARAUD: Well, I think it was, first, I guess, a moral and human reaction. It was impossible to consider a victory of Gadhafi and Gadhafi taking Benghazi. He was himself saying what will happen. He was saying that they -- they will search house by house. He was referring to rivers of blood. It was simply totally impossible to -- to accept it.
You have also to consider that, for us, Libya, the Maghreb, it's a bit like you, Central America and Cuba. In human and geographic terms, it's very close to -- to my country.
AMANPOUR: Well, then let me ask you, though. Now, then, are you on the side of the rebels? Is this the -- you know, making the rebels win, is that the aim of this current military operation?
ARAUD: We -- we do consider France as recognized -- the committee of Benghazi as the representative of the Libyan people. We simply want the Libyan people able to express their -- their will.
AMANPOUR: Well, let me ask you, Mr. Aujali. You've heard Admiral Mullen clearly said the mission is to protect the citizens of Benghazi and -- and Libya and to open up humanitarian ability for them, not to take out Gadhafi, not to support the opposition. What do you understand by this resolution?
AUJALI: I understand the mission is to protect the Libyan civilians, not only Benghazi. Protection of the Libyan civilian only achieved by one goal, that Gadhafi is not there, not only by stop his airplanes striking the people. The dangers is Gadhafi himself.
AMANPOUR: So you understand, this military action is aimed to get rid of Gadhafi?
AUJALI: Of course. If this is not the mission, then they would just hit some airplane -- shot the airplanes down and then leave was this madman, killing his people without mercy. This is...
AMANPOUR: Well, let me ask you, Ambassador Araud. Is that the aim? Is that what the United States, France, and Britain have signed up to, to get rid of Colonel Gadhafi?
ARAUD: We want the Libyan people to be able to express their will, I've said, which -- and we consider that it means that Gadhafi has to go.
AMANPOUR: Are you concerned -- are you concerned that there will be retaliation? You've taken on this -- this military intervention. He has threatened retaliation against France, Britain, the United States, or at least their interests. Are you worried?
ARAUD: You know, when you enter a military intervention, it's never risk-free. So we have to be careful and to consider all the dangers. But, also, we know that Gadhafi is prone to empty rhetoric.
AMANPOUR: All right. Let me ask you one final question, Ambassador Aujali. This is designed to divide and conquer, to get Gadhafi's people away from him. You defected. Do you think that others around him will defect?
AUJALI: Believe me, the people who are around him, especially the ministers, if they have a chance to defect, they will do it now, now, now. But he kept them -- he's keeping them in the Bab al-Azizia. They have no place to go...
AMANPOUR: In his compound?
AUJALI: In his compound. Then he's using them as a -- as a human shelter, also. But if they have a chance, they will defect. For example, I give you example, if you have some time. Then -- I have a friend of mine who was appointed the ambassador to Geneva. He's a young man, first time he's been appointed the head of mission. And when he left Tripoli with his credential, he just resigned.
AMANPOUR: All right. Well, we'll see what happens, whether the people around Gadhafi turn against him. Ambassador Araud in New York, thank you for joining us.
Ambassador Aujali, thank you for joining us.
And when we return, the big question: How -- now that the U.S. has struck at Libya, will Libya strike back? I'll discuss that with a high-powered roundtable that includes the former chair of the House Intelligence Committee and an architect of the war in Iraq.
And later, we turn to the week's other major story, danger and devastation in Japan, as that country struggles to avert a full-scale nuclear meltdown. I'll ask former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson and former Homeland Secretary Chief Michael Chertoff whether America is prepared to manage such a catastrophe.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: Actions have consequences, and the writ of the international community must be enforced. Today we are part of a broad coalition, we are answering the calls of a threatened people, and we are acting in the interests of the United States and the world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: President Obama right there -- excuse me -- explaining why American missiles and allied air strikes are now raining down on Libya, emphasizing that this is a broad international effort. As noteworthy as what the president said yesterday is what he left out, namely, his recent declaration that Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi must go.
This is a momentous time in America's relations with the Arab world. And joining he today to discuss its far-reaching implications, ABC's George Will, former Congresswoman Jane Harman, who chaired the House Intelligence Committee, Paul Wolfowitz, former deputy secretary of defense under George W. Bush and a mastermind of the war in Iraq, and Robin Wright of the U.S. Institute of Peace, author of "Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion Across the Islamic World."
Thank you all for joining me. And let me ask you first, George, do you think that this was the right thing to do?
WILL: I do not. We have intervened in a tribal society in a civil war. And we have taken sides in that civil war on behalf of people we do not know or understand for the purpose -- not avowed, but inexorably our purpose -- of creating a political vacuum by decapitating that government. Into that vacuum, what will flow? We do not know and cannot know.
AMANPOUR: Paul Wolfowitz, you disagree with George?
WOLFOWITZ: I do. I think that what we have prevented, for one thing, is a bloodbath in Benghazi, which would have stained our reputation throughout the Arab world, at a time when our reputation really matters. And I understand George's hesitations, but it would seem to me, if you follow those hesitations, you say, it's better to keep this devil that we know than the unknown, and I don't see how any unknown could be worse than the devil who is in Tripoli right now. AMANPOUR: Except wouldn't you say the hesitation -- you can trace it right back to your operation in Iraq, that, you know, it caused such a pendulum swing against trying to intervene because of the chaos that was unleashed.
WOLFOWITZ: We have paid the price of intervention. Sometimes we've paid the price of nonintervention, in Bosnia, for example. One of the things that makes the situation so unique is the monstrous quality of the Tripoli regime, the monstrous quality of Gadhafi and his sons. And I know, you know, people say, well, what about Bahrain? What about Yemen? This is a totally different case, where a man is actually slaughtering his own people, has no regard for his own people. He uses mercenaries to kill them. It is a unique case, and it's being watched throughout the Arab world.
AMANPOUR: Well, let me ask you, former congresswoman. You sat on the Intelligence Committee. You -- I mean, this question about why Libya and not Bahrain or -- or Yemen, American allies, is that a valid distinction to make?
HARMAN: I think it is. First, let me salute the life and service of Warren Christopher, a dear friend from California, who died yesterday and say how honored I am now to be president and CEO of the Woodrow Wilson Center, succeeding Lee Hamilton, and working with scholars like Robin and Aaron David Miller and others.
I think we have to see this in a broader context. I just watched your Mike Mullen interview, where he said we -- we view each of these countries individually. We need a strategic narrative.
And as I look at this, from my experience being in Congress when we did nothing in Rwanda, which Bill Clinton said was his biggest mistake, when we intervened in -- in Bosnia, did a no-fly zone, which didn't prevent the -- the massacre at Srebrenica, when we -- when Congress acted in Afghanistan, the authorization to use military force is still in effect, and then we took our eye off the ball, when we went into Iraq, I voted for that, because I believed the intelligence, which turned out to be wrong, I see lessons to be learned, and I'm not sure we're learning all the lessons.
As I look at it, the biggest threats to the United States, to our homeland security, are Yemen and some of the Al Qaida and other terror cells in Pakistan. Going into Libya has a moral objective, and I strongly agree with that. And I also think that Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice, who were strong proponents of what we're doing here, are great public servants.
But we have to understand that just a no-fly zone here may not cause regime change. And if we have a cornered Moammar Gadhafi -- who is not a rational actor -- and he uses mustard gas against his people, how have we...
AMANPOUR: Well, actually -- Admiral Mullen...
HARMAN: ... how have we prevented that?
AMANPOUR: Admiral Mullen said that there wasn't a huge amount of threat there.
HARMAN: There are two tons of liquefied mustard gas in Libya.
AMANPOUR: Yeah, but he said he hasn't seen any movement of that.
HARMAN: Not yet. We've only been there for 24 hours.
AMANPOUR: Do you think it's a threat?
