By Chris Jordan
November 5, 2009

Last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid surprised political observers everywhere with his announcement that the Senate’s health-reform bill would include a public-insurance option.

Despite polls showing strong public support for the proposal, TV pundits declared the public option dead due to a lack of support among moderate democrats.

Why would these democrats be so antsy about an idea that was backed by strong majority of voters? Insurance companies have been fighting the public option tooth-and-nail and have been lining the pockets of politicians in the process.

Take for example, Sen. Max Baucus, chairman of the Finance Committee. He almost single-handedly killed the public option when his influential committee passed a bill replacing it with weaker “co-ops.” Not surprisingly, he has received almost $500,000 in campaign contributions from insurance and other health industry lobbyists and their clients.

Baucus may well be a totally honest guy who simply ignores these hundreds of thousands of dollars when deciding how to vote. It’s possible.

But examples like this help explain Congress’ recent approval rating of 21 percent. While giant corporations shell out millions in lobbying and campaign contributions, average citizens feel ignored. Congressmen and -women, in order to win re-election, spend enormous amounts of time raising money when that time should be spent at town halls getting input from the people they represent.

In order to end special interest dominance of our political process, it’s time Americans consider public financing of federal campaigns.

No existing reform laws have changed the fundamental reality that politicians rely on big donors and spend far too much time raising funds for the next election. One practical solution is the optional Clean Elections system being used in Maine and Arizona.

Under this system, candidates who gather a sufficient number of small contributions from citizens in their district qualify for a grant of public funds to run their campaign. Instead of spending months building connections among wealthy donors, candidates seeking office must go directly to the voters at a grassroots level for support in order to secure funding for their campaigns.

Clean Elections means election outcomes will be increasingly determined by the appeal of a candidate’s message, rather than how much money he or she is able to raise.

One persistent challenge to these sorts of public finance systems has been the Supreme Court. It has ruled that private donations amount to political speech protected by the First Amendment and that “rescue money” provisions are unconstitutional.

Regardless, it’s still possible to set up a public system that is so attractive an option to candidates that it effectively eliminates the incentive for private funding.

Clean Elections has proved to be a successful alternative funding method in Arizona. In 2008, 65 percent of candidates in the state ran as “clean” candidates. While cheaters have occasionally been able to game the system, some tweaks here and there should overcome the issue.

Following the example of Arizona and making improvements over time, Americans should embrace the Clean Elections model as superior to one dominated by the wealthy and special interest groups. Public financing offers great hope of diluting the influence of money in politics and making politicians more connected to their constituents.

Reach columnist Chris Jordan at opinion@dailyuw.com.

By DAVID M. HALBFINGER and IAN URBINA

Republicans swept contests for governor in New Jersey and Virginia on Tuesday as voters went to the polls filled with economic uncertainty, dealing President Obama a setback and building momentum for a Republican comeback attempt in next year’s midterm Congressional elections.

But in a closely watched Congressional race in upstate New York, a Democrat who received a late push from the White House triumphed over a conservative candidate who attracted national backers ranging from Rush Limbaugh to Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor.

In New Jersey, a former federal prosecutor, Christopher J. Christie, became the first Republican to win statewide in 12 years by vowing to attack the state’s fiscal problems with the same aggressiveness he used to lock up corrupt politicians.

He overcame a huge Democratic voter advantage and a relentless barrage of negative commercials to defeat Jon S. Corzine, an unpopular incumbent who outspent him by more than two to one and drew heavily on political help from the White House, including three visits to the state from President Obama.

“We are in a crisis; the times are extraordinarily difficult, but I stand here tonight full of hope for the future,” said Mr. Christie, 47, who will become New Jersey’s 55th governor. “Tomorrow begins the task of fixing a broken state.”

Mr. Corzine, 62, who entered politics a decade ago after a career at Goldman Sachs, conceded at 10:55 p.m. “It has been quite a journey,” he said. “There’s a bright future ahead for New Jersey if we stay focused on people’s lives, and I’m telling you, I’m going to do that for the rest of my life.”

With 98 percent of precincts reporting, Mr. Christie had 49 percent of the vote, Mr. Corzine 44 percent.

In Virginia, where Mr. Obama was the first Democratic presidential nominee to carry the state since 1964, Robert F. McDonnell, a Republican and former state attorney general, rolled to victory over R. Creigh Deeds, a veteran state senator.

With 99 percent of precincts reporting, Mr. McDonnell had 59 percent and Mr. Deeds 41 percent. Mr. McDonnell’s victory, along with Republican victories in the races for attorney general and lieutenant governor, ended eight years of Democratic control in Richmond.

In New York’s 23rd Congressional District, Douglas L. Hoffman, a little known accountant running on the Conservative Party line, conceded after midnight to his Democratic rival, Bill Owens, after driving a moderate Republican from the race.

The three races marked the first major elections since the country plunged into the worst recession in decades, and basic economic issues — job losses, foreclosures, taxes — were front and center.

In Virginia, Mr. McDonnell, avoided divisive social issues, concentrating instead on his plans to create jobs, improve the economy and fix the state’s transportation problems.

In New Jersey, Mr. Christie held Mr. Corzine, a onetime Goldman Sachs chief executive, accountable for rising unemployment, persistent budget deficits, and his failure to gain control over skyrocketing property taxes, the nation’s highest. Voters embraced Mr. Christie even though he offered little detail about how he would fix the state’s chronic financial problems and instead appealed to voters hungry for change.

Voters in both states remained strongly supportive of President Obama, exit polls conducted by Edison Research showed, though they said that was not a factor in their decisions. But independent voters, who in New Jersey favored the president in 2008 and in Virginia split between Mr. Obama and John McCain, delivered strong margins for both Mr. Christie and Mr. McDonnell, the surveys showed.

In New Jersey, a sprawling corruption case begun by Mr. Christie, which culminated in July with the arrests of dozens of politicians and others, appeared to have taken its toll on the Democratic get-out-the-vote machinery. In Hudson County, a party bastion where a number of Democratic officials were charged, only 39 percent of registered voters cast their ballots, county officials said.

The races in New Jersey, Virginia and New York attracted intense interest because they provided the first test of President Obama’s ability to transfer the excitement he unleashed last year to other Democratic candidates.

The White House, to varying degrees, became involved in all three races, worried that defeats would undermine the public’s perceptions of the president’s political clout and his ability to pass major legislation.

With polls of the Virginia race showing Mr. Deeds falling further behind, the White House refrained from an all-out effort on his behalf, though Mr. Obama campaigned with Mr. Deeds twice.

In New York, however, the president’s aides played a pivotal role in helping Mr. Owens over the weekend, engineering a surprise endorsement from the moderate Republican who had abandoned the race under pressure from conservatives.

And in New Jersey, the White House took a firm hand in guiding Mr. Corzine’s re-election campaign, culminating in rallies featuring the president campaigning with the governor in Newark and Camden on Sunday.

The victor in Virginia, Mr. McDonnell, 55, is a social and fiscal conservative, but ran on a more moderate platform that appealed to voters in the suburbs in Fairfax County, where he was raised. By contrast, Mr. Deeds, 51, had a difficult time introducing himself to densely populated Northern Virginia.

Mr. Deeds sought to portray Mr. McDonnell as a radical conservative by publicizing his 20-year-old master’s thesis, which criticized working women and single mothers. But polls showed voters found Mr. Deeds’s commercials too negative.

The New York race emerged in the national spotlight after President Obama appointed the district’s long-serving congressman, John M. McHugh, a Republican, as secretary of the Army. Almost immediately after local Republican leaders chose Dede Scozzafava, a supporter of gay rights and abortion rights who embraced the federal stimulus package, she came under attack by conservatives as heretical.

Leading conservative voices lined up behind Mr. Hoffman, of Lake Placid, and opponents of same-sex marriage and abortion flooded the district with volunteers from across the country.

In the final days of the campaign, Ms. Scozzafava stunned her party by withdrawing from the race and then backing Mr. Owens. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. traveled to Watertown on Monday to rally Democrats and disgruntled Republicans, but the event drew only about 200 people.

In New Jersey, Mr. Christie attacked Mr. Corzine’s economic leadership, saying he had driven jobs and residents from the state. The governor countered that Mr. Christie offered no viable plan for digging New Jersey out of its enormous financial hole.

Christopher J. Daggett, a former state and federal environmental official, made a splash with a plan to cut property taxes and a strong debate performance, but was hobbled by weak fund-raising. After reaching 20 percent in one public-opinion poll, he failed to break out of the double digits.

New Jersey was a deep-blue state, and Mr. Obama’s election boosted Democratic registration, giving the party a 700,000-vote advantage. Mr. Corzine assailed Mr. Christie, who was named United States attorney by President George W. Bush in 2001, as a philosophical clone of Mr. Bush.

The White House, viewing New Jersey as its best hope for victory, poured resources into the race. The president’s pollster overhauled the campaign’s message, White House aides reviewed Corzine commercials and attended strategy sessions, and cabinet officials lined up to appear at Mr. Corzine’s side.

But Mr. Corzine’s abiding unpopularity — his highest approval rating followed his 2007 car accident and was chalked up to pity — suggested that even “Obama surge” voters who voted for the first time last year could not tilt the outcome in the governor’s favor.

No issue loomed larger in New Jersey than the economy, which Mr. Corzine assured residents in January ranked as his No. 1, 2 and 3 priorities. But Mr. Christie never wavered from a simple strategy: making the vote a referendum on Mr. Corzine and highlighting how his supposed Wall Street financial skills had been a bust for the state.

David Kocieniewski and Nate Schweber contributed reporting.

By DAVID W. CHEN and MICHAEL BARBARO

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg pulled out a narrow re-election victory on Tuesday, as voters angry over his maneuver to undo the city’s term limits law and his extravagant campaign spending provided an unexpected lift to his vastly underfinanced challenger, William C. Thompson Jr.

Unofficial returns showed Mr. Bloomberg with 51 percent and Mr. Thompson with 46 percent. The result will make Mr. Bloomberg only the fourth three-term mayor in the last century.

“Conventional wisdom says historically third terms haven’t been too successful,” the mayor told supporters at the Sheraton New York Hotel in Midtown Manhattan around midnight after a tense night of watching returns. “But we’ve spent the last eight years defying conventional wisdom.”

Still, the margin seemed to startle Mr. Bloomberg’s aides and the city’s political establishment, which had predicted a blowout. Published polls in the days leading up to the election suggested that the mayor would win by as many as 18 percentage points; four years ago, he cruised to re-election with a 20 percent margin.

The billionaire mayor had poured $90 million of his own fortune into the race, a sum without equal in the history of municipal politics that gave him a 14-to-1 advantage in campaign spending.

But the turnout appeared to be on track to be among the lowest in modern New York history as the mayor’s vaunted campaign machinery failed to deliver the surge of supporters his aides had predicted.

“Everybody was shocked,” a Bloomberg aide said.

Mr. Bloomberg had based his third-term campaign largely on the argument that the city has been better run since he ushered in an era of corporate efficiency and nonpartisan leadership at City Hall. He also pointed to his accomplishments in education, crime reduction and public health.

But voters from Park Slope in Brooklyn to Morrisania in the Bronx seemed torn.

While they praised his competence and intelligence, many were put off by what they saw as Mr. Bloomberg’s heavy-handed move to rewrite the law that would have limited him to two consecutive terms, saying it was obviously self-serving. The mayor had previously opposed any undoing of term limits, which voters had approved twice.

“The main reason I didn’t vote for Bloomberg was the term limits,” said Katherine Krase, a 34-year-old professor, voting at her local school in Park Slope.

At the same school, Gerni Oster, 34, said: “I think that Mayor Bloomberg is too egotistical and arrogant for me to vote for at this point.”

Exit polls indicated that 45 percent of voters said that Mr. Bloomberg’s handling of term limits was a factor in their decision not to vote for him, and roughly the same number said the mayor’s spending on the race was an important factor. Nearly 7 of 10 approved of his job performance.

Bill de Blasio and John C. Liu, both Democrats, were elected public advocate and comptroller, respectively.

The results in the mayor’s race are likely to be personally bruising to Mr. Bloomberg, a man of no small ego who told the public last fall that his financial acumen made him uniquely qualified to pull the city out of a deep economic funk.

Already, Democrats seemed emboldened by the outcome.

“We learned tonight that people do not forget easily,” said Representative Anthony D. Weiner, the Queens Democrat who considered, but then decided against, challenging the mayor. “A lot of people, whether they said it to pollsters or not, were offended by the term limits fight.”

And, addressing a crowd at the New York Hilton in Midtown, Mr. Thompson sounded like a man who was planning another campaign.

“The work we started during this campaign doesn’t end tonight, in fact, it’s just beginning,” he said.

Even those who backed the mayor seemed to do so reluctantly.

Stav Brinbaum, 37, a Web producer from Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, described his own vote for the mayor as “unfortunate.”

“I feel he bought himself the election,” Mr. Brinbaum said, and “ran a smear campaign against a nonexistent opponent.” But, he added, “He’s doing a really good job.”

“If there were somebody stronger running against him, I would have happily voted for them,” said Paul Ranson, 56, a designer also from Prospect Heights. “But there’s not, so I unhappily voted for Bloomberg.”

Mr. Bloomberg’s campaign managers prided themselves on the their communications strategy, which flooded mailboxes, e-mail inboxes and television screens.

But for some on the receiving end, it was just too much. Ken Ficara, 40, a Web developer from the same neighborhood, remained undecided until the day before the election, when he received six automated telephone calls from the Bloomberg campaign.

He updated his Facebook page, writing: “Mike, the more you call me, the less likely I am to vote for you.”

Still, according to exit polls, Mr. Bloomberg tapped into his historic sources of strength: Staten Island and Queens backed him by comfortable margins, as did Jews, white Catholics and those earning more than $200,000.

Mr. Thompson did best in the Bronx, and ran even with Mr. Bloomberg among voters aged 18 to 29.

Though he drew 46 percent of the vote, residents expressed striking unfamiliarity with him, even after a yearlong campaign.

The son a prominent judge, and a product of the Brooklyn Democratic machine, Mr. Thompson seemed to run a conventional municipal campaign designed for a previous decade, and rarely radiated political hunger. Those who backed the mayor pointed to the qualities that first won them over eight years ago, as he moved from the financial services empire he founded, Bloomberg L.P., to elective office: independence from campaign donors and a no-nonsense management style.

“I thing he’s doing a good job,” Luke Geissbuhler, 39, a cinematographer in Prospect Heights in Brooklyn, said. “It gives me great comfort that he’s less prone to be corrupt by way of his wealth.”

A little more than a year ago, the mayoral field was crowded with ambitious Democrats from City Hall to Congress. But once Mr. Bloomberg engineered the bid to overturn term limits, only Mr. Thompson remained, and for that act of political grit, he earned admiration, though not much public support, from the Democratic establishment.

Yet Mr. Thompson struggled to raise money, pulling in less than $6 million, and failed to communicate his central critique of the mayor: That Mr. Bloomberg had circumvented the will of the voters, who twice approved term limits, and ignored the welfare of working-class New Yorkers, favoring his wealthy friends and developers.

But Mr. Bloomberg was often more adept at framing the debate. He put Mr. Thompson on the defensive early on, challenging his record at the Board of Education and at the comptroller’s office. But what some voters seemed to really remember from the campaign was his spending; the mayor poured some $15,000 an hour into the race in the final months.

“The Yankees buy pennants and we buy mayoralties,” said Mr. Ficara, the Web developer from Prospect Heights.

Reporting was contributed by Flora Fair, Joel Stonington, Mathew R. Warren and Karen Zraick.

by Cal Thomas
The Spokesman-Review

Does the U.S. Constitution stand for anything in an era of government excess? Can that founding document, which is supposed to restrain the power and reach of a centralized federal government, slow down the juggernaut of czars, health insurance overhaul and anything else this administration and Congress wish to do that is not in the Constitution?

The Framers created a limited government, thus ensuring individuals would have the opportunity to become all that their talents and persistence would allow. The Left has put aside the original Constitution in favor of a “living document” that they believe allows them to do whatever they want and demand more tax dollars with which to do it.

Can they be stopped? Some constitutional scholars think the Tenth Amendment offers the best opportunity. The Tenth Amendment states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

In 1939, the Supreme Court began to dilute constitutional language so that it became open to broader interpretation. Rob Natelson, professor of Constitutional Law and Legal History at the University of Montana, has written that even before Franklin Roosevelt’s court-packing scheme, it was changing the way the Constitution was interpreted, especially “how the commerce and taxing powers were turned upside-down, the necessary and proper clauses and incidental powers, the false claim that the Supreme Court is conservative, how bad precedent leads to more bad court rulings, state elections as critical for constitutional activists, and more.”

