Political Ruminations

Economy in Expansion

A little good news since the preliminary GDP report was issued today, and the economy is officially in expansion. The final quarter of 2010 indicated an increase of 3.2% in GDP.

Chart via Business Insider.

Morning Quote: President Obama

Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

President Obama lays a well deserved trap for Republicans during the State of the Union address:

Now, the final critical step in winning the future is to make sure we aren’t buried under a mountain of debt.

      We are living with a legacy of deficit spending that began almost a decade ago.  And in the wake of the financial crisis, some of that was necessary to keep credit flowing, save jobs, and put money in people’s pockets.

      But now that the worst of the recession is over, we have to confront the fact that our government spends more than it takes in.  That is not sustainable.  Every day, families sacrifice to live within their means.  They deserve a government that does the same.

      So tonight, I am proposing that starting this year, we freeze annual domestic spending for the next five years.  (Applause.)  Now, this would reduce the deficit by more than $400 billion over the next decade, and will bring discretionary spending to the lowest share of our economy since Dwight Eisenhower was President.

      This freeze will require painful cuts.  Already, we’ve frozen the salaries of hardworking federal employees for the next two years.  I’ve proposed cuts to things I care deeply about, like community action programs.  The Secretary of Defense has also agreed to cut tens of billions of dollars in spending that he and his generals believe our military can do without.  (Applause.)

Of course, there will be no such spending freeze in spite of the fact that Republicans have ranted about spending for two years. Their bluff is called, and we already know what the hell they're made of.

Compromise Version of the 9/11 Responders Health Care Bill Passes in the House and the Senate

The two obstructionists, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), and Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) agreed to a compromise which reduced the total compensation package to $4.3 billion, down from $6.2 billion. The “time span was also significantly limited to five years each for the health treatment program.”

“I’ll stand in the way of anything that doesn’t make sense and doesn’t spend our money wisely, so you know, it doesn’t matter what the issue is, we’re in such a hole, Jon, that we don’t have the luxury of not getting things right,” Coburn told ABC News today after announcing the deal.

Last night on CNBC, Coburn defended his obstruction of the bill and his insistence that it lavishes too much money on dying 9/11 first responders, saying “we’re spending four times as much money as we need to.” Coburn said that the actual cost of pre-deal bill would be $11 billion (he disputed the way the Congressional Budget Office scored it), and suggested that it was not paid for, saying, “we don’t have an extra $11 billion right now.” ....

Of course, the bill would not require an “extra” $11 billion. The bill is entirely paid for by offsets, some of which were changed at the GOP’s behest. As ThinkProgress has noted, these offsets — which at one point included a tax on foreign corporations — led the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to lobby against the measure. ...

The Senate passed a compromise version of the 9/11 first responders bill this afternoon. "The measure was passed on a voice vote with no one objecting after Democrats and Republican critics reached a compromise reducing the bill's cost from $6.2 billion to $4.2 billion." The House will vote on it later today.

I still feel pissed off that this did not pass with out Republican obstruction, in its original form, and with out making these responders fear for their futures. Taking care of these people who took care of us should have been something that we could all agree on.

Via Think Progress

History Made, START Treaty Ratified

President Obama becomes the first Democratic president in U.S. history to sheperd ratification of an arms-control treaty to its completion during his tenure. From Think Progress:

The New START Treaty was approved in the Senate by a vote of 71-26. Thirteen Republicans, a quarter of the Republican caucus, broke with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ). This is the first time an arms control treaty has ever passed without the support of the minority leader. As Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) said yesterday, “In today’s Senate, 70 votes is yesterday’s 95.”

A year ago, President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for his vision of moving toward a world without nuclear weapons. The ratification of the START treaty is a small but important step toward this goal. It ensures that nuclear stability is maintained and lays the groundwork for future negotiations with Russia, paving the way for deeper cuts in the U.S. nuclear arsenal. While the START treaty has been called a modest treaty, the implications of its failure would have been anything but and would have caused dangerous upheaval in the post-Cold War nuclear order.

Morning Quote: President Obama on Signing DADT Repeal Act

       White House Photo, Chuck Kennedy

At the signing ceremony for the DADT Repeal Act this morning, President Obama:

We are not a nation that says ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ We are a nation that says ‘out of many, we are one.’ We are a nation that welcomes the service of every patriot. We are a nation that believes all men and women are created equal. Those are the ideals that generations have fought for. Those are the ideals we uphold today.

Would this have happened under a Republican president? Not in a million years.