HARMAN: I worry about that. I mean, we can't take out mustard gas by air. If we blow it up, we disperse it. And I worry about a guy who's going to fight to the end -- and that's what we just heard from the former ambassador -- and is not a rational actor, doing things like that, putting human shields around all the obvious targets, including his own -- his own living quarters, and taking Westerners as hostages and possibly engaging in terror acts and going down with as much bloodshed as possible.
AMANPOUR: Well, let me ask you. You've interviewed him; I've interviewed him. A lot of people have. Is he the crazy man that Representative Harman talks about? Or is he going to either fold or be turned on by his own people?
WRIGHT: He could prolong this for a very long time. This is not a man who plays by international rules, nor is he a man who thinks like even many of his counterparts in the Arab world, and that's why I think you've seen a great deal of unity in the Arab world against him. This is someone that everyone in Africa, in the Arab world...
AMANPOUR: Which is really unusual, to have such a big Arab coalition against a fellow Arab leader.
WRIGHT: And we haven't had one like this since the Iraq war back in 1990-1991. And that's what's, in fact, given the international community the legs. Without that, we probably would not be engaged.
But this is a very different kind of war. This is a country that's the size of Alaska with a population smaller than New York City. And so when we talk about the -- the kind of scenarios down the road, this is -- you know, most of the cities are along the coastal strip -- that it may not be as complicated as a place like Iraq was. This is -- you know, there are obvious targets and obvious sequence of places that either side will go. But there is mission gap between saying we want regime change and we're in there militarily for humanitarian. And that's where the problem is.
AMANPOUR: Should it be regime change?
WOLFOWITZ: Look, I think one of the most important pieces that's missing here is our connection with this transitional national council in Benghazi. They are -- they have representatives from all over the country. They seem to be setting up rules that are respectable rules.
AMANPOUR: Really? Are you convinced about that? Who are they?
WOLFOWITZ: Well, I'm not convinced. Well, I think we should have people in there so we really know better who they are. And we ought to be thinking of them as a leading edge here. I think it's been right to get an international coalition out in front and not make this all American, but most of all, it's a Libyan fight. What's been amazing over the last month is how brave the Libyan people have been. And I think -- across the whole country. this is not just a tribal thing in the east.
AMANPOUR: But -- but when it comes, then, to lessons learned, what happens then with a Bahrain or a Yemen? I mean, isn't this a double standard?
WOLFOWITZ: Look, excuse me: Libya is a separate case all by itself. You c | 0 | train |
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Transcript of Wednesday's presidential debate The following is a transcript of Wednesday night's presidential debate in Denver.
21:01:40: JIM LEHRER: Good evening from the Magness Arena at the University of Denver in Denver, Colorado. I'm Jim Lehrer of the "PBS NewsHour," and I welcome you to the first of the 2012 presidential debates between President Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee.
This debate and the next three -- two presidential, one vice presidential -- are sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates. Tonight's 90 minutes will be about domestic issues and will follow a format designed by the commission. There will be six roughly 15-minute segments with two-minute answers for the first question, then open discussion for the remainder of each segment.
Thousands of people offered suggestions on segment subjects or questions via the Internet and other means, but I made the final selections. And for the record, they were not submitted for approval to the commission or the candidates.
The segments as I announced in advance will be three on the economy and one each on health care, the role of government and governing, with an emphasis throughout on differences, specifics and choices. Both candidates will also have two-minute closing statements.
The audience here in the hall has promised to remain silent -- no cheers, applause, boos, hisses, among other noisy distracting things, so we may all concentrate on what the candidates have to say. There is a noise exception right now, though, as we welcome President Obama and Governor Romney.
(APPLAUSE)
Gentlemen, welcome to you both. Let's start the economy, segment one, and let's begin with jobs. What are the major differences between the two of you about how you would go about creating new jobs?
You have two minutes. Each of you have two minutes to start. A coin toss has determined, Mr. President, you go first.
21:04:24: PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Well, thank you very much, Jim, for this opportunity. I want to thank Governor Romney and the University of Denver for your hospitality.
There are a lot of points I want to make tonight, but the most important one is that 20 years ago I became the luckiest man on Earth because Michelle Obama agreed to marry me.
And so I just want to wish, Sweetie, you happy anniversary and let you know that a year from now we will not be celebrating it in front of 40 million people.
(LAUGHTER)
You know, four years ago we went through the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Millions of jobs were lost, the auto industry was on the brink of collapse. The financial system had frozen up.
And because of the resilience and the determination of the American people, we've begun to fight our way back. Over the last 30 months, we've seen 5 million jobs in the private sector created. The auto industry has come roaring back. And housing has begun to rise.
But we all know that we've still got a lot of work to do. And so the question here tonight is not where we've been, but where we're going.
Governor Romney has a perspective that says if we cut taxes, skewed towards the wealthy, and roll back regulations, that we'll be better off. I've got a different view.
I think we've got to invest in education and training. I think it's important for us to develop new sources of energy here in America, that we change our tax code to make sure that we're helping small businesses and companies that are investing here in the United States, that we take some of the money that we're saving as we wind down two wars to rebuild America and that we reduce our deficit in a balanced way that allows us to make these critical investments.
Now, it ultimately is going to be up to the voters -- to you -- which path we should take. Are we going to double on top-down economic policies that helped to get us into this mess or do we embrace a new economic patriotism that says America does best when the middle class does best? And I'm looking forward to having that debate.
21: 06:31: LEHRER: Governor Romney, two minutes.
21:06:32: FORMER GOV. MITT ROMNEY: Thank you, Jim. It's an honor to be here with you, and I appreciate the chance to be with the president. I'm pleased to be at the University of Denver, appreciate their welcome, and also the Presidential Commission on these debates.
And congratulations to you, Mr. President, on your anniversary. I'm sure this was the most romantic place you could imagine, here -- here with me. So I...
(LAUGHTER)
Congratulations.
This is obviously a very tender topic. I've had the occasion over the last couple of years of meeting people across the country. I was in Dayton, Ohio, and a woman grabbed my arm and she said, "I've been out of work since May. Can you help me?"
Ann yesterday was at a rally in Denver and a woman came up to her with a baby in her arms and said, "Ann, my husband has had four jobs in three years, part-time jobs. He's lost his most recent job and we've now just lost our home. Can you help us?"
And the answer is, yes, we can help, but it's going to take a different path. Not the one we've been on, not the one the president describes as a top-down, cut taxes for the rich. That's not what I'm going to do.
My plan has five basic parts. One, get us energy independent, North American energy independent. That creates about 4 million jobs.
Number two, open up more trade, particularly in Latin America. Crack down on China, if and when they cheat.
Number three, make sure our people have the skills they need to succeed and the best schools in the world. We're far away from that now.
Number four, get to us a balanced budget.
Number five, champion small business. It's small business that creates the jobs in America, and over the last four years, small business people have decided that America may not be the place to open a new business because new business startups are down to a 30-year low.
Now, I'm concerned that the path that we're on has just been unsuccessful. The president has a view very similar to the view he had when he ran four years, that a bigger government, spending more, taxing more, regulating more -- if you will, trickle-down government -- would work.
That's not the right answer for America. I'll restore the vitality that gets America working again. Thank you.
21:08:40: LEHRER: Mr. President, please respond directly to what the governor just said about trickle-down -- his trick-down approach, as he said yours is.
21:08:50: OBAMA: Well, let me talk specifically about what I think we need to do. First, we've got to improve our education system and we've made enormous progress drawing on ideas both from Democrats and Republicans that are already starting to show gains in some of the toughest to deal with schools. We've got a program called Race to the Top that has prompted reforms in 46 states around the country, raising standards, improving how we train teachers.
So now I want to hire another 100,000 new math and science teachers, and create 2 million more slots in our community colleges so that people can get trained for the jobs that are out there right now. And I want to make sure that we keep tuition low for our young people.