While during the past seven decades the court has tolerated the federal welfare state, Natelson says it has never, except in wartime, “authorized an expansion of the federal scope quite as large as what is being proposed now. And in recent years, both the Court and individual justices – even ‘liberal’ justices – have said repeatedly that there are boundaries beyond which Congress may not go.” … “Chief Justice John Marshall once wrote that if Congress were to use its legitimate powers as a ‘pretext’ for assuming an unauthorized power, ‘it would become the painful duty’ of the Court ‘to say that such an act was not the law of the land.’ ”

It would be nice to know now what those boundaries are and whether Congress is exceeding its powers as it prepares to alter one-sixth of our economy and change how we access health insurance and health care.

Natelson makes a fascinating argument in his essay, “Is ObamaCare Constitutional?” (www.tenthamend mentcenter.com/2009/08/18/is-obama care-constitutional), using the court’s Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973. In Roe, he writes, the court struck down state abortion laws that “intruded into the doctor-patient relationship. But the intrusion invalidated in Roe was insignificant compared to the massive intervention contemplated by schemes such as HB3200. ‘Global budgeting’ and ‘single-payer’ plans go even further, and seem clearly to violate the Supreme Court’s Substantive Due Process rules.”

Constitutional attorney John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, tells me, “Although the states surrendered many of their powers to the new federal government, they retained a residuary and inviolable sovereignty that is reflected throughout the Constitution’s text. The Framers rejected the concept of a central government that would act upon and through the states, and instead designed a system in which the state and federal governments would exercise concurrent authority over the people. The court’s jurisprudence makes clear that the federal government may not compel the states to enact or administer a federal regulatory program.”

Lawyers are busy writing language only they can understand that seeks to circumvent the intentions of the Founders. But it will be difficult to circumvent the last four words of the Tenth Amendment, which state unambiguously where ultimate power lies: “… or to the people.”

Americans who believe their government should not be a giant ATM, dispensing money and benefits to people who have not earned them, and who want their country returned to its founding principles, must now exercise that power before it is taken from them. The Tenth Amendment is one place to begin. The streets are another. It worked for the Left.

Cal Thomas is a columnist for Tribune Media Services.

Boehner says House version based on four principles
by David Lightman
McClatchy

WASHINGTON – Small businesses would have an easier time banding together to offer insurance to employees. Consumers could cross state lines to buy coverage. There’d be no big government expansion.

Those are among the ideas that Republicans in the House of Representatives plan to push later this week, as lawmakers expect to begin debating how to overhaul the nation’s health care system.

One longtime favorite Republican proposal apparently will be absent: The Republican plan will contain no tax incentives for consumers who buy insurance individually, said House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

“Cost,” he said, was the reason for the omission.

Chances are that little or none of the Republican plan will become law, since the House has 177 Republicans and 256 Democrats and Democrats control 60 of the Senate’s 100 seats.

The Republican strategy has two missions: Illustrate what the party stands for, and try to demonize and defeat Democratic initiatives.

House Democrats have proposed a 1,990-page bill that includes a government-run insurance plan, or “public option,” that would compete with private insurers. Savings in Medicare and a tax on the wealthy largely would pay for the legislation, which has been estimated to cost a net $894 billion over 10 years. The tax surcharge would apply to adjusted gross incomes of more than $500,000 for individuals and $1 million for joint filers.

Debate on that plan could begin late this week, with final votes late this week or early next week. The Republican plan would be offered as an alternative.

In the House, Republican leaders began mounting an offensive last week built around four key principles, as Boehner outlined Monday:

•Giving states more flexibility to “create their own innovative reforms.”

•Making it easier for employers, individuals and small businesses to set up risk pools.

Under one scenario, a small business that operates in different states could draw customers – and thus pool risks – from all states where it conducts business. Currently, such pools are subject to the rules and regulations of each state, which critics see as burdensome.

by Alison Boggs and Jim Camden
The Spokesman-Review

Voters seemed wary Tuesday of ballot measures that would cost them money or mandate too much more change.

Kootenai County voters shot down a pair of ballot measures would have increased the sales tax for 10 years to pay for a jail expansion and provide property tax relief.

In Washington, voters turned thumbs down to Initiative 1033, new spending limits on state, county and city governments that elected officials had said were so radical they’d wind up hamstringing services. Voters were narrowly passing Referendum 71, a measure to ratify expanded rights to domestic partnerships, but the final decision might not be known for days.

Spokane city voters were narrowly rejecting a new $33 million bond issue for city fire equipment and stations, but fire officials were trying to remain “cautiously optimistic” that they would gain enough votes in counts in the coming weeks.

There’s no such wait for a proposed change to Spokane’s City Charter: Voters soundly rejected a package of amendments that would have set new rules for wages, workplaces, neighborhood development and environmental protection.

Here’s a rundown of some of the top ballot measures:

Initiative 1033

This was the latest in a long line of attempts by Tim Eyman to put restrictions on government. It tried to attack the ability of the state, counties and cities to spend money, allowing their expenses to go up each year only by a formula that accounts for inflation and population growth. Any money collected above that level would be set aside, and returned the following year as rebates to property taxes.

It drew support from small business coalitions, many Republicans and the populist conservative Tea Party movement. It was blasted by government officials of both political parties in state and local jurisdictions as a dangerous formula in the midst of a recession.

Eyman seemed to acknowledge defeat before the first ballot results were in, e-mailing a copy of his statement to supporters that the campaign was “proud of all our heroic supporters” whatever happened, and listing previous victories at the ballot box. The measure failed decisively in Spokane, Whitman, Garfield and Asotin counties as well as those surrounding the Puget Sound.

Referendum 71

Social conservatives sought to block expanded legal protections for domestic partnerships that the Legislature approved last spring for same-sex couples and seniors who want to live together without getting married. Those rights were labeled “everything but marriage” in the legislation, but opponents said it essentially allows marriage for same-sex couples.

Approving the referendum meant allowing the law to go into effect, while rejecting the referendum rejected the changes.

Supporters of R-71 raised more than $2 million, which fueled a television ad blitz in the month before the election. Opponents of the measure, who had put it on the ballot, raised about $275,000, and concentrated on yard signs and mailings.

The measure was narrowly passing at press time, but sharply dividing the state. Most counties around the Puget Sound were approving the measure, while the remainder of the state’s counties were heavily rejecting it.

Spokane Proposition 4

Named the Community Bill of Rights by supporters, this proposal offered voters the chance to add nine amendments to the Spokane City Charter. It was drafted in a series of meetings sponsored by Envision Spokane with neighborhood groups, labor unions and environmental organizations, and fine tuned through town hall style meetings.

But the breadth of the amendments, which either had to be approved or rejected as a group, prompted criticism from city officials and business organizations. They said it could saddle the city with costs of guaranteeing health care or make businesses uncompetitive. Most of all, they said, it would spawn lawsuits because many of the concepts were untested.

It failed, nearly 3-to-1 in votes counted Tuesday.

“We think the voters of Spokane realized this is a bad idea,” Brian Murray, a campaign manager for one of the opposition groups, said Tuesday night. Spokane Mayor Mary Verner and business leaders have said they’d be willing to sit down with Envision Spokane to discuss other ways to accomplish some of their goals, he added.

But Brad Read of Envision Spokane said the outcome wasn’t surprising considering opponents heavily outspent them and used dire predictions like “Spokane would cease to exist” if the measure passed. Whether the group would accept an offer to discuss other ways to make changes is unclear, Read added, and there is some skepticism that opponents are willing to negotiate seriously.

Spokane Proposition 1

City voters were also asked to approve a $33 million bond issue for new fire engines, equipment and stations. The 10-year bond issue would cost a homeowner $27 for every $100,000 of assessed value of property; it’s designed to replace a bond issue passed in 1999, but raises the cost by about $10 per $100,000. It needed a 60 percent supermajority, and in Tuesday’s tally had collected only 58.6 percent.

Assistant Chief Brian Schaeffer said supporters hoped to close the gap in upcoming ballot counts. If that doesn’t work, the Fire Department will try again, but not before meeting with voters and asking them if the department should take a different direction.

by Valerie Bauman
Associated Press

ALBANY, N.Y. – In a Republican Party struggling to find its identity, the surprise withdrawal of the chosen GOP candidate for a New York congressional race – forced by a rising conservative upstart – renews a lingering national debate: Are moderates welcome in today’s Grand Old Party?

The question became even more relevant Sunday when the ex-candidate, state Assemblywoman Dierdre Scozzafava, threw her support behind the Democrat in the race rather than the Conservative Party candidate favored by fellow Republicans.

The GOP leadership insisted on Sunday political TV talk shows the party is strong and inclusive while Democrats described a Republican party out of touch with the people.

“We accept moderates in our party, and we want moderates in our party. We cover a wide range of Americans,” Republican House Leader John Boehner said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

But in New York’s rural 23rd Congressional District, the message was clear early: Scozzafava was too moderate; some even used the dreaded “L” word – liberal. Her endorsement of Democrat Bill Owens over Conservative Doug Hoffman only reinforced that perception – even her former campaign spokesman, Matt Burns, said it was a mistake and urged Republicans to back Hoffman.

During the campaign she failed to connect with voters, party officials or, perhaps most important, campaign donors, largely because of her support for abortion rights, same-sex marriage and union rights. That opened the door for Hoffman, who took every opportunity to remind people that Scozzafava was not the kind of Republican they wanted representing their interests in a Democratic-led Congress.

Scozzafava’s husband, local labor leader Ron McDougall, said his wife had been treated “harshly.”

Local races an indicator of voter attitudes
by Liz Sidoti
Associated Press

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama isn’t on the ballot. Neither are all members of Congress, nor most governors.

But to varying degrees, the outcome of a few disparate elections Tuesday could provide clues about how people – particularly independents, who typically determine a winner – feel about their country, their president and the party in power one year after Democrats won the White House.

The results also could provide important lessons for Democrats and Republicans a year before the first major electoral test of Obama’s strength: 2010, when there are 37 races for governor, at least 36 in the Senate and all 435 in the House.

This year, Virginia and New Jersey are choosing governors, voters in upstate New York and Northern California are deciding who should fill two vacant congressional seats, and New York City and Atlanta are picking mayors. Maine will vote on whether to permit gay marriage while Ohio will choose whether to allow casinos.

To be sure, these races are hardly bellwethers; people are voting on local issues and personalities. Most voters in Virginia and New Jersey, for example, say their like or dislike of Obama won’t drive their decision. Still, national forces such as the recession are having an effect.

This much is clear: Tuesday will give a picture of public attitudes in certain places and measure which party has energy on its side heading into a high-stakes election year. Some questions will be at least answered partially.

Here’s what to look for:
Obama’s coalition

The president in 2008 won by cobbling together new voters from traditional Democratic base demographics, particularly blacks, youth and Hispanics, along with disaffected Republicans and self-identified independents nationwide and in traditionally GOP-leaning states such as Virginia.

The unknown is whether those voters will stay with Democrats or turn out at all if Obama isn’t on the ballot.

Both embattled Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine in New Jersey and Democratic candidate R. Creigh Deeds in Virginia desperately need party loyalists and Obama 2008 voters to swamp the polls.

Obama went in big in both states, campaigning on the Democrats’ behalf and allowing his image to be used in TV ads for them, linking himself to their fate.

He didn’t really have a choice. The Democratic base would have chafed at the party standard-bearer turning his back on the rank and file, and Obama’s influence will be questioned regardless of whether Democrats win or lose the races.
Independents

Independents always have heft, but frustration across the country with both Republicans and Democrats is adding to it. How that anger manifests itself could signal anti-incumbent sentiment among a group that leaned left last year. Do independents stay home? Do they vote against the party in power?

Regardless, Democrats and Republicans almost certainly will have to revamp their strategies to ensure they’re attracting both independents and base voters next fall.

Virginia may offer the best measure of independent voters’ sentiments.

This longtime Republican stronghold has become a new swing state in presidential elections largely because of the swiftly growing far-flung suburbs outside Washington that are filled with independent-minded voters. Obama targeted such areas to become the first Democrat to win the state since 1964, and they will determine who wins Tuesday.

David G. Savage / Los Angeles Times September 10, 2009

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court’s conservative bloc sounded poised Wednesday to strike down on free speech grounds a 100-year-old ban against corporations spending large amounts of money to elect or defeat congressional and presidential candidates.

If the justices were to issue such a ruling in the next few months, it could reshape American politics, beginning with the congressional campaign in 2010. Big companies and industries – and possibly unions as well – could fund campaign ads to support or defeat members of Congress.

Since 1907, federal law has prohibited corporations from giving money to candidates. And since 1947, corporations and unions have been barred from spending money on their own to urge voters to elect or defeat federal candidates. Corporate executives, as individuals, can contribute money to a corporate political action committee or PAC, but these amounts are relatively modest compared to the funds available to the corporate treasury.
At least 24 states have similar bans on corporate spending in state races.
All those spending limits have come under growing legal attack from conservatives and libertarians who say the government should not be allowed to set limits on campaign spending and electioneering, even when corporate or union money is in play.

Three justices – Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas – have already said they would overrule past decisions that had upheld federal and state restrictions on corporate election spending. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito also have said they favor free speech over the campaign funding limits. But they have not yet said whether they would go along and give corporations a free speech right to spend on campaign ads.

That was the issue before the court Wednesday. It was a rare re-argument in a seemingly narrow case of a small nonprofit group called Citizens United. It had produced a video called “Hillary: The Movie,” which was designed to undercut Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 2008 campaign for the presidency. However, it got tied up in a legal battle with the Federal Election Commission.

Because Citizens United is incorporated and received a small amount of corporate money, the group and its movie came under FEC regulation. Any amount of corporate money can trigger regulatory action under the election laws.
In March, the justices debated whether the law should apply to a nonprofit group that produced a campaign-related video. But rather than decide that narrow question, the justices said in June they would focus instead on whether to say that all corporations, like individuals, have a right to spend freely to elect or defeat candidates.

Washington lawyer Ted Olson, the former solicitor general under President George W. Bush, pressed the justices to rule broadly. “Corporations are persons entitled to protection under the First Amendment,” said Olson, who represented Citizens United.

Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Russell Feingold, D-Wis., co-sponsors of the 2002 campaign funding law, were in the courtroom and listened intently to the 90-minute argument. The ruling could strike down part of the McCain-Feingold Act that restricted corporate and union-funded election ads in the months before the election.

The court will meet behind closed doors later this week to vote on the case. A decision could come within a few months.

by Froma Harrop
The Spokesman-Review

Social Security is a glossy piece of paper on which nearly every politician wants to finger-paint an agenda. But Social Security has no need of ornament. It is a very grown-up program. Put some other toy into the political playpen.

Come January, for the first time since 1975, Social Security payments will not be ratcheted upward for inflation. The reason is simple: no inflation.

But now President Barack Obama is pushing Congress to send every senior a $250 check to compensate for … for … for what? For the fact that some Social Security recipients expect a “raise” every year, whether or not it is warranted? They saw a 6 percent hike in their benefits last year. But that was not a “raise.” It was a cost-of-living adjustment to maintain (not increase) the buying power of their monthly checks.

If the president wants to hand out checks to stimulate the economy, why make them age-specific? Money sent to low-income people, whether young or old, would make far more sense. And the still better stimulus is government spending on roads and other worthy projects. That money gets shot right into the economy.

Sending an extra check to Social Security beneficiaries is also about pandering to older voters. But politicians should first ask themselves, “How many other Americans got 6 percent ‘raises’ last year?”

There is another proposal to cut payroll taxes. The plan is foolish and reckless – and has drawn bipartisan support. These taxes pay for Social Security and Medicare. Cutting payroll taxes puts those programs in jeopardy, which is why some liberal economists, such as Robert Reich, should hang their heads in shame for wanting to monkey with them.

On the right, meanwhile, there is growing affection for the idea. First off, many conservatives hold that cutting taxes solves all problems. (That did wonders for the deficit, didn’t it?) Secondly, fooling with payroll taxes could undermine the public’s faith in Social Security by lending ammo to the false charge that the program’s trust fund is all a fraud.