RELATED:

• Full Transcript - President Obama's Remarks on Signing DADT Repeal Act

• VIDEO

UPDATE: It appears that the military is prepared to quickly move forward on the certifications. From Huffington Post:

Although several military service chiefs expressed opposition to repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell, President Obama has spoken to them since the measure passed, and they are all ready to move forward expeditiously on implementing and certifying the changes.

"The President called every single service chief separately, talked to them, and they are all about moving this forward very quickly," said a White House official who helped lead the president's DADT repeal effort. "They're soldiers; they understand this is the law of the land, and they're going to get this done. They went through a process that was beyond repute to show we can do this, and I think you'll see a very, very fast process."

In a press conference on Wednesday, Obama reiterated that point, saying they "all said that we are going to implement this smartly and swiftly, and they are confident that it will not have an effect on our military effectiveness."

 

 

Morning Quote: Rachel Maddow on DADT Repeal

Rachel Maddow’s comments to MSNBC News after the Senates vote on DADT repeal:

This is the president’s victory. This is something about which the President took a lot of criticism, a lot of abuse. Um, a lot of skepticism from his otherwise most loyal supporters on this. But this is an issue on which the President did not waver. He continually insisted that this was possible, that it would get done. It in fact was not possible for the President to do this through executive action. This is something that had to happen legislatively if it was really going to happen in a definitive way. The President did not waver. He did work on the Senate to make this happen. He insisted that it was possible against a lot of people, including me, saying it was not possible. This is a difficult promise kept. It's not just a promise kept. It was one that was hard to keep, that cost a lot of political capital, and a lot of work, and this is the President's victory today, and his base will reward him for it. [emphasis mine]

Very classy comment from Ms. Maddow.

Watch:

 

Quote of the Week

President Obama, in his statement after  the Senate voted to repeal DADT:

It is time to recognize that sacrifice, valor and integrity are no more defined by sexual orientation than they are by race or gender, religion or creed.

Well said sir. Well said.

It's DONE! Senate Votes for Repeal of DADT

Finally. And due to President Obama’s refusal to take the easy way which would have likely resulted in the reinstatement of DADT during the next Republican administration. From Think Progress:

Moments ago, in a vote of 63-33 the Senate invoked cloture on a bill to repeal the 17-year-old Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, paving the way for final passage in the coming days hours. The House passed the measure on Wednesday.

Democrats delivered eloquent speeches in support of open service. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) said, “I’m here because men and women wearing the uniform of the United States who are gay and lesbian have died for this country, because gay and lesbian men and women wearing the uniform of this country have their lives on the line right now in Afghanistan and Iraq and other places for this country.” Immediately before the vote, Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT), who has been the strongest advocate of repeal in the Senate, urged his colleagues to repeal the ban, saying “We’ve come to a point in our history, I hope, where neither race nor religion, ethnicity, or gender, or sexual orientation should deprive Americans of serving the country as the patriots they are.”

Morning Quote: Chris Weigant on Obama’s Change in Style

Chris Weigant on the difference between Obama's leadership style during the health care reform debates, and his leadership style now:

The White House was criticized (by me, as well as others) during the endless healthcare reform negotiation, for not putting some skin in the game. Obama and the West Wing folks seemed content to sit back and let congressional Democrats have all the time in the world to (quite publicly) have a fight among themselves. The White House never took control of the process at all, instead remaining content to nudge Congress every so often with bland “Gosh, we’d sure like to see some progress” sorts of statements, or vague “goals” issued with no specifics attached. The process took forever, as Democrats haggled among themselves almost endlessly.

Now compare what just happened. At the start of the lame duck Congress, Republicans were presenting a unified front. Democrats, as usual, couldn’t even agree on a single plan in their own caucus. Two competing plans emerged (actually more emerged, but two made it to the top of the heap). Nancy Pelosi got the House to pass one of these fairly quickly, and then (reportedly) the White House pushed hard on Harry Reid to hold a vote on the top two plans in the Senate, as a “test vote.” Both of these only managed to get 53 votes — they couldn’t even get all the Senate Democrats to support either one of them.

After showing they didn’t have nearly enough votes in the Senate, and facing an absolute brick wall from Republicans, the White House sat down and (fairly quickly) hashed out a final deal with the Republicans. Congressional Democrats didn’t even enter in the equation, if truth be told.