When it comes to our tax code, Governor Romney and I both agree that our corporate tax rate is too high, so I want to lower it, particularly for manufacturing, taking it down to 25 percent. But I also want to close those loopholes that are giving incentives for companies that are shipping jobs overseas. I want to provide tax breaks for companies that are investing here in the United States.
On energy, Governor Romney and I, we both agree that we've got to boost American energy production, and oil and natural gas production are higher than they've been in years. But I also believe that we've got to look at the energy sources of the future, like wind and solar and biofuels, and make those investments.
So all of this is possible. Now, in order for us to do it, we do have to close our deficit, and one of the things I'm sure we'll be discussing tonight is, how do we deal with our tax code? And how do we make sure that we are reducing spending in a responsible way, but also, how do we have enough revenue to make those investments?
And this is where there's a difference, because Governor Romney's central economic plan calls for a $5 trillion tax cut -- on top of the extension of the Bush tax cuts -- that's another trillion dollars -- and $2 trillion in additional military spending that the military hasn't asked for. That's $8 trillion. How we pay for that, reduce the deficit, and make the investments that we need to make, without dumping those costs onto middle-class Americans, I think is one of the central questions of this campaign.
21:11:03: LEHRER: Both of you have spoken about a lot of different things, and we're going to try to get through them in as specific a way as we possibly can.
But, first, Governor Romney, do you have a question that you'd like to ask the president directly about something he just said?
21:11:03: ROMNEY: Well, sure. I'd like to clear up the record and go through it piece by piece.
First of all, I don't have a $5 trillion tax cut. I don't have a tax cut of a scale that you're talking about. My view is that we ought to provide tax relief to people in the middle class. But I'm not going to reduce the share of taxes paid by high-income people. High-income people are doing just fine in this economy. They'll do fine whether you're president or I am.
The people who are having the hard time right now are middle- income Americans. Under the president's policies, middle-income Americans have been buried. They're just being crushed. Middle- income Americans have seen their income come down by $4,300. This is a -- this is a tax in and of itself. I'll call it the economy tax. It's been crushing.
At the same time, gasoline prices have doubled under the president. Electric rates are up. Food prices are up. Health care costs have gone up by $2,500 a family. Middle-income families are being crushed.
And so the question is how to get them going again. And I've described it. It's energy and trade, the right kind of training programs, balancing our budget and helping small business. Those are the -- the cornerstones of my plan.
But the president mentioned a couple of other ideas I'll just note. First, education. I agree: Education is key, particularly the future of our economy. But our training programs right now, we've got 47 of them, housed in the federal government, reporting to eight different agencies. Overhead is overwhelming. We've got to get those dollars back to the states and go to the workers so they can create their own pathways to get in the training they need for jobs that will really help them.
The second area, taxation, we agree, we ought to bring the tax rates down. And I do, both for corporations and for individuals. But in order for us not to lose revenue, have the government run out of money, I also lower deductions and credits and exemptions, so that we keep taking in the same money when you also account for growth.
The third area, energy. Energy is critical, and the president pointed out correctly that production of oil and gas in the U.S. is up. But not due to his policies. In spite of his policies.
Mr. President, all of the increase in natural gas and oil has happened on private land, not on government land. On government land, your administration has cut the number of permits and licenses in half. If I'm president, I'll double them, and also get the -- the oil from offshore and Alaska. And I'll bring that pipeline in from Canada.
And, by the way, I like coal. I'm going to make sure we can continue to burn clean coal. People in the coal industry feel like it's getting crushed by your policies. I want to get America and North America energy independent so we can create those jobs.
And finally, with regards to that tax cut, look, I'm not looking to cut massive taxes and to reduce the -- the revenues going to the government. My -- my number-one principal is, there will be no tax cut that adds to the deficit. I want to underline that: no tax cut that adds to the deficit.
But I do want to reduce the burden being paid by middle-income Americans. And I -- and to do that, that also means I cannot reduce the burden paid by high-income Americans. So any -- any language to the contrary is simply not accurate. LEHRER: Mr. President?
21:14:22: OBAMA: Well, I think -- let's talk about taxes, because I think it's instructive. Now, four years ago, when I stood on this stage, I said that I would cut taxes for middle-class families. And that's exactly what I did. We cut taxes for middle-class families by about $3,600.
And the reason is, because I believe that we do best when the middle class is doing well. And by giving them those tax cuts, they had a little more money in their pocket, and so maybe they can buy a new car. They are certainly in a better position to weather the extraordinary recession that we went through. They can buy a computer for their kid who's going off to college, which means they're spending more money, businesses have more customers, businesses make more profits, and then hire more workers.
Now, Governor Romney's proposal that he has been promoting for 18 months calls for a $5 trillion tax cut, on top of $2 trillion of additional spending for our military. And he is saying that he is going to pay for it by closing loopholes and deductions. The problem is that he's been asked over 100 times how you would close those deductions and loopholes, and he hasn't been able to identify them.
But I'm going to make an important point here, Jim.
21:16:34: LEHRER: All right.
21:16:36: OBAMA: When you add up all the loopholes and deductions that upper-income individuals can -- are currently taking advantage of, you take those all away, you don't come close to paying for $5 trillion in tax cuts and $2 trillion in additional military spending.
OBAMA: And that's why independent studies looking at this said the only way to meet Governor Romney's pledge of not reducing the deficit or -- or -- or not adding to the deficit is by burdening middle-class families. The average middle-class family with children would pay about $2,000 more.
Now, that's not my analysis. That's the analysis of economists who have looked at this. And -- and that kind of top -- top-down economics, where folks at the top are doing well, so the average person making $3 million is getting a $250,000 tax break, while middle-class families are burdened further, that's not what I believe is a recipe for economic growth.
21:16:37: LEHRER: All right. What is the difference? Let's just stay on taxes.
(CROSSTALK)
LEHRER: Just -- let's just stay on taxes for (inaudible).
(CROSSTALK)
LEHRER: What is the difference...
21:16:42: ROMNEY: Well, but -- but virtually -- virtually everything he just said about my tax plan is inaccurate.
21:16:43: LEHRER: All right.
21:16:44: ROMNEY: So if the tax plan he described were a tax plan I was asked to support, I'd say absolutely not. I'm not looking for a $5 trillion tax cut. What I've said is I won't put in place a tax cut that adds to the deficit. That's part one. So there's no economist that can say Mitt Romney's tax plan adds $5 trillion if I say I will not add to the deficit with my tax plan.
Number two, I will not reduce the share paid by high-income individuals. I know that you and your running mate keep saying that and I know it's a popular thing to say with a lot of people, but it's just not the case. Look, I've got five boys. I'm used to people saying something that's not always true, but just keep on repeating it and ultimately hoping I'll believe it. But that -- that is not the case. All right? I will not reduce the taxes paid by high-income Americans.
And number three, I will not under any circumstances raise taxes on middle-income families. I will lower taxes on middle-income families. Now, you cite a study. There are six other studies that looked at the study you describe and say it's completely wrong. I saw a study that came out today that said you're going to raise taxes by $3,000 to $4,000 on middle-income families.
There are all these studies out there. But let's get at the bottom line. That is, I want to bring down rates. I want to bring the rates down, at the same time lower deductions and exemptions and credits and so forth, so we keep getting the revenue we need. And you'd think, well, then why lower the rates.
And the reason is because small business pays that individual rate; 54 percent of America's workers work in businesses that are taxed not at the corporate tax rate, but at the individual tax rate. And if we lower that rate, they will be able to hire more people. For me, this is about jobs. This is about getting jobs for the American people.
(CROSSTALK)
21:18:30: LEHRER: That's where we started. Yeah.
Do you challenge what the governor just said about his own plan?
21:18:34: OBAMA: Well, for 18 months he's been running on this tax plan. And now, five weeks before the election, he's saying that his big, bold idea is, "Never mind."