You see, the Social Security taxes now paid by workers and their employers support current beneficiaries. What’s left over goes into the trust fund to be tapped in future years, when a surge in retirees puts pressure on the program. It’s been a conservative talking point that the Social Security trust fund doesn’t exist; the government has spent the money.

Not quite. The Treasury bonds in the trust fund are real IOUs representing real money taken from real workers for more than 25 years. No matter what the federal government did with that borrowed money, it still has to pay it back.

Make the argument, if you must, that the Treasuries sitting in the trust fund’s file cabinets are not like the super-safe government securities traded around the world – that the Treasury doesn’t have to make good on them. The truth is that these special Treasury bonds are different, but they still cannot be defaulted upon without a vote by Congress.

So here’s an assignment for anyone who calls the trust fund’s Treasuries “worthless pieces of paper”: Find me one member of Congress, Republican or Democrat, who vows to vote against Washington’s promise to honor them. I’ll buy lunch.

According to the Social Security trustees’ latest report, payroll taxes will cover all of the retirees’ promised benefits until 2016. After that, the trust fund can make up for any shortfall until 2039. That is 30 years from now. We can worry about Social Security’s finances in 20 years.

You know what children with paint want to do with a clean sheet of paper? They want to mess it up. Social Security is a clean program. Let’s keep it that way.

Froma Harrop is a columnist for the Providence Journal.

By THOM SHANKER and MARK LANDLER

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia — Defense ministers from NATO on Friday endorsed the ambitious counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan proposed by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, giving new impetus to his recommendation to pour more troops into the eight-year-old war.

General McChrystal, the senior American and allied commander in Afghanistan, made an unannounced appearance here on Friday to brief the defense ministers on his strategic review of a war in which the American-led campaign has lost momentum to a tenacious Taliban insurgency.

“What we did today was to discuss General McChrystal’s overall assessment, his overall approach, and I have noted a broad support from all ministers of this overall counterinsurgency approach,” said NATO’s secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

The acceptance by NATO defense ministers of General McChrystal’s approach did not include a decision on new troops, and it was not clear that their judgment would translate into increased willingness by their governments, many of which have been seeking to reduce their military presence in Afghanistan, to contribute further forces to the war.

But it was another in a series of judgments that success there could not be achieved by a narrower effort that did not increase troop levels in Afghanistan substantially and focused more on capturing and killing terrorists linked to Al Qaeda — a counterterrorism strategy identified with Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

The NATO briefing, though held privately, thrusts General McChrystal back into the debate over what President Obama should do about Afghanistan — a role that has raised tensions between the general and the White House in the past, and even drawn a rebuke from his boss, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.

NATO’s support got no official reaction from the White House. But an administration official noted that an endorsement by defense ministers was not the same as an endorsement by the alliance’s political leadership. Other officials were emphatic that Mr. Obama would not be stampeded in his deliberations and suggested that the NATO statement should not be taken as evidence that the White House had made a decision about how to proceed.

“In no way, shape or form are the president’s options constrained,” said Richard C. Holbrooke, the administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, speaking to reporters at the State Department.

General McChrystal’s review calls for adopting a full-scale counterinsurgency strategy that would protect population centers and accelerate training of Afghan Army and police units — both of which would require significant numbers of fresh troops. NATO diplomats noted that it was difficult to see how an acceptance of this broad strategy could be viewed as anything but an endorsement of the need to increase both military and civilian contributions.

Mr. Gates, who has kept his views about additional troops close to his vest and has discouraged his commanders from lobbying too publicly for their positions, declined to be drawn out on this assessment.

“For this meeting, I am here mainly in listening mode,” Mr. Gates said in Bratislava after the NATO briefing, although he noted that “many allies spoke positively about General McChrystal’s assessment.”

Mr. Gates said the administration’s decision on Afghanistan was still two or three weeks away, and he cautioned that it was “vastly premature” to draw conclusions now about whether the president would deploy more troops. He said that allied defense ministers had not voiced concerns about the administration’s decision-making process.

Although NATO will not meet until next month to decide whether to commit more resources to Afghanistan, Mr. Gates did reveal that he had received indications that some allies were prepared to increase their contributions of civilian experts or troops, or both.

Britain and other NATO members have had their own fractious political debates over troop levels. A retired top general in Britain recently said that the government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown had rebuffed his requests for more troops, a charge Mr. Brown denied.

Separate from his strategic review, General McChrystal has submitted a request for forces, which is now working its way through both the American and NATO chains of command.

The options submitted by General McChrystal range to a maximum of 85,000 more troops, although his leading option calls for increasing forces by about 40,000, according to officials familiar with the proposal.

The pressure for more troops was a theme throughout the day at the NATO meeting, as other senior international representatives told defense ministers of the need to increase their commitments in order to succeed in Afghanistan.

The United Nations special representative for Afghanistan, Kai Eide, who also flew to the Slovakian capital to meet the ministers, stressed that “additional international troops are required.” He also told the allies, “This cannot be a U.S.-only enterprise.”

Mr. Eide acknowledged that it might be difficult to rally public support for force contributions while allegations of election fraud continued to taint the government of President Hamid Karzai.

Senior American military officers have already endorsed General McChrystal’s overall strategy, including Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. David H. Petraeus, the American commander in the Middle East.

Senior NATO officials made clear that additional commitments should go beyond combat forces to include trainers for the Afghan Army and police force, as well as civilians to help rebuild the economy and restore confidence in the government.

“What we need is a much broader strategy, which stabilizes the whole of Afghan society, and this is the essence in the recommendations presented by General McChrystal,” said Mr. Rasmussen, the NATO secretary general. “This won’t happen just because of a good plan. It will also need resources — people and money.”

General McChrystal was not scheduled to make any public comments here. The general’s reticence was not unexpected, as some administration officials have criticized his recent statements as an attempt to press the White House to act.

The general and his aides have denied they were playing politics. General McChrystal said in a recent interview that success required a unified, government-wide strategy.

NATO officials assessing the potential for allied troop contributions said that delicate negotiations were under way, and that NATO capitals were watching the Obama administration for signals even while they sent signals of their own.

Thom Shanker reported from Bratislava, and Mark Landler from Washington.

By MICHAEL BARBARO and DAVID W. CHEN

Michael R. Bloomberg, the Wall Street mogul whose fortune catapulted him into New York’s City Hall, has set another staggering financial record: He has now spent more of his own money than any other individual in United States history in the pursuit of public office.

Newly released campaign records show the mayor, as of Friday, had spent $85 million on his latest re-election campaign, and is on pace to spend between $110 million and $140 million before the election on Nov. 3.

That means Mr. Bloomberg, in his three bids for mayor, will have easily burned through more than $250 million — the equivalent of what Warner Brothers spent on the latest Harry Potter movie.

The sum easily surpasses what other titans of business have spent to seek state or federal office. New Jersey’s Jon S. Corzine has plunked down a total of $130 million in two races for governor and one for United States Senate. Steve Forbes poured $114 million into his two bids for president. And Ross Perot spent $65 million in his quest for the White House in 1992 and $10 million four years later.

“I have never seen anything like this — it’s off the charts,” said Jennifer A. Steen, a lecturer in political science at Yale who has studied self-financed candidates for the last decade. “He’s in a league of his own.”

Mr. Bloomberg has used his wealth, estimated at $16 billion, to establish what appears to be insurmountable financial dominance in the race.

He has spent at least 14 times what his Democratic rival in the race, William C. Thompson Jr., has: $6 million. A Thompson campaign spokeswoman on Friday called the mayor’s spending “obscene.”

Since late September, the pace of Mr. Bloomberg’s spending has drastically accelerated: He is now sending nearly $1 million a day into the city’s economy. The bulk of the money is devoted to advertising on television, radio and the Web, but much of it bankrol ls a first-class approach to parties, snacks and travel.

The campaign has spent $322,521 on food, $293,953 on transportation, $176,066 on furniture and $39,858 on parking.

His lavish spending has confounded political consultants and campaign finance experts, who said that his popularity with New Yorkers, and his built-in advantages as a two-term incumbent, should be sufficient to win him re-election. (Compare/Contrast this with The Doctrine of Sufficiency – Kautzman)

“The main thing money does is allow you to get name recognition,” said Meredith McGehee, policy director of the Campaign Legal Center, a watchdog group in Washington. “But in this case, with Bloomberg, because he’s so well known, it’s more like, he can do it, so why not?”

With more than 100 employees, his campaign now has a staff larger than 97 percent of all businesses in New York City. And his political operation has become a one-man economic stimulus program, buying $8,892 worth of pizza from Goodfellas Brick Oven Pizza on Staten Island and in the Bronx. The company had suffered a big drop in business since the start of the recession.

“It’s a huge help,” said Marc Cosentino, one of the owners of Goodfellas. “They don’t have to economize like everyone else.”

Squier Knapp Dunn, the media company responsible for the mayor’s television ads, has taken in $48,313,776. While most of that money pays for TV time, media companies typically receive fees of about 15 percent.

“A number of firms are practically living off of this,” said Steve Malanga, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

The spending has drawn howls of protest from good-government groups and advocates of campaign finance reform. In interviews, several said, angrily, that the mayor’s decisions to rewrite New York City’s term limits law and then spend wildly to secure re-election, have undermined democratic principles.

“Whether Bloomberg wins or loses, the toxic combination of mega-spending and crass use of his office to bypass the voters on term limits will always be a stain on his mayoralty,” said Gene Russianoff, staff attorney for the New York Public Interest Research Group.

“These twin assaults on municipal democracy will undermine his political clout in a third term and sadly fuel public skepticism about elections and elected officials,” Mr. Russianoff said.

A spokesman for Mr. Bloomberg’s campaign, Howard Wolfson, defended the spending, saying, “Voters in this race have a choice between one candidate who is independent and doesn’t take a dime from special interests and another who practices politics as usual.”

Mr. Thompson, a Democrat, has had the unenviable task of trying to raise money in the middle of a deep recession, when many voters already assume that Mr. Bloomberg will prevail. Their lack of enthusiasm for Mr. Thompson’s candidacy was reflected in his latest campaign finance disclosure, which showed he had raised $270,000 over the last three weeks.

While donations came in at a much brisker pace than in the previous three-week reporting period, when he raised $114,000, that is unlikely to make a dent in Mr. Bloomberg’s advantage. Factoring in public matching funds, Mr. Thompson will have $3 million in the final week and a half of the race.

“This is a clear indication that the momentum of the mayoral race continues to shift towards Bill Thompson,” said Mike Murphy, a spokesman for the Thompson campaign.

But Mr. Thompson’s fund-raising still badly trails that of the two last Democrats who lost to Mr. Bloomberg: the former public advocate, Mark Green, and Fernando Ferrer, the former Bronx borough president.

The newly released records show that Mr. Bloomberg is handsomely rewarding top aides who take leaves from their City Hall posts to join the campaign. His first deputy mayor, Patricia E. Harris, is earning about $28,000 a month. It is a healthy raise: At City Hall, she made about $21,000 a month.

The mayor also typically showers the aides with additional bonuses after Election Day.

All that money shows how far Mr. Bloomberg has come, wealth-wise. His campaign spending this year will nearly equal what his boyhood hometown of Medford, Mass., population 55,000, devotes to its annual budget.

by Charles Krauthammer
The Spokesman-Review

Rahm Emanuel once sent a dead fish to a live pollster.

Now he’s put a horse’s head in Roger Ailes’ bed.

Not very subtle. And not very smart. Ailes doesn’t scare easily.

The White House has declared war on Fox News. White House communications director Anita Dunn said that Fox is “opinion journalism masquerading as news.” Patting rival networks on the head for their authenticity (read: docility), senior adviser David Axelrod declared Fox “not really a news station.” And Chief of Staff Emanuel told (warned?) the other networks not to “be led (by) and following Fox.”

Meaning? If Fox runs a story critical of the administration – from exposing White House czar Van Jones as a loony Sept. 11 “truther” to exhaustively examining the mathematical chicanery and hidden loopholes in proposed health care legislation – the other news organizations should think twice before following the lead.

The signal to corporations is equally clear: You might have dealings with a federal behemoth that not only disburses more than $3 trillion every year but is extending its reach ever deeper into private industry – finance, autos, soon health care and energy. Think twice before you run an ad on Fox.

At first, there was little reaction from other media. Then on Thursday, the administration tried to make them complicit in an actual boycott of Fox. The Treasury Department made available Ken Feinberg, the executive pay czar, for interviews with the White House “pool” news organizations – except Fox. The other networks admirably refused, saying they would not interview Feinberg unless Fox was permitted to as well. The administration backed down.

This was an important defeat because there’s a principle at stake here. While government can and should debate and criticize opposition voices, the current White House goes beyond that. It wants to delegitimize any significant dissent. The objective is no secret. White House aides openly told Politico that they’re engaged in a deliberate campaign to marginalize and ostracize recalcitrants, from Fox to health insurers to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

There’s nothing illegal about such search-and-destroy tactics. Nor unconstitutional. But our politics are defined not just by limits of legality or constitutionality. We have norms, Madisonian norms.

Madison argued that the safety of a great republic, its defense against tyranny, requires the contest between factions or interests. His insight was to understand “the greater security afforded by a greater variety of parties.” They would help guarantee liberty by checking and balancing and restraining each other – and an otherwise imperious government.

Factions (political parties, interest groups etc. . . ) should compete, but also recognize the legitimacy of other factions and, indeed, their necessity for a vigorous self-regulating democracy. Seeking to deliberately undermine, delegitimize and destroy is not Madisonian. It is Nixonian.

But didn’t Teddy Roosevelt try to destroy the trusts? Of course, but what he took down was monopoly power that was extinguishing smaller independent competing interests. Fox News is no monopoly. It is a singular minority in a sea of liberal media. ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, NPR, CNN, MSNBC vs. Fox. The lineup is so unbalanced as to be comical – and that doesn’t even include the other commanding heights of the culture that are firmly, flagrantly liberal: Hollywood, the foundations, the universities, the elite newspapers.

Fox and its viewers (numbering more than CNN’s and MSNBC’s combined) need no defense. Defend Fox compared to whom? To CNN – which recently unleashed its fact-checkers on a “Saturday Night Live” skit mildly critical of President Barack Obama, but did no checking of a grotesquely racist remark CNN falsely attributed to Rush Limbaugh?

Defend Fox from whom? Fox’s flagship 6 o’clock evening news out of Washington (hosted by Bret Baier, formerly by Brit Hume) is, to my mind, the best hour of news on television. (Definitive evidence: My mother watches it even on the odd night when I’m not on.) Defend Fox from the likes of Anita Dunn? She’s been attacked for extolling Mao’s political philosophy in a speech at a high school graduation.

But the critics miss the surpassing stupidity of her larger point: She was invoking Mao as support and authority for her impassioned plea for individuality and trusting one’s own choices. Mao as champion of individuality? Mao, the greatest imposer of mass uniformity in modern history, creator of a slave society of a near-billion worker bees wearing Mao suits and waving the Little Red Book?

The White House communications director cannot be trusted to address high schoolers without uttering inanities. She and her cohorts are now to instruct the country on truth and objectivity?

Charles Krauthammer is a columnist for the Washington Post Writers Group. His e-mail address is letters@charleskrauthammer.com.

by Cal Thomas
The Spokesman-Review

“That’s just the way it is. Some things will never change …” (Bruce Hornsby song lyric)

The Washington Post headline sounds as if a comedy writer, or someone fluent in George Orwell’s “Newspeak” wrote it: “Record-High Deficit May Dash Big Plans,” it said.

As if a contributing factor to the projected record-high deficit of $1.4 trillion has nothing to do with big spending by this and previous administrations. Is there no end? Will we ever reach a limit where government says, “no more, we’ve done enough; you’re on your own now”? Apparently not. The “greatest generation” mostly lived within their means. They knew what it meant to go without all but essentials. Today, we think the sky is the limit when it comes to spending and that if we can conceive it, then we are entitled to it.

This is partly because of how dysfunctional Washington has become and partly due to our own sense of “what we are owed.” Government can spend, tax and do whatever it wishes. If you oppose what it does, you are a selfish, greedy, rich elitist who cares nothing about people less fortunate than yourself. But wait. Did we have fewer poor people before government stepped in to “cure” poverty? Do we have fewer now? We aren’t sure if the war in Afghanistan can be won, but we know the war on poverty was lost. Once, the prospect of an empty stomach motivated most people to get up and start chasing opportunity. Today, people can do whatever they want and government will bail them out with a welfare check (for the poor) or a corporate welfare check (for the rich). Bad decisions? No problem. Failure is no longer an option.