Which is my point. This deal was worked out in almost exactly the opposite fashion that Obama has been operating for a long time. Instead of deferring to Democrats in Congress — in the hopes that they will get their act together, in some period of time less than “forever” — Obama led the negotiations. These negotiations were carried out with remarkably few leaks, and a deal was struck which is actually a lot better than was rumored just hours before it was announced. The conventional wisdom floating around inside the Beltway was that Obama was going to get a short extension of unemployment benefits, and not much more. But the plan announced was far more sweeping, meaning perhaps the White House negotiators are better than people generally think they are. Obama got a lot more than anyone was willing to give him credit for beforehand, and he did get some concessions from the Republicans in doing so — which nobody really expected. (Boldface mine)

Via Osborne Ink

Quote of the Week: Krauthammer on the Firebaggers & Obama

On Bill O’Reilly’s show on Tuesday, an unlikely source, in the form of Charles Krauthammer, pushed back on the “professional left” [Firebaggers], and said that Obama won the tax cut deal, just like it was an historic achievement that he got Obamacare passed, in spite of the bitter disappointment voiced by the Firebagger crowd. He also said that the “professional left” misunderstands” both Obama, and the magnitude of his achievements. I agree.

I think that this “professional left” misunderstands the president and what he's achieved in the same way that they totally underestimated and misunderstood his achievement in passing Obamacare, which from the point of view of the left, I think is historic.

Look, in the deal with McConnell over the tax cuts, Obama won. He just got the Republicans to agree to a near trillion dollar, 900 billion dollar stimulus. A second stimulus, all of it paid by Chinese money we borrow. None of it will be paid for, blowing a huge hole in the debt. And he did this with out even calling it a stimulus. And he does this, this is gonna  be 900 billion, almost all in tax cuts, some of it in unemployment benefits, which will be dispensed over the next 2 years, which just happen to be the 2 years in the run-up to Obama's reelection.

You gonna call that a defeat?

Senate Passes the Food Safety Bill

From The New York Times:

WASHINGTON — The Senate on Tuesday passed a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s food-safety system, after recalls of tainted eggs, peanut butter and spinach that sickened thousands and led major food makers to join consumer advocates in demanding stronger government oversight.

The legislation, which passed by a vote of 73 to 25, would greatly strengthen the Food and Drug Administration, an agency that in recent decades focused more on policing medical products than ensuring the safety of foods. The bill is intended to get the government to crack down on unsafe foods before they harm people rather than after outbreaks occur.

The bill passed by a vote of 73-25, with all 56 Democrats and 15 Republicans voting in favor, 25 Republicans voting no, and 2 Republicans who didn’t vote. You can view the full roll call vote here.

Adding....yet another legislative victory for the Kenyan Muslim Socialists Obama and the Democrats!

Via Bob Cesca

TRANSCRIPT: Obama's Speech at the Gen44 Summit in Washington

A soaring speech. This is the man I voted for. You can watch the full video here .

---

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

October 01, 2010

Remarks by the President at DNC Gen44 Event

DAR Constitution Hall, Washington, D.C.

September 30, 2010

9:12 P.M. EDT

 

THE PRESIDENT:  Hello, DC!  (Applause.)  Thank you!  Thank you!  (Applause.)  Thank you, DC!  Thank you so much.  (Applause.)  I'm fired up!  (Applause.)  Thank you. 

 

Let me, first of all, thank one of the finest DNC chairmen we've ever had -- Tim Kaine -- please give it up for him.  (Applause.)  Tim Kaine -- I want to just point this out.  Tim Kaine supported me -- he was the first statewide elected official outside of Illinois to endorse my candidacy for President.  (Applause.)  That's the kind of person -- he supported me when nobody could pronounce my name.  (Laughter.)  There was nothing in it for him, except he thought it was the right thing to do.  And that's the kind of leader that you remember.  (Applause.) 

 

I know you heard from David Plouffe -- (applause) -- my former campaign manager and great friend of mine.  And I understand B.o.B was in the house.  (Applause.)  I will not do my version of Airplane.  (Laughter.) 

 

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  We love you!

 

THE PRESIDENT:  I love you back.  (Applause.)

 

It is good to see this crowd so fired up.  (Applause.)  I need you to be fired up.  I need you to stay fired up.  (Applause.)  All the way to November 2nd.  All the way to November 2nd.  Because November 2nd is going to say a lot about your future -– a lot about your individual futures but also about the future of our country. 

President Obama's Stimulus Act Created 3.3 Million Jobs

Yes, where the economy is concerned, I am looking at the glass as half full [emphasis added]. Via The Washington Post:

President Obama's much-maligned economic stimulus package added as many as 3.3 million jobs to the economy during the second quarter of this year, and may have prevented the nation from lapsing back into recession, according to a report released Tuesday by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.

In its latest quarterly assessment of the act, the CBO said the stimulus lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.7 and 1.8 percentage points during the quarter ending in June and increased the number of people employed by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million. The higher figure would come close to making good on Obama's pledge that the act would save or create as many as 3.5 million jobs by the end of this year.