And the fact is that if you are lowering the rates the way you described, Governor, then it is not possible to come up with enough deductions and loopholes that only affect high-income individuals to avoid either raising the deficit or burdening the middle class. It's -- it's math. It's arithmetic.
Now, Governor Romney and I do share a deep interest in encouraging small-business growth. So at the same time that my tax plan has already lowered taxes for 98 percent of families, I also lowered taxes for small businesses 18 times. And what I want to do is continue the tax rates -- the tax cuts that we put into place for small businesses and families.
But I have said that for incomes over $250,000 a year, that we should go back to the rates that we had when Bill Clinton was president, when we created 23 million new jobs, went from deficit to surplus, and created a whole lot of millionaires to boot.
And the reason this is important is because by doing that, we cannot only reduce the deficit, we cannot only encourage job growth through small businesses, but we're also able to make the investments that are necessary in education or in energy.
And we do have a difference, though, when it comes to definitions of small business. Under -- under my plan, 97 percent of small businesses would not see their income taxes go up. Governor Romney says, well, those top 3 percent, they're the job creators, they'd be burdened.
But under Governor Romney's definition, there are a whole bunch of millionaires and billionaires who are small businesses. Donald Trump is a small business. Now, I know Donald Trump doesn't like to think of himself as small anything, but -- but that's how you define small businesses if you're getting business income.
And that kind of approach, I believe, will not grow our economy, because the only way to pay for it without either burdening the middle class or blowing up our deficit is to make drastic cuts in things like education, making sure that we are continuing to invest in basic science and research, all the things that are helping America grow. And I think that would be a mistake.
21:21:01: LEHRER: All right.
21:21:03: ROMNEY: Jim, let me just come back on that -- on that point, which is these...
21:21:04: LEHRER: Just for the -- just for record...
(CROSSTALK)
21:21:07: ROMNEY: ... the small businesses we're talking about...
21:21:09: LEHRER: Excuse me. Excuse me. Just so everybody understands, we're way over our first 15 minutes.
21:21:10: ROMNEY: It's fun, isn't it?
21:21:11: LEHRER: It's OK, it's great. No problem. Well, you all don't have -- you don't have a problem, I don't have a problem, because we're still on the economy. We're going to come back to taxes. I want move on to the deficit and a lot of other things, too.
OK, but go ahead, sir.
21:21:38: ROMNEY: You bet. Well, President, you're -- Mr. President, you're absolutely right, which is that, with regards to 97 percent of the businesses are not -- not taxed at the 35 percent tax rate, they're taxed at a lower rate. But those businesses that are in the last 3 percent of businesses happen to employ half -- half of all the people who work in small business. Those are the businesses that employ one-quarter of all the workers in America. And your plan is to take their tax rate from 35 percent to 40 percent.
Now, and -- and I've talked to a guy who has a very small business. He's in the electronics business in -- in St. Louis. He has four employees. He said he and his son calculated how much they pay in taxes, federal income tax, federal payroll tax, state income tax, state sales tax, state property tax, gasoline tax. It added up to well over 50 percent of what they earned. And your plan is to take the tax rate on successful small businesses from 35 percent to 40 percent. The National Federation of Independent Businesses has said that will cost 700,000 jobs.
I don't want to cost jobs. My priority is jobs. And so what I do is I bring down the tax rates, lower deductions and exemptions, the same idea behind Bowles-Simpson, by the way, get the rates down, lower deductions and exemptions, to create more jobs, because there's nothing better for getting us to a balanced budget than having more people working, earning more money, paying more taxes. That's by far the most effective and efficient way to get this budget balanced.
21:22:58: OBAMA: Jim, I -- you may want to move onto another topic, but I -- I would just say this to the American people. If you believe that we can cut taxes by $5 trillion and add $2 trillion in additional spending that the military is not asking for, $7 trillion -- just to give you a sense, over 10 years, that's more than our entire defense budget -- and you think that by closing loopholes and deductions for the well-to-do, somehow you will not end up picking up the tab, then Governor Romney's plan may work for you.
But I think math, common sense, and our history shows us that's not a recipe for job growth. Look, we've tried this. We've tried both approaches. The approach that Governor Romney's talking about is the same sales pitch that was made in 2001 and 2003, and we ended up with the slowest job growth in 50 years, we ended up moving from surplus to deficits, and it all culminated in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
Bill Clinton tried the approach that I'm talking about. We created 23 million new jobs. We went from deficit to surplus. And businesses did very well. So, in some ways, we've got some data on which approach is more likely to create jobs and opportunity for Americans and I believe that the economy works best when middle-class families are getting tax breaks so that they've got some money in their pockets, and those of us who have done extraordinarily well because of this magnificent country that we live in, that we can afford to do a little bit more to make sure we're not blowing up the deficit.
21:24:40: ROMNEY: Jim, the president began this segment, so I think I get the last word.
(CROSSTALK)
21:24:42: LEHRER: Well, you're going to get the first word in the next segment.
21:24:48: ROMNEY: All right. Well, but he gets the first word of that segment. I get the last word (inaudible) I hope. Let me just make this comment.
(CROSSTALK)
21:24:50: ROMNEY: I think first of all, let me -- let me repeat -- let me repeat what I said. I'm not in favor of a $5 trillion tax cut. That's not my plan. My plan is not to put in place any tax cut that will add to the deficit. That's point one.
So you may keep referring to it as a $5 trillion tax cut, but that's not my plan.
Number two, let's look at history. My plan is not like anything that's been tried before. My plan is to bring down rates, but also bring down deductions and exemptions and credits at the same time so the revenue stays in, but that we bring down rates to get more people working.
My priority is putting people back to work in America. They're suffering in this country. And we talk about evidence. Look at the evidence of the last four years. It's absolutely extraordinary. We've got 23 million people out of work or stopped looking for work in this country. It's just -- it's -- we've got -- when the president took office, 32 million people on food stamps; 47 million on food stamps today; economic growth this year slower than last year, and last year slower than the year before.
Going forward with the status quo is not going to cut it for the American people who are struggling today.
21:26:01: LEHRER: All right. Let's talk -- we're still on the economy. This is, theoretically now, a second segment still on the economy, and specifically on what to do about the federal deficit, the federal debt.
And the question, you each have two minutes on this, and Governor Romney, you -- you go first because the president went first on segment one. And the question is this, what are the differences between the two of you as to how you would go about tackling the deficit problem in this country?
21:26:31: ROMNEY: Good. I'm glad you raised that, and it's a -- it's a critical issue. I think it's not just an economic issue, I think it's a moral issue. I think it's, frankly, not moral for my generation to keep spending massively more than we take in, knowing those burdens are going to be passed on to the next generation and they're going to be paying the interest and the principal all their lives.
And the amount of debt we're adding, at a trillion a year, is simply not moral.
So how do we deal with it? Well, mathematically, there are three ways that you can cut a deficit. One, of course, is to raise taxes. Number two is to cut spending. And number is to grow the economy, because if more people work in a growing economy, they're paying taxes, and you can get the job done that way.
The presidents would -- president would prefer raising taxes. I understand. The problem with raising taxes is that it slows down the rate of growth. And you could never quite get the job done. I want to lower spending and encourage economic growth at the same time.
What things would I cut from spending? Well, first of all, I will eliminate all programs by this test, if they don't pass it: Is the program so critical it's worth borrowing money from China to pay for it? And if not, I'll get rid of it. Obamacare's on my list.
I apologize, Mr. President. I use that term with all respect, by the way.
OBAMA: I like it.
ROMNEY: Good. OK, good. So I'll get rid of that.
I'm sorry, Jim, I'm going to stop the subsidy to PBS. I'm going to stop other things. I like PBS, I love Big Bird. Actually like you, too. But I'm not going to -- I'm not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for. That's number one.
Number two, I'll take programs that are currently good programs but I think could be run more efficiently at the state level and send them to the state.
Number three, I'll make government more efficient and to cut back the number of employees, combine some agencies and departments. My cutbacks will be done through attrition, by the way.