Thomas, you are such a racist and an uncaring person. You’ve been lucky and should have to pony up for the less fortunate.

How about showing the “less fortunate” the way to become fortunate? Does anyone hear a politician in either party encouraging people to do for themselves, instead of relying on government? And that goes for big corporations, too.

People who play by the rules, stay in school, refuse to take drugs, marry before having children, and stay married, are no longer considered worthy role models by government, which has no intention of making them the norm. These norms have disappeared in a cloud of diversity and political correctness. Government now proposes to transform health insurance and tax responsible citizens at increased rates to pay for the votes, uh, benefits of others who are more content to take slices of other people’s pies rather than learn to bake their own.

If you have been an honest businessperson and give money to your church and charities to help others who want to succeed but are having difficulty doing so through no fault of their own, that no longer matters. In fact, government proposes to reduce the deductibility of your charitable giving because government sees itself as more capable of charity than you.

That’s what the Obama administration’s proposal to send a $250 check to every senior citizen is about. Seniors won’t get a cost of living adjustment in their Social Security checks next year because the cost of living hasn’t gone up. But because seniors have become accustomed to an annual raise, the president apparently thinks by giving it to them anyway, he can buy their support for health care legislation that is not in their interest.

Washington’s attitude toward those who make right decisions for themselves so as not to become a burden to government seems to be, “Good for you, but because you made all those right decisions (‘right’ being a relative term, so the government will say they were right FOR YOU), we will penalize your decisions and your success and take the money you earned and give it to others who didn’t earn it because we want their votes so we can preserve our political careers.”

“Well they passed a law in ’64,

To give those who ain’t got a little more,

But it only goes so far.”

For government, it’s never far enough.

Cal Thomas is a columnist for Tribune Media Services.
Get more news and information at Spokesman.com

CLEAR MAJORITY NOW BACKS PLAN
Americans still divided on overall packages

By Dan Balz and Jon Cohen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 20, 2009

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that support for a government-run health-care plan to compete with private insurers has rebounded from its summertime lows and wins clear majority support from the public.

Americans remain sharply divided about the overall packages moving closer to votes in Congress and President Obama’s leadership on the issue, reflecting the partisan battle that has raged for months over the administration’s top legislative priority. But sizable majorities back two key and controversial provisions: both the so-called public option and a new mandate that would require all Americans to carry health insurance.

Independents and senior citizens, two groups crucial to the debate, have warmed to the idea of a public option, and are particularly supportive if it would be administered by the states and limited to those without access to affordable private coverage.

But in a sign of the fragile coalition politics that influence the negotiations in Congress, Obama’s approval ratings on health-care reform are slipping among his fellow Democrats even as they are solidifying among independents and seniors. Among Democrats, strong approval of his handling of the issue has dropped 15 percentage points since mid-September.

These numbers underscore the challenges ahead for the president and Democratic leaders in Congress as they attempt to maintain support among liberals and moderates in their own party while continuing to win over at least a few Republican lawmakers.

Overall, 45 percent of Americans favor the broad outlines of the proposals now moving in Congress, while 48 percent are opposed, about the same division that existed in August, at the height of angry town hall meetings over health-care reform. Seven in 10 Democrats back the plan, while almost nine in 10 Republicans oppose it. Independents divide 52 percent against, 42 percent in favor of the legislation.

There are also deep splits in the new poll over whether the proposed changes would go too far or not far enough in expanding coverage and controlling costs. Twice as many see the plan as leaning toward too much government involvement, but since last month there has been a nine-point increase in the number who say government should be more involved.

On the issue that has been perhaps the most pronounced flash point in the national debate, 57 percent of all Americans now favor a public insurance option, while 40 percent oppose it. Support has risen since mid-August, when a bare majority, 52 percent, said they favored it. (In a June Post-ABC poll, support was 62 percent.)

If a public plan were run by the states and available only to those who lack affordable private options, support for it jumps to 76 percent. Under those circumstances, even a majority of Republicans, 56 percent, would be in favor of it, about double their level of support without such a limitation.

Fifty-six percent of those polled back a provision mandating that all Americans buy insurance, either through their employers or on their own or through Medicare or Medicaid. That number rises to 71 percent if the government were to provide subsidies for many lower-income Americans to help them buy coverage. With those qualifiers, a majority of Republicans say they support the mandate.
The public option

Faced with a basic choice that soon may confront the administration and Democratic congressional leaders, a slim majority of Americans, 51 percent, would prefer a plan that included some form of government insurance for people who cannot get affordable private coverage even if it had no GOP support in Congress. Thirty-seven percent would rather have a bipartisan plan that did not feature a public option. Republicans and Democrats are on opposite sides of this question, while independents prefer a bill that includes a public option but does not have Republican support, by 52 percent to 35 percent.

But if there is clear majority support for the public option and the mandate, there is broad opposition to one of the major mechanisms proposed to pay for the bill. The Senate Finance Committee suggested taxing the most costly private insurance plans to help offset the costs of extending coverage to millions more people. Sixty-one percent oppose the idea, while 35 percent favor it.

Nearly seven in 10 say they think that any health-care measure would increase the federal budget deficit, a possible concern for Obama. But nearly half of those who see the legislation as growing the deficit also say the increase would be “worth it.”

Concerns about the implications for Medicare continue to cloud the debate. More than twice as many Americans (43 percent to 18 percent) say they think the legislation would weaken Medicare. Despite the dip in opposition to a health-care overhaul among seniors, most, 51 percent, still think reform would hurt the popular program.

Overall, 57 percent approve of the way Obama is handling his job as president and 40 percent disapprove. While those numbers have moved only marginally over the past few months, here, too, are fresh signs of restiveness among the party faithful: “Strong approval” among liberal Democrats is down 16 percentage points over the past month.

On the economy, 50 percent approve of Obama’s efforts, while 48 percent disapprove.

The president receives better marks from all Americans for his handling of international affairs and his performance as commander in chief (57 percent approval on each). Slim majorities also approve of how he is dealing the situation with Iran and his winning of the Nobel Peace Prize. A majority disapprove of his work on the federal budget deficit.
Partisan divide

Despite those mixed reviews on domestic priorities, Obama continues to hold a big political advantage over Republicans.

Poll respondents are evenly divided when asked whether they have confidence in Obama to make the right decisions for the country’s future, but just 19 percent express confidence in the Republicans in Congress to do so. Even among Republicans, only 40 percent express confidence in the GOP congressional leadership to make good choices.

Only 20 percent of adults identify themselves as Republicans, little changed in recent months, but still the lowest single number in Post-ABC polls since 1983. Political independents continue to make up the largest group, at 42 percent of respondents; 33 percent call themselves Democrats.

The wide gap in partisan leanings and the lack of confidence in the GOP carries into early assessments of the November 2010 midterm elections: Fifty-one percent say they would back the Democratic candidate in their congressional district if the elections were held now, while 39 percent would vote for the Republican. Independents split 45 percent for the Democrat, 41 percent for the Republican.

The poll was conducted by conventional and cellular telephone from Oct. 15 to 19 among a random sample of 1,004 adults. The margin of sampling error for the full poll is plus or minus three percentage points.

By Michael Scherer

There was never a single moment when White House staff decided the major media outlets were falling down on the job. There were instead several such moments.

For press secretary Robert Gibbs, the realization came in early September, when the New York Times ran a front-page story about the bubbling parental outrage over President Obama’s plan to address schoolchildren — even though the benign contents of the speech were not yet public. “You had to be like, ‘Wait a minute,’” says Gibbs. “This thing has become a three-ring circus.” (See who’s who in Barack Obama’s White House.)

For deputy communications director Dan Pfeiffer, the more hyperbolic attacks on health-care reform this summer, which were often covered as a “controversy,” flipped an internal switch. “When you are having a debate about whether or not you want to kill people’s grandmother,” he explains, “the normal rules of engagement don’t apply.”

And for his boss, Anita Dunn, the aha moment came when the Washington Post ran a second op-ed from a Republican politician decrying the “32″ alleged czars appointed by the Obama Administration. Nine of those so-called czars, it turned out, were subject to Senate confirmation, making them decidedly unlike the Russian monarchs. “The idea — that the Washington Post didn’t even question it,” Dunn says, still marveling at the decision. (Read Mark Halperin’s grades for the Obama Administration.)

All the criticism, both fair and misleading, took a toll, regularly knocking the White House off message. So a new White House strategy has emerged: rather than just giving reporters ammunition to “fact-check” Obama’s many critics, the White House decided it would become a player, issuing biting attacks on those pundits, politicians and outlets that make what the White House believes to be misleading or simply false claims, like the assertion that health-care reform would establish new “sex clinics” in schools. Obama, fresh from his vacation on Martha’s Vineyard, cheered on the effort, telling his aides he wanted to “call ‘em out.”

The take-no-prisoners turn has come as a surprise to some in the press, considering the largely favorable coverage that candidate Obama received last fall and given the President’s vows to lower the rhetorical temperature in Washington and not pay attention to cable hyperbole. Instead, the White House blog now issues regular denunciations of the Administration’s critics, including a recent post that announced “Fox lies” and suggested that the cable network was unpatriotic for criticizing Obama’s 2016 Olympics effort.

White House officials offer no apologies. “The best analogy is probably baseball,” says Gibbs. “The only way to get somebody to stop crowding the plate is to throw a fastball at them. They move.”

The general in this war is Dunn, 51, a veteran campaign strategist who arrived at the White House in May. She has been a force in Democratic campaigns since the late 1980s and helmed Obama’s rapid-response operation during his run. At the White House, she has become a devoted consumer of conservative-media reports and a fierce critic of Fox News, leading the Administration’s effort to block officials, including Obama, from appearing on the network. “It’s opinion journalism masquerading as news,” Dunn says. “They are boosting their audience. But that doesn’t mean we are going to sit back.” Fox News’s head of news, Michael Clemente, counters that the White House criticism unfairly conflates the network’s reporters and its pundits, like Glenn Beck, whom he likens to “the op-ed page of a newspaper.”

As a mother — who plans to transition to a new job later this year in order to spend more time with her 13-year-old son — Dunn is a rarity in the almost all-boys club that is Obama’s inner circle. But her impact on the White House has been unmistakable. Since her arrival, the communications operation has been tightly refocused, with greater emphasis on planning ahead to shape the news cycle and controlling staff contacts with the press. In daily internal meetings, she points out where to strike back or admit error.

It is not hard to awaken her fiercer instincts. “Here in the White House, you are reluctant to feel like you have to go to that place,” she says. “But we have to be more aggressive rather than just sit back and defend ourselves, because they will say anything. They will take any small thing and distort it.” In other words, after eight months at the White House, the days of nonpartisan harmony are long gone — it’s Us against Them. And the Obama Administration is playing to win.

Read a brief history of presidents and the press – see below:

Brief History: Presidents and the Press
By Randy James

Barack Obama: The inescapable president. From Good Morning America to televised town-hall meetings, ESPN to Men’s Health, the leader of the free world misses few chances for free publicity. In his first six months in office, Obama gave three times as many interviews as either of his two immediate predecessors, according to the White House Transition Project. He’s already held more prime-time news conferences than George W. Bush did in eight years.

Presidents weren’t always so eager to meet the press. Thomas Jefferson had little use for the ink-stained wretches, believing newspapers offered “the caricatures of disaffected minds.” During Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency, reporters were forced to remain outside the White House gates, until Teddy took pity on them during a rainstorm (the voluble T.R. would later enjoy bantering with scribes while getting a shave). Many Presidents required the press to submit questions in writing and barred them from printing direct quotations; access was so limited the New York Times’s Arthur Krock won a Pulitzer for scoring a sit-down with FDR. Advances in technology have compelled recent leaders to engage with the media more often, albeit reluctantly. Dwight Eisenhower was the first to allow TV cameras into his press conferences; live telecasts, with all their pomp, began with JFK.

The press has only expanded since then, but savvy White House media teams now seize on tactics to reach voters directly. George W. Bush spoke before backdrops bearing the day’s message (like STRENGTHENING OUR SCHOOLS or the notorious MISSION ACCOMPLISHED). And on Sept. 21, Obama becomes the first sitting President to grace David Letterman’s couch–a day after he hits the Sunday-morning news shows. On five networks.

By CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON — Representative Earl Blumenauer should be experiencing the most fulfilling days of his more than 35 years in public service.

The liberal Democrat from Portland, Ore. — known for his bowties, his Trek bicycle and a pragmatic brand of progressivism — embraced Barack Obama’s presidential candidacy early in 2008 and campaigned hard alongside him, steadily gaining confidence that the young senator from Illinois was the ideal liberal remedy to eight years of conservative dominance.

Now political reality has set in, testing Mr. Blumenauer’s faith that Mr. Obama’s election and big Democratic majorities in Congress would yield quick advances in the progressive agenda.

Instead of forging ahead, Mr. Blumenauer, 61, finds himself fighting to retain one of the touchstones for liberals this year, a public insurance option in the health care overhaul, and is watching his hopes of curbing global warming grow cold in the Senate. Mr. Blumenauer, a seven-term congressman, is bracing for a tough vote on sending more troops to Afghanistan while he frets about the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay remaining open.

“It has been a hard landing for a lot of the people that I represent,” Mr. Blumenauer, referring to his largely liberal constituency, said as he assessed the first months of the Obama administration.

As health care legislation moves to the floor with other major issues close behind, the question for Mr. Blumenauer and those who share his ideology will be whether they relent on some of their core beliefs to support less satisfying compromises, despite being in what, on the surface, is a commanding political position.

“It is still something that I am struggling with,” he said.

Mr. Blumenauer is just one example of what might be called the Frustrated Left, a substantial caucus of Congressional Democrats who dreamed that Mr. Obama would usher in a new era of liberal problem-solving only to see Congress and the new administration collide with the old problems of partisanship, internal disagreement and the challenge of mustering 60 votes to get just about anything done in the Senate.

While Congressional leaders try to appease moderate and conservative Democrats who can provide the crucial votes for passage, more liberal Democrats from safer districts sometimes simmer, feeling that they are being taken for granted while it is assumed they will get on board when the time comes.

On health care, Democrats are growing more optimistic that they can find a compromise approach to creating a government-run insurer to compete with the private sector — an issue that as much as any other has split the party’s liberals and moderates — even as progressive voices outside of Congress insist that there be no compromise.

“The fact is that Earl Blumenauer could stop a bill going through that does not have a public option in it,” said Jane Hamsher, founder of the progressive blog firedoglake.com. “Is it his loyalty to the party, partisan politics over principle? We are going to get to see that.”

Mr. Blumenauer strongly favors a public option and in late July was one of more than 60 Democrats who signed a letter to the leadership saying that, essentially, they would not back a final bill without an acceptable public plan. But on health care — as on other domestic issues, global warming and foreign policy — he must weigh whether it makes more sense to take what he can get as opposed to standing firm and perhaps seeing the overall effort collapse.

“It would be very hard for me to do,” Mr. Blumenauer said of voting for a final health care overhaul without a public plan. “But if it gets to the point where the choice is doing some things that will make a significant difference without a public option or letting the whole thing die, that too would be hard.”

Mr. Blumenauer got on board early with Mr. Obama after concluding that he offered the chance for a more decisive change in course than Hillary Rodham Clinton could provide. He first met Mr. Obama at the 2004 Democratic convention in Boston and endorsed him in late January 2008.

“There was something going on here, this guy has got some real capacity being able to, I think, connect, communicate,” remembered Mr. Blumenauer.

Mr. Obama won Oregon and Mr. Blumenauer’s district going away, setting sky-high expectations among his followers in the Pacific Northwest.

Mr. Blumenauer, a member of the tax-writing and climate change committees with a devotion to trying to improve the livability of American cities, said he did not think Mr. Obama had shifted his ideological stance since his election and did not blame the president for the problems slowing the liberal agenda. He said he saw a combination of factors — the troubled economy, the sheer scope of the nation’s problems and an unexpected level of Republican opposition — as the culprits.

“The combination of the economic shock and frankly the political upset and outrage has changed the landscape,” Mr. Blumenauer said. “The Barack Obama that I campaigned with is pretty much the same guy. But it is an environment that is unprecedented and would press anyone’s skills.”

Back home, Mr. Blumenauer said his constituents had shown patience with the pace of things, partly, he suggested, because they were so disenchanted with the Bush administration.