The CBO said the act also increased the nation's gross domestic product by between 1.7 percent and 4.5 percent in the second quarter, indicating that the stimulus may have been the primary source of growth in the U.S. economy.

Time for another stimulus, the Republican house-burner-downers be damned.

ht Bob Cesca

Obama Achievements

A new website went online yesterday.

Determined to change the media narrative to finally include the good works of this administration, a group of Twitter users got together under Shoq’s leadership and compiled a list of the achievements and promises of the Obama administration, with documented links to every item. It will be updated on an ongoing basis, as this President accumulates more successes and lasting reforms.

We’re proud of what this Congress and this Administration has done to put our country back on solid footing. There is still much to be done, but there are well over 400 significant documented achievements here already, and many more to come over the next two years of this very formidable administration.

Crowd-sourced, headed up by a couple of Top Progs, including Karoli, of CrooksandLiars.com, it documents the impressive achievements of the Obama Administration thus far. Check it out, volunteer to help, and/or share it with everyone you know.

Obama Announces an End to the War in Iraq, and Fulfills Another Promise

Are you paying attention, whiners? 

Yes he did.

Nearly eight years after he denounced what he called a “dumb war” in Iraq and nearly two years after he won the White House promising to end it, President Obama marked the formal conclusion of the combat mission in a country still finding its way in a new era.

As a candidate for president, I pledged to bring the war in Iraq to a responsible end,” Mr. Obama told a convention of Disabled American Veterans in Atlanta on Monday. “Shortly after taking office, I announced our new strategy for Iraq and for a transition to full Iraqi responsibility. And I made it clear that by August 31, 2010, America’s combat mission in Iraq would end. And that is exactly what we are doing — as promised and on schedule. [.....]

Despite the intense, and often unearned, criticism President Obama has received from some on the left, there is no doubt that Barack Obama is a very formidable President, as you will see when you view the compilation of his accomplishments to date.

Talking Points: A President who gets things done

This needs to be repeated, over and over, between now and November, as part of our mantra. Stuart Shapiro:

Earlier this week, Congress passed financial reform which will be signed by President Obama in the days ahead.  As Sheryl Gay Stolberg notes in the New York Times, this marks the third economy-wide statute that has been passed in a year and a half under Obama.

The financial regulatory bill is the final piece of a legislative hat trick that also included the stimulus bill and the landmark new health care law. Over the last 18 months, Mr. Obama and the Democratic Congress have made considerable inroads in passing what could be the most ambitious agenda in decades.

In a mere one-and-a-half years, Obama has pushed through Congress bills more far-reaching than any President since Nixon.  If he stopped now, his policy legacy would be the largest overall since Reagan and the largest domestically since Nixon or Johnson.

Hammer them with it.

Obama administration may create more jobs this year alone, than Bush did during his 8 years in office

There’s a GOP meme going round The Twitter concerned with who created more jobs……..Bush or Obama. As if. Hope this helps to clear it up. Via Think Progress:

While Steele is “almost confident” that Bush created jobs, the facts disagree. As the Wall Street Journal noted in the last month of Bush’s term — in an article that Burnett references on air while fact checking Steele — Bush’s job data “shows the worst track record for job creation since the government began keeping records.” A paltry 1 million jobs were created under Bush; that’s “a fraction of the 23 million jobs created under President Bill Clinton’s administration.” Even President Carter — who conservatives love to cite as the paragon of poor economic management, and who only served one term — created 10.5 million jobs. That’s more than three times as many jobs as Bush, in half as much time. More jobs may be created under Obama in this year alone than in Bush’s eight.

The Journal article doesn’t even account for the jobs lost after it was published due to Bush’s economic policy, and before President Obama’s began to take effect, as this chart demonstrates:

Someone tell me, please. Is it a requirement to be a liar in order to become a member of the GOP?

Historians rank Obama above Reagan

In spite of all the issues he has been confronted with, in spite of Republican obstructionism, and in spite of the fact that Obama is less than half-way through his first term,  historians rank President Obama among those they consider to be the best presidents.

Barack Obama’s presidency has been marked with historic milestones and various awards–including the one and only Nobel Peace Prize. Now, a survey by presidential scholars ranks Obama as the 15th best president the country has seen. Obama’s approval rating yesterday, when the study was released? Ironically, 45 percent strongly disapproved of the way he is performing his role as president.

Siena College’s research institute ranked Obama just below Bill Clinton (#13), but ahead of Ronald Reagan (#18). George W. Bush, however, was on the other end of the spectrum at number 39. He scored above the likes of Warren G. Harding and Andrew Johnson.

The top spot? Not surprisingly, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

It will be interesting to review his ranking at the end of his terms in office.