This is the approach we have to take to get America to a balanced budget.
The president said he'd cut the deficit in half. Unfortunately, he doubled it. Trillion-dollar deficits for the last four years. The president's put it in place as much public debt -- almost as much debt held by the public as al prior presidents combined.
21:28:35: LEHRER: Mr. President, two minutes.
21:28:37: OBAMA: When I walked into the Oval Office, I had more than a trillion-dollar deficit greeting me. And we know where it came from: two wars that were paid for on a credit card; two tax cuts that were not paid for; and a whole bunch of programs that were not paid for; and then a massive economic crisis.
And despite that, what we've said is, yes, we had to take some initial emergency measures to make sure we didn't slip into a Great Depression, but what we've also said is, let's make sure that we are cutting out those things that are not helping us grow.
So 77 government programs, everything from aircrafts that the Air Force had ordered but weren't working very well, 18 government -- 18 government programs for education that were well-intentioned, not weren't helping kids learn, we went after medical fraud in Medicare and Medicaid very aggressively, more aggressively than ever before, and have saved tens of billions of dollars, $50 billion of waste taken out of the system.
And I worked with Democrats and Republicans to cut a trillion dollars out of our discretionary domestic budget. That's the largest cut in the discretionary domestic budget since Dwight Eisenhower.
Now, we all know that we've got to do more. And so I've put forward a specific $4 trillion deficit reduction plan. It's on a website. You can look at all the numbers, what cuts we make and what revenue we raise.
And the way we do it is $2.50 for every cut, we ask for $1 of additional revenue, paid for, as I indicated earlier, by asking those of us who have done very well in this country to contribute a little bit more to reduce the deficit. Governor Romney earlier mentioned the Bowles-Simpson commission. Well, that's how the commission -- bipartisan commission that talked about how we should move forward suggested we have to do it, in a balanced way with some revenue and some spending cuts. And this is a major difference that Governor Romney and I have.
Let -- let me just finish their point, because you're looking for contrast. You know, when Governor Romney stood on a stage with other Republican candidates for the nomination and he was asked, would you take $10 of spending cuts for just $1 of revenue? And he said no.
Now, if you take such an unbalanced approach, then that means you are going to be gutting our investments in schools and education. It means that Governor Romney...
(CROSSTALK)
21:31:15: OBAMA: ... talked about Medicaid and how we could send it back to the states, but effectively this means a 30 percent cut in the primary program we help for seniors who are in nursing homes, for kids who are with disabilities.
21:31:22: LEHRER: Mr. President, I'm sorry.
21:31:26: OBAMA: And -- and that is not a right strategy for us to move forward.
21:31:28: LEHRER: Way over the two minutes.
21:31:28: OBAMA: Sorry.
21:31:34: LEHRER: Governor, what about Simpson-Bowles? Do you support Simpson-Bowles?
21:31:34: ROMNEY: Simpson-Bowles, the president should have grabbed that.
21:31:35: LEHRER: No, I mean, do you support Simpson-Bowles?
21:31:36: ROMNEY: I have my own plan. It's not the same as Simpson- Bowles. But in my view, the president should have grabbed it. If you wanted to make some adjustments to it, take it, go to Congress, fight for it.
21:31:48: OBAMA: That's what we've done, made some adjustments to it, and we're putting it forward before Congress right now, a $4 trillion plan...
ROMNEY: But you've been -- but you've been president four years...
(CROSSTALK)
21:31:54: ROMNEY: You've been president four years. You said you'd cut the deficit in half. It's now four years later. We still have trillion-dollar deficits. The CBO says we'll have a trillion-dollar deficit each of the next four years. If you're re-elected, we'll get to a trillion-dollar debt.
I mean, you have said before you'd cut the deficit in half. And this -- I love this idea of $4 trillion in cuts. You found $4 trillion of ways to reduce or to get closer to a balanced budget, except we still show trillion-dollar deficits every year. That doesn't get the job done.
Let me come back and say, why is it that I don't want to raise taxes? Why don't I want to raise taxes on people? And actually, you said it back in 2010. You said, "Look, I'm going to extend the tax policies that we have now; I'm not going to raise taxes on anyone, because when the economy is growing slow like this, when we're in recession, you shouldn't raise taxes on anyone."
Well, the economy is still growing slow. As a matter of fact, it's growing much more slowly now than when you made that statement. And so if you believe the same thing, you just don't want to raise taxes on people. And the reality is it's not just wealthy people -- you mentioned Donald Trump. It's not just Donald Trump you're taxing. It's all those businesses that employ one-quarter of the workers in America; these small businesses that are taxed as individuals.
You raise taxes and you kill jobs. That's why the N | 0 | train |
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Paul Ryan: “22 Million Americans Choose To Be Poor, So It’s Their Own Problem If They Can’t Afford To Be Healthy” House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) this week disputed reports that 22 million people would lose insurance under the Republican health care plan. During an interview that aired on Tuesday, Fox News host Brian Kilmeade asked Ryan to respond to a recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report that said there would be 22 million more people without health insurance by 2026 if the Senate’s version of the health care bill is signed into law. “What they are basically saying at the Congressional Budget Office, if you’re not going to force people to buy Obamacare, if you’re not going to force people to buy something they don’t want, then they won’t buy it,” the Speaker opined. “So, it’s not that people are getting pushed off a plan, it’s that people will choose not to buy something that they don’t like or want.”
Kilmeade then asked Ryan to comment on the fact that the Republican health care platform is going to make health insurance plans significantly less affordable by decreasing subsidies for poorer Americans. Ryan replied by ranting about how being poor is “a choice.” “This is something we’ve been over on more than once occasion,” Ryan said. “I know why you’re asking me this; you want me to feel guilty for depriving 22 million people of health insurance, right? Well, I’m sorry Brian, but it’s not working. And the reason why it’s not working is, you’re using the wrong logic here. You’re using the wrong logic alongside millions of other Americans, because all of you feel that those who get up every day and work hard for some reason owe something to those who just lie around doing nothing. That’s not right.”
“Why should anybody who has the willpower to tackle problems and obstacles in order to provide a good life for themselves and their family be obligated to set aside some of their hard earned money to help other people who don’t want to work hard and, instead, rely on policymakers to ensure they have welfare or, in this case, affordable health insurance?” Ryan opined. “The answer is – they shouldn’t. This is a land of opportunities; but, the thing is, to be able to capitalize on those opportunities, one has to be willing to work hard. And that’s the only condition, working hard. If you work your butt off every single day, you can afford whatever you want, including the best health insurance possible. Now we arrive at my ultimate point: if you choose to work hard, if that’s a choice you make every time you wake up in the morning, then this is something that guarantees your success. But, if you choose to be lazy all day and expect the government to take care of you, then you’re doomed.”
“Being rich or poor is a matter of choice; that’s all there is to it. So, let me ask you this, Brian: if 22 million people consciously make the choice to not work hard day in and day out, why on earth should the rest of us be concerned with whether or not they’re going to be healthy? If they choose to be poor, then it’s their own problem if they can’t afford to be healthy. Think of the message we’d be sending to poor people around the world by nurturing laziness and providing affordable healthcare to poor people. We’d be sending them an open invitation to come here and do nothing. ‘Just come on over and become a U.S. citizen – the government will get you free food, free shelter and free health insurance, and you don’t even have to get a job.’ That’s preposterous, anyone who thinks that’s a good thing deserves to be poor,” he concluded. | 1 | train |
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Transcript: NPR's Full Interview With Sen. Marco Rubio Transcript: NPR's Full Interview With Sen. Marco Rubio
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., is running for president and spoke with NPR's Steve Inskeep on Monday ahead of his big announcement.
Rubio talked about how he hopes to stand out in the 2016 presidential field, Indiana's religious freedom law, the president's deal with Iran, immigration policy, and America's warming relationship with Cuba.