Activists and pollsters in Oregon said that they agreed but that the patience of Mr. Blumenauer’s liberal base was not unlimited.

“I think people realize you can’t do everything precisely all at once,” said Steve Novick, a Democratic advocate in Portland who lost a Senate bid in 2008.

Senator Ron Wyden, whose move to the Senate opened up the House seat for Mr. Blumenauer in 1996, said Oregon residents grasped the complexity of the problems facing the country. “Look at what is coming at us: Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran,” he said. “There is a sense that there is going to be a lot of heavy lifting, but people want to stay at it until it happens.”

Even with his frustrations, Mr. Blumenauer said that having a Democratic administration had paid tangible benefits. The secretaries of the housing and transportation departments have visited Portland, and he recently hosted Lisa P. Jackson, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, in his office. “They want to be a partner on the cleanup rather than ignoring it,” he said, referring to environmental cleanup projects in his state.

And though some of his preferred legislative approaches might be stalled or fall victim to compromise, Mr. Blumenauer said he believed that Mr. Obama and the Democratic majorities in Congress would ultimately be successful in advancing a liberal agenda on the major issues.

“We are going to be working on climate, on health care, on the economy for every minute of the next two Congresses and beyond,” he said. “Will the public be patient enough? Will the political process hold together?

“This is not going to be easy,” he said, “but I think we are seeing a process that makes me actually optimistic, even though it is not exactly like I would have liked.”

by Charles Krauthammer

About the only thing more comical than Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize was the reaction of those who deemed the award “premature,” as if the brilliance of Obama’s foreign policy is so self-evident and its success so assured that if only the Norway Five had waited a few years, his Nobel worthiness would have been universally acknowledged.

To believe this, you have to be a dreamy adolescent (preferably Scandinavian and a member of the Socialist International) or an indiscriminate imbiber of White House talking points. After all, this was precisely the spin on the president’s various apology tours through Europe and the Middle East: National self-denigration – excuse me, outreach and understanding – is not meant to yield immediate results; it simply plants the seeds of good feeling from which foreign policy successes shall come.

Chauncey Gardiner could not have said it better. Well, at nine months, let’s review.

What’s come from Obama holding his tongue while Iranian demonstrators were being shot and from his recognizing the legitimacy of a thug regime illegitimately returned to power in a fraudulent election? Iran cracks down even more mercilessly on the opposition and races ahead with its nuclear program.

What’s come from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton taking human rights off the table on a visit to China and from Obama’s shameful refusal to see the Dalai Lama (a postponement, we are told). China hasn’t moved an inch on North Korea, Iran or human rights. Indeed it’s pushing with Russia to dethrone the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

What’s come from the new-respect-for-Muslims Cairo speech and the unprecedented pressure on Israel for a total settlement freeze? “The settlement push backfired,” reports the Washington Post, and Arab-Israeli peace prospects have “arguably regressed.”

And what’s come from Obama’s single most dramatic foreign policy stroke – the sudden abrogation of missile defense arrangements with Poland and the Czech Republic that Russia had virulently opposed? For the East Europeans it was a crushing blow, a gratuitous restoration of Russian influence over a region that thought it had regained independence under American protection.

But maybe not gratuitous. Surely we got something in return for selling out our friends. Some brilliant secret trade-off to get strong Russian support for stopping Iran from going nuclear before it’s too late?

Just wait and see, said administration officials, who then gleefully played up an oblique statement by President Dmitry Medvedev a week later as vindication of the missile defense betrayal.

The Russian statement was so equivocal that such a claim seemed a ridiculous stretch at the time. Well, Clinton went to Moscow this week to nail down the deal. What did she get?

“Russia Not Budging On Iran Sanctions: Clinton Unable to Sway Counterpart.” Such was the Washington Post headline’s succinct summary of the debacle.

Note how thoroughly Clinton was rebuffed. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared that “threats, sanctions and threats of pressure” are “counterproductive.” Note: It’s not just sanctions that are worse than useless, but even the threat of mere pressure.

It gets worse. Having failed to get any movement from the Russians, Clinton herself moved – to accommodate the Russian position! Sanctions? What sanctions? “We are not at that point yet,” she averred. “That is not a conclusion we have reached … it is our preference that Iran work with the international community.”

But wait a minute. Didn’t Obama say in July that Iran had to show compliance by the G-20 summit in late September? And when that deadline passed, did he not then warn Iran that it would face “sanctions that have bite” and that it would have to take “a new course or face consequences”?

Gone with the wind. It’s the U.S. that’s now retreating from its already flimsy position of just three weeks ago. We’re not doing sanctions now, you see. We’re back to engagement. Just as the Russians suggest.

Henry Kissinger once said that the main job of Anatoly Dobrynin, the perennial Soviet ambassador to Washington, was to tell the Kremlin leadership that whenever they received a proposal from the United States that appeared disadvantageous to the United States, not to assume it was a trick.

No need for a Dobrynin today. The Russian leadership, hardly believing its luck, needs no interpreter to understand that when the Obama team clownishly rushes in bearing gifts and “reset” buttons, there is nothing ulterior, diabolical, clever or even serious behind it. It is amateurishness, wrapped in naiveté, inside credulity. In short, the very stuff of Nobels.

Charles Krauthammer is a columnist for the Washington Post Writers Group. His e-mail address is letters@ charleskrauthammer.com.

By Chris Jordan
October 14, 2009

“Tell me, Jimmy — what has Obama accomplished to deserve the Nobel Peace Prize? Heck — if he’s qualified, I think I could win it next year!”

Even if your name isn’t Jimmy, you’ve probably heard a version of this argument from friends, family or classmates in the wake of the president’s Nobel victory last Friday.

I agree with the skeptics (including the president himself), who say that Obama has probably not accomplished enough to deserve the prize. It is, however, ridiculous to claim that he’s “accomplished nothing,” or that he has not made great progress on major issues.

Before we start the Jimmy Carter comparisons, let’s not forget the guy is barely a sixth of the way through his first term. And before we judge success, let’s not forget the horrible mess that the last guy left for him to clean up.

Even in the most turbulent region on earth, the Middle East, the new president has made some important strides.

The administration is currently embroiled in an internal debate over the strategy in Afghanistan, with many of Obama’s key advisors split in their policy prescriptions.

The president has rightfully expressed concern over “mission creep,” the gradual shifting of objectives during a military campaign that often results in unwanted, long-term commitments. He’s also stated that the new strategy will focus on winning over civilians and the general population, a move that contributed to the success of the surge in Iraq.

Regardless of whether the Afghanistan strategy shift means more or less troops, we’ve gone from a “shock and awe” approach to genuine recognition that defeating extremists means more than simply killing all the terrorists you can hunt down. It means winning over the people and thus the source of future recruits.

Despite John McCain’s campaign warning that Obama’s Iran approach would be “naïve” and “dangerous,” talks between U.S. and Iranian diplomats began several weeks ago for the first time in 30 years. Aided by the recent revelation of Iran’s secret nuclear facility and strong internal opposition to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, those talks are already beginning to bear fruit.

This is only a first step, and we should be alert that what Iran says and what Iran does might be two entirely different things.

But we’ve gone from merely shouting at Iran and threatening them to engaging in serious diplomatic talks that are, so far, getting results.

And the United States is finally realizing the importance of Pakistan as well. We have been spending $30 in Afghanistan for every $1 we spend in Pakistan, even though the latter has nuclear weapons and is the believed hiding spot of Al-Qaeda.

Congress just recently passed, and the president will soon sign, the Kerry-Lugar Bill, which increases annual economic aid to Pakistan significantly. This bill is an acknowledgment of the strategic centrality of Pakistan and the importance of undercutting conditions, such as poverty, upon which extremism thrives.

The conditional strings attached to this money have caused somewhat of a backlash in Pakistan. Despite the rough public relations rollout, this bill is a strategic step in the right direction for the United States.

We’ve gone from a Pakistan policy focused entirely on former President Musharraf to one that actually invests in the nation’s people and institutions and ties future aid to conditional goals.

So has Obama ended the violence and brought stability to Afghanistan? Has he prevented Iran from getting a nuclear weapon? Has he established a cooperative relationship with Pakistan? Not yet. But he is taking the necessary steps to move us closer to these goals.

Clearly, saving the world takes time.

If nothing else, perhaps every time the president glances up at that Nobel Prize hanging on the wall, he’ll be reminded of the hope so many have placed in him and find some additional will to rise to the challenge.

Reach columnist Chris Jordan at opinion@dailyuw.com.

By ROBERT PEAR and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

WASHINGTON — After months of relentless courting and suspense, Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine, cast her vote with Democrats on Tuesday as the Senate Finance Committee approved legislation to remake the health care system and provide coverage to millions of the uninsured.

With Ms. Snowe’s support, the committee backed the $829 billion measure on a vote of 14 to 9, with all the other Republicans opposed.

“Is this bill all that I would want?” Ms. Snowe said. “Far from it. Is it all that it can be? No. But when history calls, history calls. And I happen to think that the consequences of inaction dictate the urgency of Congress to take every opportunity to demonstrate its capacity to solve the monumental issues of our time.”

Ms. Snowe’s remarks silenced the packed committee room, riveted colleagues and thrilled the White House. President Obama had sought her vote, hoping that she would break with Republican leaders and provide at least a veneer of bipartisanship to the bill, which he has declared his top domestic priority.

Mr. Obama, speaking in the Rose Garden, described the committee’s action as “a critical milestone” and declared, “We are now closer than ever before to passing health reform.” But he added: “Now is not the time to pat ourselves on the back. Now is not the time to offer ourselves congratulations. Now is the time to dig in and work even harder to get this done.”

With its vote Tuesday, the Finance Committee became the fifth — and final — Congressional panel to approve a sweeping health care bill. The action will now move to the floors of the House and the Senate, where the health care measures still face significant hurdles.

Aside from Ms. Snowe, no Republicans in Congress have publicly endorsed the bills in their current form. And Republican leaders are strongly opposed, saying the bills cost too much, raise taxes, cut Medicare and dangerously expand federal power.

Pressure from lobbyists is sure to grow in the coming weeks. And many more lawmakers will get involved in what promise to be impassioned and highly politicized debates in the Senate and the House.

After the Finance Committee vote, the chief architect of the bill, Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana and chairman of the committee, declared: “It’s clear that health care reform will pass this year. Our action today provides terrific momentum.”

Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Finance Committee, said the bill put the nation on “a slippery slope toward more and more government control of health care.”

Ms. Snowe helped write the Finance Committee bill, in months of bipartisan negotiations, but had not committed to vote for it. She said Tuesday that she shared many of her Republican colleagues’ reservations about the legislation, and pointedly warned Democrats that they could lose her support later in the legislative process.

“My vote today is my vote today,” she said. “It doesn’t forecast what my vote will be tomorrow.” And she observed, “There are many, many miles to go in this legislative journey.”

Ms. Snowe gave no clue how she would vote in the first few hours of committee deliberations Tuesday and she did not alert the White House to her plans.

While colleagues spoke, she kept her head buried in papers, fidgeted and spoke occasionally with aides. When Mr. Baucus stepped over to speak to her, a small army of photographers snapped pictures, with cameras clicking like a chorus of chirping crickets.

The Congressional Budget Office said the bill would cost $829 billion over 10 years. The costs include $345 billion for the expansion of Medicaid and $461 billion for subsidies to help lower-income people buy insurance.

The budget office said the costs would be completely offset by new fees and taxes and by cutbacks in Medicare, so federal budget deficits in the next 10 years would be $81 billion lower than now projected.

But Douglas W. Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office, said his agency had not estimated the impact of the bill on overall national health spending, public and private, and could not say whether it would “bend the cost curve,” as Mr. Obama and lawmakers want.

Likewise, Mr. Elmendorf said he did not know for sure how the bill would affect premiums.

Several senators said they would fight for changes on the Senate floor.

Liberal Democrats, like Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, said they would push for a public insurance plan. Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Robert Menendez of New Jersey, both Democrats, said they would seek changes to make insurance more affordable to middle-income families. And Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts said he wanted to require employers to provide insurance to their employees.

The bill does not include such an employer mandate. But employers with more than 50 workers would have to reimburse the government for some or all of the cost of federal subsidies provided to employees who buy insurance on their own.

Ms. Snowe said she liked the Finance Committee bill because it would prohibit insurance companies from discriminating against people on account of health status or sex and would create a network of insurance exchanges where individuals, families and small businesses could shop for coverage, with subsidies from the federal government.

At the same time, Ms. Snowe said she shared Republican “concerns about vast governmental bureaucracies and governmental intrusions.” That, she said, is why she had opposed amendments to create a government insurance plan and would continue to do so.

Ms. Snowe said she was open to a compromise under which a public plan could be “triggered” in states where people could not otherwise find affordable insurance. She said her “paramount concern” was that insurance might be too expensive for some people, even with government subsidies.

The Congressional Budget Office said the Finance Committee bill would provide coverage to 29 million people, but still leave 25 million uninsured in 2019. Of those left uncovered, about a third would be illegal immigrants.

David Stout contributed reporting.

by Cal Thomas

“War will continue until the end …” (Daniel 9:26)

Like the Pulitzer Prize for journalism, along with the Oscar and Emmy for film and television, the Nobel Peace Prize is an inside job in which liberal, wishful-thinking humanists give awards to each other.

For all I care, the Nobel Committee could have given their useless (except for the money) prize to Homer Simpson. Like President Barack Obama, Homer has done nothing to earn it, though he may be the only character who has been on TV more than the president.

According to the Web site www.globalsecurity.org, there are currently “42 active conflicts and/or wars in the world today.” Not all are shooting wars at the moment and there are several civil wars and conflicts between Israel and various terrorist groups, but 42 wars is a lot of war.

Peace generally occurs when aggressive evil is defeated, which is why Germany and Japan no longer war with the United States. The Nobel Committee apparently believes that by diplomatically singing “All we are saying is give peace a chance,” evil people will study war no more and be so impressed by our intentions they will lay down their arms.

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could win the Nobel Peace Prize in an instant if he announced his god had told him not to eradicate Israel, or usher in Armageddon. But Ahmadinejad won’t, because he is evil and must be defeated. Neither will he respond to negotiations or sanctions. Same with Osama bin Laden. The United Nations would welcome him as a speaker and the Nobel Committee would award him their top prize if he would announce he no longer believes in terrorism and has become a follower of the Dalai Lama or some other “acceptable” pseudo-deity. He also will do no such thing because he is evil and must be defeated.

The Nobel Committee believes George W. Bush is evil, but apparently not bin Laden or Ahmadinejad. It cringes at leaders who wish to overcome evil by force rather than have the forces of evil overcome them. The Nobel Committee hates Israel, too. And this is because its members, and like-minded male wimps around the world, idolize Michael J. Fox instead of John Wayne and find their role models in the liberal ladies of “The View,” not in muscular characters like Jack Bauer (and Chloe, who gets it) on “24.”

The peace prize concept is flawed because the problem of war does not lie with those who would make peace, but with those who would make war. If the Nobel Committee were realistic, it would stop handing out peace prizes and start issuing awards for those who have confronted evil and produced peace in nations that have only known oppression. Candidates for such prizes would include Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II, who conspired to liberate Europe from the totalitarian hand of Soviet communism.

Bill Clinton would also be a legitimate candidate for his efforts that stabilized Bosnia. He could take some small credit for the peace in Northern Ireland, which, though worked on for decades, was finally brokered on his watch. President Obama was right when he acknowledged that he doesn’t deserve the prize. Neither did Yasser Arafat, Henry Kissinger, Le Duc Tho or Al Gore.

The question should be: Why, despite man’s best efforts, including the League of Nations and United Nations, have we been unsuccessful in eradicating war? The answer lies in this ancient wisdom: “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” (James 4:1-3)

That’s why a peace prize is meaningless.

Cal Thomas is a columnist for Tribune Media Services.

President tells gay rights group he supports them
by Michael D. Shear, Anne E. Kornblut And Ed O’Keefe / Washington Post

Associated Press

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama, struggling to keep promises he made during last year’s campaign, pledged to continue fighting on behalf of gays and lesbians – including ending the military’s ban on openly gay service members – as he appeared at a fundraising dinner for the nation’s largest gay advocacy group Saturday night.

“I will end ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ ” Obama said at the Human Rights Campaign dinner. Recounting the ongoing effort to bring full civil rights to gays and lesbians, the president said: “I’m here with a simple message: I’m here with you in that fight.”

Obama did not offer specifics on how he would advance the cause of allowing gays to serve openly in the military, or of gay marriage, two areas where his inaction as president have disappointed many of his gay supporters.

But on the eve of a major gay rights rally in Washington, an event aimed in part at pressuring Obama and Congress, the president was met with a standing ovation and resounding cheers. Obama acknowledged the frustration of some activists, portraying himself as a forceful ally in a lengthy fight. And while he said that gay rights are only one part of his agenda, which is loaded down with domestic and international challenges, he said that would not deter him.

“My commitment to you is unwavering, even as we wrestle with these enormous problems,” Obama said. “Do not doubt the direction we are headed and the destination we will reach.”

Just days after winning the presidency, Obama vowed that he would be “a fierce advocate for gay and lesbian Americans.”

But nine months later, many in the community say he has done little to make good on that statement. They accuse the president of putting their agenda on the back burner – behind Wall Street regulation, health care, climate change and a series of foreign-policy issues. And although his sweeping rhetoric is appreciated, many are concerned that he has so far offered little beyond the symbolic and the incremental. Many gay rights activists are disappointed that Obama has not moved forward on two major issues: ending the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, under which gay soldiers can be discharged for their sexual orientation; and his failure to work toward ending the Defense of Marriage Act.

“As someone who supported Barack Obama early on during the primaries, and raised nearly $50,000 for him during the campaign, it gives me no pleasure to burst the pink champagne bubbles of hope,” John Aravosis, a gay rights activist and popular blogger, wrote in the Huffington Post. “But President Obama’s track record on keeping his gay promises has been fairly abominable.”

One victory that appears near is the passage of legislation that would broaden the definition of federal hate crimes to include attacks based on gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. The House passed the legislation last week. Final action in the Senate is expected this week, and Obama has said he will sign the bill.

Thousands of gay men and women are expected to gather on the National Mall in Washington for today’s National Equality March.

 Not everyone is on board. Rep. Barney Frank, an openly gay member of Congress, said he’d rather see gay rights supporters lobbying their elected officials than marching in Washington, calling the demonstration “a waste of time at best.”

 Frank said in an interview with the Associated Press that he considers such demonstrations to be “an emotional release” that does little to pressure Congress.

 “The only thing they’re going to be putting pressure on is the grass,” the Massachusetts Democrat said Friday.

October 10, 2009

By WALTER GIBBS and SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

OSLO — President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” a stunning honor that came less than nine months after Mr. Obama made United States history by becoming the country’s first African-American president.

The award, announced here by the Nobel Committee while much of official Washington — including the president — was still asleep, cited in particular the president’s efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

“He has created a new international climate,” the committee said.

For Mr. Obama, one of the nation’s youngest presidents, the award is an extraordinary recognition that puts him in the company of world leaders such as Mikhail Gorbachev, who won for helping to bring an end to the cold war, and Nelson Mandela, who sought an end to apartheid. But it is also a potential political liability at home; already, Republicans are criticizing the president, contending he won more for his “star power” than his actual achievements.

The news shocked people in Oslo — where an audible gasp escaped the audience when the decision was announced — and in Washington, where top advisers to Mr. Obama said they had no idea it was coming. The president was awakened shortly before 6 a.m. by his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, who delivered the news. Mr. Obama himself was to appear in the Rose Garden this morning to discuss the announcement.

“There has been no discussion, nothing at all,” said Rahm Emanuel, the president’s chief of staff, in a brief early morning telephone interview.

Mr. Emanuel said at the time that he had not yet spoken directly to the president. A senior administration official said in an e-mail message that “the president was humbled to be selected by the committee,” without adding anything further.

In one sense, the award was a rebuke to the foreign policies of Mr. Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, some of which the president has sought to overturn. Mr. Obama made repairing the fractured relations between the United States and the rest of the world a major theme of his campaign for the presidency. Since taking office as president he has pursued a range of policies intended to fulfill that goal. He has vowed to pursue a world without nuclear weapons, as he did in a speech in Prague earlier this year; reached out to the Muslim world, delivering a major speech in Cairo in June; and sought to restart peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future,” the committee said in its citation. “His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.”

But while Mr. Obama has generated considerable good will overseas — his foreign counterparts are eager to meet with him, and polls show he is hugely popular around the world — many of his policy efforts have yet to bear fruit, or are only just beginning to do so. North Korea has defied him with missile tests; Iran, however, recently agreed to restart nuclear talks, which Mr. Obama has called “a constructive beginning.”

In that sense, Mr. Obama is unlike past recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize such as former President Jimmy Carter, who won in 2002 for what presenters cited as decades of “untiring efforts” to seek peaceful end to international conflicts. (Mr. Carter failed to win in 1978, as some had expected, after he brokered a historic peace deal between Israel and Egypt.)

Thorbjorn Jagland, the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee and a former prime minister of Norway, said the president had already contributed enough to world diplomacy and international understanding to earn the award.

“We are not awarding the prize for what may happen in the future, but for what he has done in the previous year,” Mr. Jagland said. “We would hope this will enhance what he is trying to do.” The prize comes as Mr. Obama faces considerable challenges at home. On the domestic front, he is trying to press Congress to pass major legislation overhauling the nation’s health care system. On the foreign policy front, he is wrestling with declining support in his own party for the war in Afghanistan. The White House is engaged in an internal debate over whether to send more troops there, as Mr. Obama’s commanding general has requested.

For Mr. Obama, the award could, in a strange way, prove a political liability. As he traveled overseas during his campaign for the presidency, he was subjected to criticism from Republicans who argued he was too much the international celebrity. Winning the Nobel at such an early stage in his presidency could further that kind of criticism, especially in Washington’s hyperpartisan political environment.

Even before Mr. Obama appeared in the Rose Garden to discuss the award, he was facing criticism from the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele.

“The real question Americans are asking is, ‘What has President Obama actually accomplished?’ It is unfortunate that the president’s star power has outshined tireless advocates who have made real achievements working towards peace and human rights,” Mr. Steele said in a statement. “One thing is certain — President Obama won’t be receiving any awards from Americans for job creation, fiscal responsibility, or backing up rhetoric with concrete action.”

Mr. Obama also suffered a rejection on the world stage when he traveled to Copenhagen only last Friday to press the United States’ unsuccessful bid to host the Olympics in Chicago. Mr. Emanuel, who heard the news at 5 a.m. when he was heading out for his morning swim, said he joked to his wife, “Oslo beats Copenhagen.”

But rebuffs have been rare for Mr. Obama as he has traveled the world these past nine months — from Africa to Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, with a trip to Asia planned for November.

In April, just hours after North Korea tested a ballistic missile in defiance of international sanctions, he told a huge crowd in Prague that he was committed to “a world without nuclear weapons.”

In June, he traveled to Cairo, fulfilling a campaign pledge to deliver a speech in a major Muslim capital. There, in a speech that was interrupted with shouts of, “We love you!” from the crowd, Mr. Obama said he sought a “new beginning” and a “fresh relationship” based on mutual understanding and respect.

“I am convinced that in order to move forward, we must say openly the things we hold in our hearts, and that too often are said only behind closed doors,” the president said then. “There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other, to learn from each other, to respect one another, to seek common ground.”

Mr. Obama’s foreign policy has been criticized bitterly among neoconservatives like former Vice President Dick Cheney, who have suggested his rhetoric is naïve and his inclination to talk to America’s enemies will leave the United States vulnerable to another terrorist attack.

In its announcement of the prize, the Nobel Committee seemed to directly refute that line of thinking.

“Obama has as president created a new climate in international politics,” the committee wrote. “Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play.”

Interviewed later in the Nobel Committee’s wood-paneled meeting room, surrounded by photographs of past winners, Mr. Jagland brushed aside concerns expressed by some critics that Mr. Obama remains untested.

“The question we have to ask is who has done the most in the previous year to enhance peace in the world,” Mr. Jagland said. “And who has done more than Barack Obama?”

He compared the selection of Mr. Obama with the award in 1971 to the then West German Chancellor Willy Brandt for his “Ostpolitik” policy of reconciliation with communist eastern Europe.

“Brandt hadn’t achieved much when he got the prize, but a process had started that ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall,” said Mr. Jagland. “The same thing is true of the prize to Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990, for launching perestroika. One can say that Barack Obama is trying to change the world, just as those two personalities changed Europe.”

“We have to get the world on the right track again,” he said. Without referring specifically to the Bush era, he continued: “Look at the level of confrontation we had just a few years ago. Now we get a man who is not only willing but probably able to open dialogue and strengthen international institutions.”

President Obama is the third leading American Democrat to win the prize this decade, following former Vice President Al Gore in 2007 along with the United Nations climate panel and former President Jimmy Carter in 2002.

The last sitting American president to win the prize was Woodrow Wilson in 1919. Theodore Roosevelt was selected in 1906 while in the White House and Mr. Carter more than 20 years after he left office.

The prize was won last year by the former president of Finland, Martti Ahtisaari for peace efforts in Africa and the Balkans.

The prize is worth the equivalent of $1.4 million and is to be awarded in Oslo on Dec. 10.

The full citation read: “The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.

“Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama’s initiative, the United States is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.”

Walter Gibbs reported from Oslo and Sheryl Gay Stolberg from Washington. Alan Cowell contributed reporting from London, and Richard Berry from Paris.

Mr. President, please stay off TV.

By Howard Fineman | NEWSWEEK

Published Sep 26, 2009 From the magazine issue dated Oct 5, 2009

If ubiquity were the measure of a presidency, Barack Obama would already be grinning at us from Mount Rushmore. But of course it is not. Despite his many words and television appearances, our elegant and eloquent president remains more an emblem of change than an agent of it. He’s a man with an endless, worthy to-do list—health care, climate change, bank reform, global capital regulation, AfPak, the Middle East, you name it—but, as yet, no boxes checked “done.” This is a problem that style will not fix. Unless Obama learns to rely less on charm, rhetoric, and good intentions and more on picking his spots and winning in political combat, he’s not going to be reelected, let alone enshrined in South Dakota.

The president’s problem isn’t that he is too visible; it’s the lack of content in what he says when he keeps showing up on the tube. Obama can seem a mite too impressed with his own aura, as if his presence on the stage is the Answer. There is, at times, a self-referential (even self-reverential) tone in his big speeches. They are heavily salted with the words “I” and “my.” (He used the former 11 times in the first few paragraphs of his address to the U.N. last week.) Obama is a historic figure, but that is the beginning, not the end, of the story.

There is only so much political mileage that can still be had by his reminding the world that he is not George W. Bush. It was the winning theme of the 2008 campaign, but that race ended nearly a year ago. The ex-president is now more ex than ever, yet the current president, who vowed to look forward, is still reaching back to Bush as bogeyman.

He did it again in that U.N. speech. The delegates wanted to know what the president was going to do about Israel and the Palestinian territories. He answered by telling them what his predecessor had failed to do. This was effective for his first month or two. Now it is starting to sound more like an excuse than an explanation.

Members of Obama’s own party know who Obama is not; they still sometimes wonder who he really is. In Washington, the appearance of uncertainty is taken as weakness—especially on Capitol Hill, where a president is only as revered as he is feared. Being the cool, convivial late-night-guest in chief won’t cut it with Congress, an institution impervious to charm (especially the charm of a president with wavering poll numbers). Members of both parties are taking Obama’s measure with their defiant and sometimes hostile response to his desires on health care. Never much of a legislator (and not long a senator), Obama underestimated the complexity of enacting a major “reform” bill. Letting Congress try to write it on its own was an awful idea. As a balkanized land of microfiefdoms, each loyal to its own lobbyists and consultants, Congress is incapable of being led by its “leadership.” It’s not like Chicago, where you call a guy who calls a guy who calls Daley, who makes the call. The president himself must make his wishes clear—along with the consequences for those who fail to grant them.

The model is a man whose political effectiveness Obama repeatedly says he admires: Ronald Reagan. There was never doubt about what he wanted. The Gipper made his simple, dramatic tax cuts the centerpiece not only of his campaign but also of the entire first year of his presidency.

Obama seems to think he’ll get credit for the breathtaking scope of his ambition. But unless he sees results, it will have the opposite effect—diluting his clout, exhausting his allies, and emboldening his enemies.

That may be starting to happen. Health-care legislation is still weeks, if not months, from passage, and the bill as it stands could well be a windfall for the very insurance and drug companies it was supposed to rein in. Climate-change legislation (a.k.a. cap-and-trade) is almost certainly dead for this year, which means that American negotiators will go empty-handed to the Copenhagen summit in December —pushing the goal of limiting carbon emissions even farther into the distance. In the spring Obama privately told the big banks that he was going to change the way they do business. It was going to be his way or the highway. But the complex legislation he wants to submit to Congress has little chance of passage this year. Doing Letterman again won’t help. It may boost the host’s ratings, Mr. President, but probably not your own.

Howard Fineman is also the author of The Thirteen American Arguments: Enduring Debates That Define and Inspire Our Country .

by David S. Broder

Barack Obama has reached the moment of truth for answering the persistent question about his core beliefs and political priorities. The coming votes in the House and Senate on his signature health care reform effort will tell us more about the president than anything so far in his White House tenure.

The challenge is not one he invited. All during last year’s campaign, Obama skillfully skirted the question of whether he was a moderate, consensus-seeking pragmatist, as his words suggested, or a faithful adherent to the liberal agenda, as his voting record demonstrated.

In stylistic terms, he cultivated the pragmatic image. On issues, he was alternately one or the other – lining up with the liberals on Iraq and civil liberties, for example, but joining the hard-liners on Afghanistan and the budget.

In the campaign, he took the moderate side of the health care debate – disagreeing with Hillary Clinton on the necessity for an individual mandate to buy health insurance and suggesting he would be satisfied with incremental progress toward covering all the uninsured.

But now, a number of factors have combined to strip him of the camouflage he once enjoyed when it comes to health care policy.

His effort to craft a bipartisan package with significant Republican support has failed, as GOP leaders in Congress have chosen to take their chances on handing him a costly defeat rather than opting to claim a share of the credit for success. With Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine apparently the only Republican who might vote for the evolving legislation, Obama will have to find virtually all the votes he needs among his fellow Democrats.

Also, the debates inside the five House and Senate committees that have shared in drafting the bills have dramatized the deep ideological splits on the Democratic side of the aisle. The symbolic issue has been the public option – the proposal for a Medicare-like insurance plan competing with those offered by private companies.

Four of the five committees have included that proposal; the fifth, the Senate Finance Committee, has explicitly rejected it.

Beyond that much-hyped dispute are multiple disagreements on the cost and financing of the overall reform, with no consensus between the more conservative Democratic Blue Dogs and the more numerous liberals, especially in the House.

The first imperative for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is to find a formula that will produce 218 Democratic votes in the House and 59 of the needed 60 votes in the Senate.

Obama will have to be an active player in that process. But in addition, he will have to negotiate something that will be workable in the real world. As he contemplates a re-election race in 2012, he needs at least three years when his most important domestic initiative has not blown up in his face.

What are his chances of pulling it off? It will not be easy. In the House, Pelosi and a clear majority of the Democratic caucus members want a liberal bill, including the public option. They may have to offer some cosmetic concessions to the Blue Dogs, but they are unlikely to yield on the main points.

In the Senate, on the other hand, while the liberals may prevail on floor amendments to install the public option, they cannot by themselves deliver 60 votes for passage. At this point, the leverage swings to the handful of more conservative, small-state Democratic senators who, with the Republicans, may be able to force substantive changes.

As this plays out – finally, in a House-Senate conference committee – the political cost of the Republican decision to be simply a blocking force will become clear. Had the GOP furnished even a few votes in return for seeing some of their concerns addressed, chances are Obama and the Democratic congressional leaders would not have felt the necessity to keep all the liberals in line. This would have given the president more room to maneuver.

As it is, his main leverage point is the realization among nearly all Democrats that nothing would be as costly to them, in their individual 2010 races, as the failure of this Congress, with its heavy Democratic majorities, to pass a substantive health reform bill.

That may be enough in the end for Obama to succeed. But the task of getting there will really test him – and expose his core values.

David S. Broder is a columnist for the Washington Post. His e-mail address is davidbroder@washpost.com.

by David S. Broder

David Broder is a columnist for the Washington Post. His e-mail address is davidbroder@washpost.com.

Charles Krauthammer is a columnist for the Washington Post Writers Group. His e-mail address is letters@charleskrauthammer.com.