STEVE INSKEEP: In all the years I've been interviewing people, I don't think I've spoken with somebody on the day of an announcement like this. And I was thinking that if it were me, there might be a moment the night before where I was lying awake wondering if I was really ready for this. Did you have a moment of wondering if you were really ready for this?
SEN. MARCO RUBIO: Not last night, but, I mean, if you reach the point where you're wondering it the night before you announce, then you probably shouldn't run. I think anyone who's thinking about the highest office in the most powerful nation on earth has to spend some time analyzing whether they're prepared for the job. And look, I think the job is perhaps the most difficult job in politics anywhere in the world. You're the leader of the most powerful military on the planet. You make decisions that have global implications. And it's happening at a time when the country's going through an extraordinary economic transformation that is leaving many people insecure. But from all that and given both my experience at the local, state and federal level, and especially the lessons learned over the last five years as I've been engaged in federal policy making, I'm very confident that I have the judgment and the knowledge that I need to do a very good job as president of the United States. And clearly, as you see the history of the presidency, people who go into that office grow, the office helps you grow as well as you go through it and that's, having the ability to learn is a big part of the office as well. But I'm certainly capable from day 1. I'm very confident that I have the capability from day no. 1 to lead this country.
Are you also affirming that you are not giving up your — are you also affirming that you are not running for Senate?
I am not. And the reason I think strongly about that is, if you've decided that you want to serve this country as its president, that's what you should be running for. And I find myself in a situation where my Senate seat comes up for re-election at the exact same time as the presidency. And by Florida law, you can't run for both, anyway. But to even be thinking about a Plan B in case this doesn't work, I think diminishes your ability to succeed on the campaign because your mind will always be on, if this doesn't work, then I can do something else. And the truth is that, you know, I don't want to be in politics my entire life. And I'm prepared to serve this country now in its highest office and I'm excited about this opportunity.
You'll be in a crowded Republican field. How do you expect to distinguish yourself from your opponents on the Republican side?
Well, I expect that I'm going to go out and tell people my vision for the future of this country. I'm going to be very specific and detailed about our plans and how we're going to get there. In fact, I've done that already. We have a very detailed policy position that we've outlined on numerous issues over the last two years, culminating in my book that just came out earlier this year, American Dreams. And I think from that, voters are going to analyze the different position of the candidates, their capabilities, their history, but more importantly their view of the future and their plans to get us there and I'm very confident that that will lead to success.
Is there a sentence that people can have in their heads? Marco Rubio is different from the others because...
He has the clear view of how the 21st century can also be an American century.
We're in a moment where you have put out plans proposing to reshape the way the federal government deals with federal assistance to the poor.
Yes.
We're in a moment where Jeb Bush, who may also run, has a superPAC called Right to Rise. And this week, of course, Hillary Clinton declared her campaign for the presidency talking about helping everyday people. What's going on there?
Well, that's a good thing for our country because equality of opportunity has always defined us as a people and as a nation. And the fact that there are millions of people now in America that are starting to have significant doubts about whether we're still that kind of country should be deeply concerning to us. Our identity is at stake. Every country in the world has rich people. What makes America different is, we've had millions and millions of people who through hard work and perseverance are able to achieve happiness and upward mobility. And the fact that that's in danger and in question is deeply concerning, and should be. It threatens our identity. So I'm glad that people are talking about it. Ultimately, talking about it won't be enough. You have to have plans that work to help us address it. And for me it begins by embracing and acknowledging the reality that we are living through a massive transformation into this post-industrial 21st century economy that is both disruptive but also exciting. It comes not just with challenges, but also with opportunities. But we can only embrace those opportunities if we move forward on thinking about the changes we're going to have to make in order to fully enter the 21st century.
What's one way that your approach would be different from Jeb Bush's or Hillary Clinton's?
Well, as far as the Republican field is concerned, there will be plenty of time for comparison shopping. The truth is, for voters, the truth is that at this moment most of my opponents in the field beyond talking about upward mobility have not clearly outlined what they would do. We have a clear policy outline on each of these issues that people can read about. And if, you know, all of my opponents and other candidates in the Republican field choose to adopt some of those ideas, I'll consider that a victory as well as flattery. But on the Democratic side, I think, you know, Hillary Clinton is someone who's deeply wedded to the institutions of the 20th century. Her plans are to spend more money on the existing higher education system. That system doesn't work any more. It doesn't work any more because we don't graduate enough young people from high school ready to work. We need to do more of that — ready to work in trades as mechanics, airplane technicians and plumbers and engineers. These are good — welders. These are good 21st century jobs and we are capable of teaching people how to do that so at 18, 19 years of age, they can be employed. We also need to have more flexible, more flexibility in higher education for working Americans who can't afford to drop everything and go to school full-time for four years. We need to have programs that allow someone who works full time to learn at their own pace, on their own time, so that a receptionist can become a paralegal, so that the home-health aide making $10 an hour can become a dental hygienist making $55,000 a year. And then we have to have more quality measures in higher education. For example, before you take out a student loan--
Mhmm
I have a bill that says every student, before you take out a student loan, needs to be told how much you can expect to make when you graduate from that school with the degree you're pursuing so you can make an informed decision about whether or not it's worth it to borrow a bunch of money for that degree.
A Florida political reporter noticed that you spent a plane ride sitting beside Jeb Bush, more than two hours, coming back from an NRA convention. Did you guys talk about the presidential campaign at all?
Not in great detail. Jeb and I are friends, we'll always be friends. And I have tremendous admiration for him as a person, what he did as governor, and personal affection. And that's not going to change. I don't view, I'm not running against Jeb Bush and I'm not running against anybody in this field. I'm running because I strongly believe that I have something to offer this country that no one else in the field does at this moment in our history. And I'm going to go out there and do the best job that I can and — but, I mean, that's not going to impact our relationship in any way that's going to change how we feel about one another and it was great to see him and spend quality time just talking about good times and everything going on ...
You didn't talk politics very much at all?
... and everything in between. Sure, I mean we had observations about — we joked with a lot of the passengers who saw us sitting next to each other and we took some pictures with people and we told them, we warned them how historic a picture like that may be one day. And, um, but you know, we talked about the Masters, we talked about the Paleo diet, we talked about the Miami Dolphins. I mean it, we talked about, reminisced about old war stories from our time in the legislature, when I was in the legislature and he was governor. It was just a host of things.
Sooner or later if you go forward and he goes forward, there's going to be a moment where you're going to have to say, "Here's why it should be me and not him."
I don't know. I mean, I think this year's going to be quite different in that regard. We have a quality field of candidates who are going to be well financed and experienced, who are going to be running. And I think that'll change the nature of the race. There'll certainly be moments when others will try to draw distinctions. But in my mind, I'm going to talk about who I am and what I want to do. And I'll let voters make the decision about who they think is best capable at this moment of leading our country.
You scheduled an announcement at Miami's Freedom Tower, which has historic significance because Cubans who fled Fidel Castro's regime in the 60s and 70s received federal aid there. This brings to mind that you have strongly criticized President Obama's restoration of relations with Cuba. If you're elected, would you reverse that policy?
Absolutely, and I think the reason why is because I'm interested in, my interest in Cuba is freedom and democracy. I think the Cuban people, they are free, have the right to choose any economic model they want to follow. I don't believe these changes will actually further democracy. In fact, I think they will make it harder to achieve. The goal of the Castro regime is to create the impression and the reality that their form of government is a legitimate form of government and set it in concrete. They know they have a generational challenge. Most of their top leaders are in their 80s. The actuarial tables tell you they don't have much longer. And they want to leave in place global recognition for this form of government so that it can continue in perpetuity. And that means the Cuban people will never have the chance to experience what the people in the Dominican Republic and Haiti have, what the people in Mexico have, what the people in Peru have, what the people in Colombia have, which is free and fair elections. And that's all I want for the people in Cuba. And I think U.S. policy towards Cuba is a major leverage point that we can use to help the Cuban people achieve freedom for themselves.