Well, we survived August, which is good news. It was not a month that will be recorded in the Enlightened Discourse Hall of Fame. In fact, it was a national embarrassment — not just the steady stream of misinformation about the nature of President Obama’s health-care proposals, but the racism — both overt and opaque — the death threats, the imprecations (calling someone a Nazi is evidence of the evil of banality), the idiots bearing assault rifles at presidential events. As the lunatics took over the asylum, the President’s poll ratings dropped, and the chances for a truly bipartisan health-care-reform effort vanished, if they existed in the first place. Consequently, we have had a back-to-school fusillade of advice for the President from my columnizing peers — and an effusion of premature crowing from conservatives about the collapse of the Obama presidency.

The drop in the President’s poll numbers represents a natural political process. When politicians talk about spending their political capital, they are talking about their poll numbers — and the cliché is somewhat misleading. They are actually investing their political capital, hoping for a greater return if their gamble succeeds. George W. Bush invested his capital in privatizing Social Security, and the stock tanked. Barack Obama is investing in health-care reform. We are at the point of the legislative process where all seems hopeless, but Obama should be heartened by the fact that most of his Republican adversaries oppose the bill for crass political rather than ideological reasons. They assume that if it passes, his investment of political capital will result in higher poll numbers — which means they assume the public will like the changes he is proposing. (See TIME’s photo-essay “The Health-Care Debate Turns Angry.”)

And, I fearlessly predict, the public will. If insurance companies can no longer deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, or drop people who get too sick, the public will love it. If health-care exchanges give individuals and small businesses the power to negotiate lower premiums from the insurance companies, people will love that too. Making health care available to everyone, even if some people — young, healthy people — who are not buying in now are told they have to join up, will also be well received. The odds are better than even that a bill containing those provisions will pass in Congress this fall.

But even if most of the noise about Obama is nonsense, there is one area of concern that could affect the ultimate success of his presidency. It is his tendency to overlearn the lessons of past presidencies, especially when those lessons enable him to avoid taking responsibility for tough decisions. It has been widely observed that Obama overlearned the lesson of the Clinton health-care effort by deferring to Congress to write the legislation. It has been less widely observed that the President overlearned the lesson of Bush’s hyperpoliticized Justice Department by leaving to Attorney General Eric Holder the decision about whether to investigate the CIA for torture abuses.

What should the President have done? Well, there’s a path between the 1,300-page Clinton health-care plan and the 1,000-page Henry Waxman plan that will be voted on in the House. The President could have laid out a set of principles and said, “I will veto any bill that doesn’t contain the following …” (Indeed, he still could do so.) They should be clear, simple, popular and achievable. My list would include insurance reform, health-care exchanges, near universal coverage and tort reform. (Obama’s position on tort reform is another abdication of responsibility: he says he’s open to it, knowing the congressional Democrats are closed to it.) (See “Understanding the Health-Care Debate: Your Indispensable Guide.”)

The President’s deferral of responsibility for the CIA investigation is more serious than his health-care meanderings. This is a matter of national security that will directly affect the morale and behavior of our clandestine services. The President can’t say he wants to look forward, not backward, then allow his Attorney General to look backward. The most egregious practices, like waterboarding, were (outrageously) declared legal by the Bush Justice Department. How can you prosecute one interrogator for threatening a prisoner with an electric drill and let others who waterboarded a prisoner 83 times off the hook? Is it right for the interrogators to be prosecuted and the real miscreants — people, like former Vice President Dick Cheney, who ordered, and still approve of, the torture — to escape unpunished? Most legal experts believe that such cases would be difficult to prosecute. But whether you favor an investigation or not, this is a presidential decision the President avoided.

In the great sweep of history, this presidency has barely begun. The mistakes Obama has made are rookie mistakes that can be corrected. And the general tendency of his Administration — toward civility, as opposed to the ugliness we’ve seen in the past month — is the right one. But he can’t allow his desire for civility to neuter the requirements of leadership. He has to lead, clearly and decisively, starting right now.

Froma Harrop is a columnist for the Providence Journal.

Kathleen Parker is a columnist for the Washington Post Writers Group. Her e-mail address is kathleenparker@ washpost.com.

Justices could overturn finance restrictions

Government program endorsed, not required

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama on Wednesday laid out a series of compromises he’s willing to make to get a health care overhaul through a nervous Congress this year, including diluting his vision for a new public insurance program and embracing ideas floated by Republicans.

In an address to a joint session of Congress, Obama tried to seize control of the Democratic Party’s highest domestic priority after months of party disarray and raucous public debate across the country. The president said that he’d require all individuals to have health insurance and would provide tax credits to people and small businesses that couldn’t afford it.

“Well, the time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed. Now is the season for action,” Obama said.

At one point, a South Carolina Republican congressman shouted, “You lie” when Obama characterized reports that he’d insure illegal immigrants as false.

On perhaps the most controversial single plank in his program, Obama endorsed creating a “public option” government program to compete against private insurers, but he didn’t insist that it be included.

Instead, he left room for alternatives that liberal Democrats in Congress are resisting. Those include creating nonprofit health care cooperatives; a “trigger” mechanism for a public option to kick in later if private insurers fail to meet benchmarks of coverage; or perhaps simply tightening regulations on private insurers.

He pledged that any “public option” wouldn’t weaken coverage for those in Medicare or insured through their employers. He promised them “more security and stability.”

In turn, Obama made it clear that he intends to work with congressional Democrats to push some health care plan through Congress this year – on a bare partisan majority if necessary.

“I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last,” Obama said in remarks that he hoped would breathe new life into Democrats’ push to expand coverage to many of the roughly 46 million in the U.S. who now lack health insurance.

“We are the only advanced democracy on Earth, the only nation, that allows such hardships for millions of people,” he said. “Now is the season for action.”

Such an expansion is a goal that’s eluded presidents since Harry Truman, and, most recently, Bill Clinton 15 years ago.

Obama said that his plan would cost about $900 billion over a decade. He said it could be paid for mostly by eliminating “waste and abuse” from the existing health care system, but he wasn’t specific. In addition, he’d charge insurance companies “a fee for their most expensive policies” to fund his plan. Beyond that, he failed to specify how his proposals would slow rising health costs.

Three House of Representatives committees have written legislation that would create a public option, raise taxes on the wealthy to help pay for the plan and mandate coverage for most people. The House is expected to combine three pending Democratic bills into one piece of legislation and attempt to pass it this month.

The Senate outlook is cloudier and likely to take longer. Even if both chambers pass versions of the legislation, they’re all but certain to differ, requiring a House-Senate conference to draft a compromise version that each house then must pass. How that will happen or what final terms it may contain aren’t clear.

Fleshing out a framework that he’s been advocating for months now, Obama called for creating a government health insurance exchange, or marketplace, to take effect by 2013. Through it many Americans could obtain lower-cost private coverage – or possibly coverage through some variation of a public plan if Congress creates one.

Until the exchange would take effect, Obama would borrow from a plan that his 2008 Republican rival, Arizona Sen. John McCain, proposed last year – to provide catastrophic coverage for those with pre-existing conditions.

In another olive branch to Republicans, Obama indicated that he’d support some “demonstration projects” to try setting experimental limits on medical malpractice lawsuits – long a Republican goal that Democrats typically oppose.

Obama also called for new regulations on private insurers to protect patients. He told Americans that any plan he signs will:

•Ban insurance companies from denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions.

•Prevent insurers from dropping or watering down coverage during illness.

•End arbitrary annual or lifetime coverage caps.

•Limit out-of-pocket expenses.

•Require insurers to cover routine checkups, mammograms and colonoscopies.

Cal Thomas is a columnist for Tribune Media Services.

By Michael Barone

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Charles Krauthammer is a columnist for the Washington Post Writers Group. His e-mail address is letters@charleskrauthammer.com.

Insurance companies would face benchmarks

Objectors call Tuesday’s broadcast political move

Texas Gov. Rick Perry responds to a question in his Capitol office on Thursday about President Obama’s school-time speech next week.

DALLAS – President Barack Obama’s back-to-school address next week was supposed to be a feel-good story for an administration battered over its health care agenda. Now Republican critics are calling it an effort to foist a political agenda on children, creating yet another confrontation with the White House.

Obama plans to speak directly to students Tuesday about the need to work hard and stay in school. His address will be shown live on the White House Web site and on C-SPAN at noon EDT, a time when classrooms across the country will be able to tune in.

Schools don’t have to show it. But districts across the country have been inundated with phone calls from parents and are struggling to address the controversy that broke out after Education Secretary Arne Duncan sent a letter to principals urging schools to watch.

Districts in states including Texas, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Virginia and Wisconsin have decided not to show the speech to students. Others are still thinking it over or are letting parents have their kids opt out.

Some conservatives, driven by radio pundits and bloggers, are urging schools and parents to boycott the address. They say Obama is using the opportunity to promote a political agenda and is overstepping the boundaries of federal involvement in schools.

“As far as I am concerned, this is not civics education – it gives the appearance of creating a cult of personality,” said Oklahoma state Sen. Steve Russell. “This is something you’d expect to see in North Korea or in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.”

Arizona state schools superintendent Tom Horne, a Republican, said lesson plans for teachers created by Obama’s Education Department “call for a worshipful rather than critical approach.”

The White House plans to release the speech online Monday so parents can read it. He will deliver the speech at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Va.

“I think it’s really unfortunate that politics has been brought into this,” White House deputy policy director Heather Higginbottom said in an interview.

“It’s simply a plea to students to really take their learning seriously. Find out what they’re good at. Set goals. And take the school year seriously.”

She noted that President George H.W. Bush made a similar address to schools in 1991. Like Obama, Bush drew criticism, with Democrats accusing the Republican president of making the event into a campaign commercial.

Critics are particularly upset about lesson plans the administration created to accompany the speech. The lesson plans, available online, originally recommended having students “write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president.”

The White House revised the plans Wednesday to say students could “write letters to themselves about how they can achieve their short-term and long-term education goals.”

“That was inartfully worded, and we corrected it,” Higginbottom said.

In the Dallas suburb of Plano, Texas, the 54,000-student school district is not showing the 15- to 20-minute address but will make the video available later.

PTA council President Cara Mendelsohn said Obama is “cutting out the parent” by speaking to kids during school hours.

“Why can’t a parent be watching this with their kid in the evening?” Mendelsohn said. “Because that’s what makes a powerful statement, when a parent is sitting there saying, ‘This is what I dream for you. This is what I want you to achieve.’ ”

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, said in an interview that he’s “certainly not going to advise anybody not to send their kids to school that day.”

“Hearing the president speak is always a memorable moment,” he said.

But he also said he understood where the criticism was coming from.

“Nobody seems to know what he’s going to be talking about,” Perry said. “Why didn’t he spend more time talking to the local districts and superintendents, at least give them a heads-up about it?”

One school superintendent, Murray Dalgleish of Council, in west-central Idaho, urged people not to rush to judgment.

“Is the president dictating to these kids? I don’t think so,” Dalgleish said. “He’s trying to get out the same message we’re trying to get out, which is, ‘You are in charge of your education.’ ”

Kathleen Parker is a columnist for the Washington Post Writers Group. Her e-mail address is kathleenparker@washpost.com.

David S. Broder is a columnist for the Washington Post. His e-mail address is davidbroder@washpost.com.

Kathleen Parker is a columnist for the Washington Post Writers Group. Her e-mail address is kathleenparker@washpost.com.

Froma Harrop is a columnist for the Providence Journal.

Charles Krauthammer

Charles Krauthammer is a columnist for the Washington Post Writers Group. His e-mail address is letters@charleskrauthammer.com.

By JONAH GOLDBERG

August 29, 2009 –IF you read the papers or watch the news, you’ll encounter a long list of accomplishments by the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. You’re less likely to hear, however, that in his death Kennedy proved Rush Limbaugh right.

In March, the talk-show host and bete noir of progressives everywhere said that the health-care bill wending its way through Congress would eventually be dubbed “the Ted Kennedy Memorial Health Care Bill.” At the time, the official position of the Democratic Party was outrage and disgust. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee initiated a petition drive demanding that the Republican Party formally denounce Limbaugh for his “reprehensible” and “truly outrageous” comments.

Fast-forward to a few hours after the announcement of Kennedy’s death. Suddenly, naming the bill after Kennedy would be a moving tribute.

ABC News reports that “the idea of naming the legislation for Kennedy has been quietly circulating for months” but was kicked into overdrive by Sen. Robert Byrd, the Democratic Party’s eldest statesman.

Intriguingly, this suggests that either Democrats already had the idea when Limbaugh floated it, which would mean their protests were just so much opportunistic and cynical posturing — or they actually got the idea from Limbaugh himself, which would be too ironic for a Tom Wolfe novel.

But that Kennedy’s death should be marked by cynicism, opportunism and irony is not shocking, given that these qualities are now the hallmarks of the party he largely defined.

The Democratic Party’s determination to exploit his death for political gain puts the commentator who doesn’t wish to speak ill of the dead in something of a bind. So let us be clear that there’s no evidence whatsoever that Kennedy himself — or any Kennedy — would object to such a ploy.

Whether one calls it exploitation or heroic perseverance, the Kennedy dynasty’s longevity is best understood as a response to fatal tragedies. Shortly after her husband’s murder, Jacqueline Kennedy lamented Lee Harvey Oswald’s inconvenient political views: “It had to be some silly little Communist.”

Fortunately, her husband’s handlers had things well in hand, orchestrating with a compliant media the grand fiction that Kennedy had somehow been a martyr to civil rights, taken out by right-wing “hate.”

The real JFK, who cut capital-gains taxes and only reluctantly supported Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington, had never been nearly as liberal as the posthumous legend created to give new life to liberalism — and the Kennedy name.

According to the mythmakers, JFK would have pulled us out of Vietnam. Meanwhile, the real JFK boasted (mere hours before his murder) that he’d massively boosted defense spending and ordered a 600 percent increase on counterinsurgency special forces in Vietnam. The prior March, he’d asked Congress to spend 50 cents out of every dollar on defense.

Hence one of the great ironies of Ted Kennedy’s career: He was the chief beneficiary of an inheritance from a brother whose views he didn’t share.

Such contradictions never bothered Ted Kennedy, nor his fellow Democrats, when he was alive — so why should there be compunction now?

After all, the Kennedys and the Democrats have mythologized and exploited the deaths of three brothers (and minimized the deaths of Mary Jo Kopechne and Martha Moxley) in order to protect the Kennedy brand. Naming a massive expansion of the federal government after Ted Kennedy, particularly when it was indeed his life’s cause, seems entirely fitting and fair.

My only objection is the notion that somehow anyone but partisan Democrats should be expected to cave in to the “Do it for Teddy” bullying.

Conservatives should surrender to something that violates their fundamental principles out of deference to the very man liberals celebrate for never abandoning his fundamental principles? No one expected Ted Kennedy to become a champion of free markets out of deference to Ronald Reagan’s memory.

Now, if liberals want to rally their own troops by putting Kennedy’s name on the bill, that’s their right, even if it will likely result in an even more unpopular bill than the ones now under consideration.

I suspect that they’ll be disappointed to discover that the currency of the Kennedy name purchases far less than it once did — thanks in large part to what Ted Kennedy did with it.

JonahsColumn@aol.com

(Extension:  When the history books are written and the Ted Kennedy section comes to light, what will be stated?  Do  a little research and enlighten us as to the accomplishments and/or failure of the “Lion of Liberalism”?)

July 21, 2009 in Nation/World

Leonard Pitts Jr.

Leonard Pitts Jr. is a columnist for the Miami Herald. His e-mail address is lpitts@miamiherald.com.

Kathleen Parker is a columnist for the Washington Post Writers Group. Her e-mail address is kathleenparker@ washpost.com.

by Chris Jordan – Former AP GO PO Student
I’m watching Fox News right now and it’s really tough to do.

Sean Hannity is on covering the “Universal Nightmare” and every time
he talks about Obama’s healthcare plan, computerized blood flashes
across the screen. Classy…

He just had some “expert” on his show explaining why the Public Option
that we’ve heard so much about is a horrible idea. This is exactly
what he said…

“When President Obama says ‘If you like your current plan, you can
keep it,’ he’s not telling the truth. Millions of Americans will be
forced from their current insurance because the government run plan
will be able to come in at a lower cost.” And then he went on with all
the usual stuff about how horrible government-run healthcare is.