But help me think through this. The president made this announcement, they're working on getting an embassy going at some point in the future. He went to Summit of the Americas where other countries in Latin America very much welcomed the restoration of relations. You're saying that if you're elected, you would close that embassy, you would break diplomatic ties, you would go back to the way things were?
We have an interest section in Cuba and it will continue to operate, but an embassy, I'm not, I don't believe this country should be diplomatically recognizing a nation of the nature of Cuba. Obviously there are other dictatorships in the world that we have relations with by geopolitical reality. You know, China's the largest country in the world, the second largest economy, the second largest military force. There are geopolitical realities there. Cuba is a brutal, tyrannical dictatorship 90 miles from the shore of our country. It is a nation that helps North Korea evade U.N. weapon sanctions. It is a country that harbors fugitives from American justice, including Medicare fraudsters and someone who killed a police officer in the United States. And I just think that we should have continued with the policy and perhaps looked for new ways of — continue with the policy of not recognizing that regime and not allowing them access to economic growth that would allow them to perpetuate themselves in power, and continue to search for ways to provide the Cuban people with more information about the reality of the world so they would be empowered to eventually create for themselves a democratic society.
You've also said that you would reverse the president's deal with Iran, assuming that that is finalized. You said you would absolutely do that. What would that look like on day one?
Well, I would not adhere — well, we have to understand the deal, basically, can be what it is on paper. What the president is banking on is that he's going to use a national security waiver to lift the sanctions on Iran, the economic sanctions that now exist. And we would simply re-impose the sanctions. And I still have tremendous questions about whether this deal's even viable. The Iranians are now saying that what we're saying the deal is and what they understand it to be are two different things. This issue of them asking for immediate relief of sanctions the minute the deal is signed is going to be a deal breaker. I hope it would be a deal break for this administration. And at the end of the day, we need to recognize that what Iran is trying to do here, and this is clear to anyone who has inside knowledge into this or has followed it closely, Iran is trying to maintain all the infrastructure they need to be nuclear capable without agreeing to any irreversible concessions. And that seems to be what they have achieved, if in fact this moves forward. So in my mind, we would just reinstitute the sanctions.
But I'm just thinking this through. The deal is made. It's made not just with the United States, but with the European allies. Would you move forward with re-imposing sanctions even if the Europeans don't go along with it?
Yes, it wouldn't be as effective, obviously. We would, ultimately, I think, the Europeans are going to have a test anyway because the Iranians are going to violate the sanctions at some point. They're going to evade it either by trying to take advantage of loopholes in the deal, or they'll just flat out evade it because they've always had a secret component to their, to their program. And at that point, they're going to have a huge test on their hands, which is, are they willing to live by the agreement that they even signed on to? But from the United States' perspective, while we want our allies to join us in this endeavor, and certainly sanctions against Iran would be more effective were they in conjunction with our allies around the world, we have to look out for our own national security concerns. And in my mind, if the president wanted this to be a permanent deal that survived his presidency, he would have brought it to Congress.
I'm just thinking through further, though, as part of this deal, assuming it's finalized, the Iranians get rid of a vast amount of enriched uranium, almost all they have. They limit the amount of enrichment that they will have. They limit the number of centrifuges they will operate and they will allow inspections for decades, actually. So you would say, all that, forget about it, it's done.
They would retain all the infrastructure, first of all, they ...
They retain infrastructure, sure.
They retain not only just infrastructure, they retain centrifuges, too. They may not be spinning them, but they will retain them in their possession. They continue to develop their long range missile capabilities, which are unstopped. There's no prohibition on them acquiring a weapon design as they probably, may even already have. They continue to sponsor terrorism all over the world. In fact, now they'll have more funding to pay for it, in places they already control, places like Beirut. They're increasingly active in Yemen. Their hand and their role's clear in Bahrain and in a growing number of places around the world. And they continue to be run by a radical Shia cleric who has apocalyptic views of the future and of their role in it. So none of these things change. Their infrastructure will remain in place and at some point, they could follow the North Korean model very easily, which is they can cook up an excuse for why they need to have a weapon program and move forward on it.
Is war inevitable then?
I hope not. My hope is that we can delay a program long enough and you would hope that there would be some sort of change in leadership in Iran that would at least allow them to decide that they would rather have an economy than have a weapon. You can't guarantee it. But at the end of the day no one wants war, but I actually think that this deal could advance the prospects of war. I think this deal and the fact that Iran will retain nuclear infrastructure increases the likelihood that one of their neighbors may take action against them, whether it's Israel or the Saudis or someone else. It also increases the likelihood now, that Iran becomes even more aggressive in its proxy wars that it's conducting all over the world. It also increases the likelihood that they'll increase their conventional capabilities threatening our U.S. presence in the region. And ultimately I think it almost guarantees an arms race in the region, because the Saudis have made very clear, and others, the Egyptians as well, that whatever Iran has, they'll get as well. So if Iran is allowed to enrich to a certain level, they will begin doing the same, requiring a capability to do the same.
Let me ask about a domestic issue. In recent weeks, the state of Indiana passed a Religious Freedom law, which was interpreted by many as discrimination, by others, as protection for people who don't want to take part in gay marriage. You defended the law and spoke about the hypothetical example of a florist who was asked to participate in a gay marriage and wanted to refuse. You said that person should have the right to follow their religious beliefs. Indiana, though, has since changed the law. Do you still support that concept?
Well, to be fair, I haven't read the change in detail to give you an opinion on it specifically, but I'll tell you where I stand. I don't believe you can discriminate against people. So I don't believe it's right for a florist to say, I'm not going to provide you flowers because you're gay. I think there's a difference between not providing services to a person because of their identity, who they are or who they love, and saying, I'm not going to participate in an event, a same-sex wedding, because that violates my religious beliefs. There's a distinction between those two things. So, certainly, you can't not — it's immoral and wrong to say, I'm not going to allow someone who's gay or lesbian to use my restaurant, stay in my hotel, or provide photography service to them because they're gay. The difference here is, we're not talking about discriminating against a person because of who they are, we're talking about someone who's saying — what I'm talking about, anyway, is someone who's saying, I just don't want to participate as a vendor for an event, a specific event that violates the tenets of my faith.
What if two gay people get married and then they go that night to a hotel. Can the hotelkeeper refuse service to them?
That's not part of an event. Again, I mean, that's, there's a difference between saying, we're not going to allow you to stay in our hotel, common lodging establishment where people have a right to shelter, food, medical care, and saying we're not going to, what we're not going to do is provide services to an event, to an actual event, which is the wedding itself. And I think that's the distinction point that people have been pointing to, and, because mainstream Christianity teaches that marriage is between one man and one woman. People feel very strongly about that. And to ask someone to individually provide services to something of that nature, I think violates their religious liberty.
There's a big question lurking here, which is that most Americans, according to surveys, now support gay marriage. A large minority of Americans still oppose gay marriage. The question is, that people seem to be wrestling with, is, what ground do opponents of gay marriage have left to stand on? What ground should they have to stand on?
First of all, if the majority of Americans support gay marriage, then you'll see it reflected in changes in state law, which has always regulated marriage. And so at the end of the day, if a majority of people in any given state in this country petition their legislature to change the definition of marriage to include the marriage of two people of the same sex, that'll be the law of the land. And that is what it is. Separate from that, there's a constitutional protection of religious liberty that allows people to live by the tenets of their faith both in their public and in private life. That doesn't mean that you're allowed to go in and disrupt a gay wedding. But by the same token, it doesn't mean that someone's allowed to come to you and force you to be a participant in a ceremony that violates the tenets of your faith. And to be honest, in the real world, 99.9% of the time, a same-sex couple doesn't want a florist or a photographer at their wedding that doesn't agree with the choice that they've made. So we're really talking about an issue that in large part is really not going to manifest itself in daily life, but in the instances that it does, there are individuals that don't want to be compelled by force of law to participate in an event that puts them in the position of violating their religious faith. There's a difference between that and discriminating against an individual because of who they are.
Are there are other specific situations on your mind where you feel that people who are opposed to gay marriage would need some kind of protection from, from it?
Well, I mean, that's the one that's in the news today. Again, I don't, we can always sit here and engage in hypotheticals, this, that, and the other, but at the end of the day, I mean, that's the one that's emerged because there's real cases behind people being fined for not providing services to a, to a ceremony as opposed to individuals.
When we spoke last year, we talked about immigration, an issue on which you worked for a time on an immigration reform bill. You said, first, the reason to do that is not political, it's substantive. But, second, that there would be a political effect. That if the Republican Party deals with immigration, it would then have an opportunity to talk with Latino voters about other issues. And, of course, this is a voter group where Republicans have done very poorly in recent elections. Immigration hasn't been dealt with. What are the likely consequences for the Republican party in 2016?
Well, again, every candidate has a different position on where they stand on the issue. From my perspective, I continue to believe it's an issue we need to address. The only point I've made is that I think the lessons of the last couple of years, for me, is that we're not going to be able to deal with it in one big piece of legislation. I still think we need to do immigration reform. I just don't think you can do it in a comprehensive, massive piece of legislation, given the lack of trust that there is today in the federal government. I honestly believe that the key to moving forward on immigration is to first and foremost prove to the American people that we are going to bring future illegal immigration under control — that if we legalize 12 million people, they won't be replaced by 12 million more who are here illegally. And I honestly believe, given my experiences on this issue now, that if we did that, the American people and the majority of Republicans and conservatives will be very reasonable and, and responsible about how we address the reality that we have 12 million human beings living in this country illegally.
But we're in a circumstance, granted there's still time, but we're in a circumstance where it doesn't look like immigration legislation is going to get through Congress before 2016. What does that mean for your party?
And I think, I think it's nearly – well, I just outlined to you what I think the key is to moving forward. And I think that's impossible as long as Barack Obama's president now, because on two instances, particularly very recently, last year, he issued an executive order ordering federal agencies not to enforce immigration law. So if I'm telling you that the key to moving forward is the enforcement of immigration law, then that says the notion that future illegal immigration will be brought under control, and you have a president that's ordering agencies not to enforce immigration law, our ability to convince people, no matter what we pass, that future illegal immigration will be brought under control, as long as Barack Obama's president, is nil.
How do you keep from getting hammered on that in a general election where the Hispanic vote may be very important?
Well, I don't know about the others, but I've done more immigration than Hillary Clinton ever did. I mean, I helped pass an immigration bill in a Senate dominated by Democrats. And that's more than she's ever done. She's given speeches on it, but she's never done anything on it. So I have a record of trying to do something on it. It didn't work because at the end of the day, we did not sufficiently address the issue of, of illegal immigration and I warned about that throughout that process, as well, that I didn't think we were doing enough to give that bill a chance of moving forward in the House.
Does your biography help?
I think biography's part of all of our lives, all of our candidacies, because it certainly influences how you view the country and how you view issues. I have a personal attachment to the working class because it's where I come from, it's still the neighborhood I live in, it's the people my children go to school with, it's the community that I'm involved in. And, but I also happen to think it's the identity of our country. And every candidate, you know, will bring to bear their experiences in life and how it's guided them and influenced their thinking, but from my perspective, I think it matters simply because it informs me on my policy decisions.
There's a big question here, also, because the Republican party, as many people have noted, faces a demographic challenge that gets a little worse with every election cycle. Growing groups in society, such as Latinos and others, are voting increasingly Democratic, and Republican voter groups, particularly older white voters, are getting smaller. What's the Republican Party need to do about that?
Well, at the end, I don't think people go to the ballot box and say, I'm a Latino, therefore I'm voting Democrat. I think they bring with them their hopes and fears about the future, and they vote for whoever they think best understands them. And the challenge the Republican Party has had is unfairly, but it's the reality, they've been portrayed as a party that doesn't care about people who are trying to make it. A disproportionate number of people who are trying to make it, who are working class, who are out there working for a living at $18 an hour, $15 an hour, happen to also be people from minority communities. And if you think someone doesn't care or understand people like you, no matter what your policies are, it's going to be difficult to get them to listen to you, much less vote for you. And so I hope the Republican Party can become the champion of the working class because I think our policy proposals of limited government and free enterprise are better for the people who are trying to make it than big government is. The fact is that big government helps the people who have made it. If you can afford to hire an army of lawyers, lobbyists and others to help you navigate and sometimes influence the law, you'll benefit. And so that's why you see big banks, big companies, keep winning. And everybody else is stuck and being left behind.
So you're beginning this gigantic game of Survivor with who knows how many other candidates. You're smiling as I say that. With who knows how many other candidates, what will determine who survives ultimately and how will you make sure it's you?
Well, there are basics about any campaign. Obviously you'll have to put time into it, you'll have to be able to raise sufficient funds to communicate your message. And on a daily basis, you have to make sure you do the best you can to help convince people in a crowded field that you're the best person at this time for the job that you seek. But beyond it, I really think the key is, who can inspire our country into believing that the future doesn't have to be worse than our past, that the 21st century can be better than the 20th. And then once you've inspired them to believe that, showing them how we can accomplish it. And I feel very confident in our ability to do it and I think that's why we're going to win.
Should I think of this as an insurgent campaign, because you don't have the resources of Jeb Bush, particularly?
Well, I think our resources will be sufficient to do the job we're trying to do. At the end of the day, this is not a fundraising competition in and of itself. You also have to have a message and a messenger and a policy outline that proves to people that, that your campaign is better for them than what someone else is offering. But I'm certainly not the frontrunner and — but that's O.K. The election isn't tomorrow.
What are you doing to make sure you don't run out of money?
(Laughs) We're going to, we, we're trying to raise as much money as we can and that's important. As long as the media outlets keep charging us for advertising, we'll have to keep raising money.
Senator Rubio, thanks very much.
Thank you. | 0 | train |
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Politics, Policy, Political News The POLITICO Mag Profile
Meet the Photographer Donald Trump Can’t Shut Up About
For all of his cries of “fake news,” the image-obsessed president has singled out veteran shooter Doug Mills for his work—and can’t keep quiet about him. | 0 | train |
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"On and On" 自動再生 自動再生を有効にすると、関連動画が自動的に再生されます。
次の動画 | 0 | train |
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Snoop Dogg Arrested For Conspiracy After Talking About His ‘Murder Trump’ Video Snoop Dogg, major pothead and advocate of violence as a form of protest, has landed in hot water over his video “Lavender,” in which he shoots Donald Trump. In the video, the rapper shoots a clown version of President Trump with a toy gun, but that’s not what got him in trouble.
After the story went viral, a reporter from Breitbart caught up with Snoop Dogg and asked him if he believed violence was the answer. His response was chilling. He said:
“No, man. I don’t like violence any more than the next guy, but I would hope that if this clown in the White House was about to start a war or somethin’ that someone would do what I did but with a real gun. I know I would and I would encourage anyone who could get close enough to do the same. That’s not violence…it’s survival of the species.”
The reporter, Glen Dingusman, immediately contacted the Secret Service with his evidence of violent threats made against the president and Snoop Dogg, who was on his way into a restaurant for lunch when the exchange happened, never made it past his hot wing appetizer.
According to the agency, he will be held as a military combatant without being charged until they can ascertain whether or not he’s a threat to the president. At the very least, this should teach him and some other dumb liberals a good lesson about what happens in Trump’s America if you say and do stupid crap.
[Via Stryker]
Huzlers.com is a satirical and fictional news blog that focuses on celebrities, hip hop and urban entertainment. | 1 | train |
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