First of all, it is absolutely impossible for anyone to be FORCED from
their current plan into something called a Public OPTION that you can
only enter into by choice. The government run OPTION is intended to
provide competition to private insurance. If millions of people CHOOSE
to abandon their private insurance for a public option, it’s because
they’ve made the decision that they could get better care for a lower
cost with that plan. It won’t be because the evil government FORCED
them into a government plan. People will choose what is best for their
families, and if that so happens to be a government plan, so be it!

If conservatives and whoever else really believe that private
insurance is superior, and that government run healthcare is really so
horrible and low quality, then the only way to find out is to have
them compete. If we can set it up in a way so that the competition is
fair, shouldn’t everyone want private insurance if it’s really so
awesome?

We should set up a healthcare system that is uniquely American – one
that combines the best aspects of our own system (high quality care,
innovation) with the best aspects of other systems (universal
coverage, lower cost). That’s why Obama is not proposing a government
takeover (much to my dismay)– he’s proposing introducing a public
OPTION that people can choose to go into if they don’t like their
current insurance. People will choose whatever plan is best for them,
public or private.

I agree that choice and competition will lower prices. And that’s why
I support the public option – because it’s one more choice Americans
will have as THEY decide the insurance that is best for them.

May the best plan win!

Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 750 stations in North America. Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.

Leonard Pitts Jr. is a columnist for the Miami Herald. His e-mail address is lpitts@miamiherald.com.

Kathleen Parker is a columnist for the Washington Post Writers Group. Her e-mail address is kathleenparker@washpost.com.

Spin Control is a weekly political column that also appears online with daily posts, videos and reader comments at www. spokesman.com/blogs/ spincontrol. See the McMorris Rodgers video and hear audio from her Colville interview on the blog.

Republican Senator Cites Policy Disagreements As Congress Prepares to Vote on Stimulus Plan

By Anne E. Kornblut and Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, February 13, 2009

Saying he “made a mistake,” Republican Sen. Judd Gregg withdrew yesterday as the nominee for commerce secretary, dealing a fresh blow to President Obama’s quest to fill out his Cabinet and dramatically undercutting his efforts to forge a new bipartisanship in the capital.

Gregg said that he had simply lacked foresight and that he shouldered the burden of the decision entirely. “I should have focused sooner and more effectively on the implications of being in the Cabinet versus myself as an individual doing my job,” he said at a news conference on Capitol Hill.

He cited concerns about Obama’s economic recovery plan and the administration’s intent to have the next census director report to senior White House officials as well as the commerce secretary.

The timing of Gregg’s communication with the White House about his decision was murky through much of the day, as the president’s aides scrambled to revise their sometimes conflicting statements about when Obama was notified. Returning to Washington from Springfield, Ill., Obama told reporters on Air Force One that he learned just yesterday of Gregg’s decision. He later clarified that he had spoken with the senator from New Hampshire a day earlier but “wasn’t sure whether he’d made a final decision.”

The episode underscored how burdensome Cabinet selection has become for the new administration, which has watched nearly half a dozen of its top appointees withdraw or face embarrassing scrutiny over the past several weeks. The slip-ups have caused the White House to revamp its vetting process and have slowed down confirmations for nominees already in the pipeline.

And now Obama is left with two key openings — at the departments of Commerce and Health and Human Services — and more questions about his personnel choices.

Gregg’s withdrawal comes as Congress prepares for final passage of a $789 billion stimulus package; Obama previously got no Republican votes for the legislation in the House and only three in the Senate.

Senior Obama officials portrayed the latest personnel debacle as reflecting badly on Gregg alone, insisting they are still on course to change the tone in Washington and implement the president’s policies. But aides acknowledged that it is now clear that Obama has not been rewarded for reaching across the aisle, and they said he feels no imperative to replace Gregg with another Republican.

Gregg’s confirmation would have given Obama more Republican Cabinet members than any Democratic president in history. Obama himself wasted no time making clear that Gregg was responsible for first seeking, and then rejecting, the position, despite efforts to accommodate him.

“It comes as something of a surprise, because the truth, you know, Mr. Gregg approached us with interest and seemed enthusiastic,” Obama said in an interview yesterday with the State Journal-Register in Springfield. “But ultimately, I think, we’re going to just keep on making efforts to build the kind of bipartisan consensus around important issues that I think the American people are looking for.”

Though the news came as a shock to the political establishment, White House officials said they had an inkling of Gregg’s unease. Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said Gregg called him Monday to say he was having second thoughts. Obama met with Gregg privately at the White House on Wednesday, according to Emanuel, and the three-term senator said he was leaning toward dropping out.

Gregg made the decision public yesterday afternoon, becoming the second Commerce Department nominee in two months to withdraw from consideration.

“It’s better we discover it now than later,” Emanuel told reporters last night. Asked what had motivated Gregg, the chief of staff replied: “I’m not going to play psychologist or get into his head.” Gregg and administration officials alike said there had been no vetting issues involved.

The timing was unfortunate for Obama, who had sought to focus on promoting his economic recovery plan yesterday, as well as to celebrate the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln, whose spirit of unity Obama has claimed as his own.

As the news unfolded, Obama was on his way to a dinner in Lincoln’s honor in Springfield. White House officials rushed to contain the fallout, pointing to Gregg’s seemingly peculiar decision to accept a job that would, by definition, require him to adhere to the positions that he later claimed drove him away. Administration officials rejected the idea that the size of the economic stimulus package, or other Democratic policies, had alienated Gregg.

In his statement, Gregg said that “on issues such as the stimulus package and the Census there are irresolvable conflicts for me. Prior to accepting this post, we had discussed these and other potential differences, but unfortunately we did not adequately focus on these concerns.”

“I think what ended Judd Gregg’s hope of and desire of being the commerce secretary wasn’t anything any Democrat said or did, but what Republicans said and did,” a senior administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. Democratic officials said they believed Gregg would have potentially faced rough questioning from Republicans during his confirmation hearings as they worked to find the GOP’s footing as an opposition party.

The withdrawal raised new questions about whom Obama can safely choose for the commerce spot. A senior official said the president was not quite back at ground zero in the selection process. Still, there were no obvious alternatives.

After losing New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) and then Gregg, Obama could turn to Symantec chief John Thompson, a Silicon Valley executive. But as a wealthy businessman, Thompson could have complicated finances, a situation Obama might want to avoid after the tax problems that have plagued other nominees.

Tax issues felled his pick to lead Health and Human Services, former senator Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.), and he has yet to announce a replacement.

Asked whether Obama had suffered a blow in his efforts to recruit Republicans, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said he had not. “I’m standing in East Peoria with Ray LaHood,” Gibbs said by phone, referring to the Republican transportation secretary.

Nonetheless, Gregg’s withdrawal sharpened the already palpable sense in Washington that Obama’s promise of a new era of bipartisanship is seriously faltering. Just days after his historic inauguration, Obama held an unprecedented pair of closed-door meetings with Republicans on Capitol Hill — meetings that, despite the kind words from GOP lawmakers that followed, yielded no results measured in votes.

By the time the president’s stimulus package passed the Senate this week, all but three GOP members of Congress were lined up against it, complaining furiously that Obama and his allies were forcing a bloated, liberal bill down their throats.

“Despite our repeated attempts to work with President Obama and the Democrat Majority, Speaker Pelosi has refused to meet with us, or even include us in key negotiations, choosing instead to stick with a pork-filled bill that even members of her own party do not support,” said a statement from Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the minority whip.

Obama and his top aides tried furiously all week to rebut that cha rge. In his prime-time news conference Monday, the president said his efforts at bipartisanship were “designed to try to build up some trust over time.”

Staff writers Alec MacGillis and Michael A. Fletcher contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — House and Senate leaders on Wednesday struck a deal on a $789 billion economic stimulus bill after little more than 24 hours of rapid-fire negotiations with the Obama administration, clearing the way for final Congressional action later this week.

The package of spending increases and tax relief, intended to spur an economic recovery and create jobs by putting money back in the pockets of consumers and companies, ended up smaller than either the House or Senate had proposed.

Many Democrats would have preferred a larger bill, but agreed to pare back, including cuts to favored education and health programs, to win three crucial Republican votes in the Senate.

“Legislation is the art of compromise, consensus building, and that’s what we did,” the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said in announcing the accord.

The House was poised for a final vote as early as Friday, with the Senate to follow, clearing the way for President Obama to sign the bill by Monday. The White House is considering a prime-time bill signing ceremony, and on Wednesday asked the television networks if they would air the event.

In a statement, the president thanked Congress for agreeing to a measure that he said would save or create 3.6 million jobs.

“I’m grateful,” Mr. Obama said, “for moving it along with the urgency that this moment demands.”

The deal reflected a calculated gamble by Mr. Obama in the first weeks of his term. To win Republican votes, the final stimulus package is considerably leaner than what many economists say is now needed to jolt the economy, given its grave condition.

But it is unclear if Mr. Obama will be able to claim credit for bringing change to Washington by winning bipartisan support for his first major piece of legislation. Not a single House Republican voted for the bill when it came to the floor two weeks ago, and despite many compromises in the Senate, only three Republicans came on board.

The final bill includes $507 billion in spending programs and $282 billion in tax relief, including a scaled-back version of Mr. Obama’s middle-class tax cut proposal, which would give credits of up to $400 for individuals and $800 for families within certain income limits. It will also provide a one-time payment of $250 to recipients of Social Security and government disability support.

House Democrats, angry over some cuts, particularly for school construction, initially balked at the deal and delayed a final meeting on Wednesday between House and Senate negotiators.

Democratic officials said Speaker Nancy Pelosi felt that Mr. Reid went too far by announcing a deal before it was vetted by her office and discussed by House members in an emergency caucus meeting, setting off the last-minute flare-up.

Ms. Pelosi said at a news conference that the delay helped House Democrats win some final concessions, including an agreement to let states use some money in a fiscal stabilization fund for school renovations. “There is no question that one of our overriding priorities in the House was a very strong commitment to school construction,” she said. “That’s still in the bill.”

But they soon relented and the meeting got under way in a packed Lyndon B. Johnson Room on the Senate side of the Capitol.

Despite the show of pique, for Democrats the stimulus bill is the most prominent display yet that they now fully control Washington. Their ability to push the package forward represented a turnabout from years of losing battles under President George W. Bush. For Republicans, it underscored the limits of their diminished ranks.

Even trimmed to $789 billion, the recovery measure will be the most expansive unleashing of the government’s fiscal firepower in the face of a recession since World War II.

And yet it seemed almost trifling compared with the $2.5 trillion rescue plan for the financial system — a combination of loans to banks and incentives to bring private capital into the banking system — announced on Tuesday by Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner.

Although the final legislative language was not immediately available, lawmakers said the bill contained more than $150 billion in public works projects for transportation, energy and technology, and $87 billion to help states meet rising Medicaid costs.

Despite intense lobbying by governors around the country, the final deal slashed $25 billion from a proposed state fiscal stabilization fund, eliminated a $16 billion line item for school construction and sharply curtailed spending to provide health insurance for the unemployed.

In driving down the total cost — from $838 billion for the Senate stimulus bill and $820 billion for the House-passed measure — lawmakers also reduced the Senate’s proposed tax incentives for buyers of homes and cars, which hold big public appeal.

The final agreement retained a $70 billion tax break to spare millions of middle-income Americans from paying the alternative minimum tax in 2009. Some Democrats decried the provision as a costly addition that would not lift the economy and that Congress would have approved, regardless of the recession.

After huddling in Ms. Pelosi’s office on Tuesday until nearly midnight, top White House officials and Congressional leaders had all but ironed out the differences between the House and Senate versions of the stimulus by noon on Wednesday.

Even before the last touches were put to the bill, some angry Democrats said that Mr. Obama and Congressional leaders had been too quick to give up on Democratic priorities. “I am not happy with it,” said Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa. “You are not looking at a happy camper. I mean they took a lot of stuff out of education. They took it out of health, school construction and they put it more into tax issues.”

Mr. Harkin said he was particularly frustrated by the money being spent on fixing the alternative minimum tax. “It’s about 9 percent of the whole bill,” he said, “Why is it in there? It has nothing to do with stimulus. It has nothing to do with recovery.”

But even as Congressional leaders and top White House officials went through the package with a carving knife, it was clear that the three Republicans who agreed to support the bill in the Senate wielded extraordinary power, and along with conservative Democrats, had put a firm stamp on the stimulus package.

For instance, negotiators opted to keep many of the Senate’s reduced spending provisions, but they were careful to maintain an additional $6.5 billion for medical research that was inserted at the insistence of Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, who is a cancer survivor. He was one of the three Republican supporters of the recovery package.

“I think it is an important component of putting America back on its feet,” Mr. Specter said, though he added that it was still a difficult vote “in view of the large deficit and national debt.”

The Senate bill came together only after a bipartisan group of centrist senators, led by Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, and Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, reached a deal to trim the cost of the package to $838 billion from more than $920 billion.

“These aren’t easy times, obviously for America,” said Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine, who was also a member of that group. “Given the gravity of the circumstances economically, I thought it was important to be part of a process that could yield a consensus-based solution.”

But the majority of Republicans continued to criticize the stimulus measure on Wednesday as a bloated and ill-designed spending bonanza by Democrats on favored projects that would not help lift the economy out of recession but would permanently expand the federal government and plunge future generations of Americans deep into debt.

“Yesterday the Senate cast one of the most expensive votes in history,” said the Republican leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. “Americans are wondering how we’re going to pay for all this.”

Indeed, the formal House-Senate conference meeting, usually an elaborate parliamentary ritual with reams of legislative paperwork strewn across cluttered conference tables, instead served mostly as a live, televised forum for some of the most powerful Democrats and Republicans in Congress to trade barbs.

Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, complained that despite Mr. Obama’s call for bipartisan cooperation, Republicans had largely been shut out. “We didn’t have a chance to negotiate,” Mr. Grassley said.

Robert Pear, Kate Phillips and Jeff Zeleny contributed reporting.

Cal Thomas is a columnist for Tribune Media Services.

David S. Broder is a columnist for the Washington Post. His e-mail address is davidbroder@washpost.com.

Charles Krauthammer is a columnist for the Washington Post Writers Troup. His e-mail address is letters@charleskrauthammer.com.

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats reached an agreement with Republican moderates on Friday to pare a huge economic recovery measure, clearing the way for approval of a package that President Obama said was urgently needed in light of mounting job losses.

The deal, announced on the Senate floor, was a result of two days of tense negotiations and political theater. Mr. Obama dispatched his chief of staff to Capitol Hill to help conclude the talks and reassure senators in his own party, and he called three key Republicans to applaud them for their patriotism.

Earlier, when it looked as if a vote might take place Friday night, officials said, a government plane was dispatched to Florida to bring back Senator Edward M. Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat who has brain cancer.

The fine print was not immediately available, and the numbers were shifting. But in essence, the Democratic leadership and two centrist Republicans announced they had struck a deal on about $110 billion in cuts to the roughly $900 billion legislation — a deal expected to provide at least the 60 votes needed to send the bill out of the Senate and into negotiations with the House, which has passed its own version.

The pact, which is expected to be approved in the next few days, was concluded just hours after the Labor Department announced that 598,000 jobs were lost in January. The contraction in jobs is already steeper than in any other recession since at least the early 1980s. And economists warn that several more shoes are about to drop, a message that added urgency to the Senate deliberations.

As the negotiations were under way, lawmakers said it was time to stop quibbling about the exact parameters of the legislation — which mixes safety-net spending, tax cuts and a huge infusion of dollars into federal programs — and to begin work toward a final agreement that could be sent to Mr. Obama next week.

“Our country can’t wait another day for another approach,” said Senator Ben Nelson, a Nebraska Democrat who is a leader of the bipartisan coalition that worked out the agreement.

The details were negotiated at an afternoon meeting in the office of the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, involving Mr. Reid, other top Democrats and two Republicans, Susan Collins of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. After they came to terms, the senators brought in the White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, for assurance that the deal was acceptable to the administration. Mr. Emanuel signaled it was.

“With today’s unemployment numbers reaching more than 3.6 million workers,” Mr. Emanuel said after the session, “delay and failure were not an option.”

Mr. Obama called Ms. Collins and Mr. Specter, as well as Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, another Republican expected to support the deal, to acknowledge they were acting against pressure from their party and, one official said, to thank them for their patriotism in helping advance the bill at a critical time.

Earlier in the day, Mr. Obama urged Congress to act expeditiously. “It is inexcusable and irresponsible for any of us to get bogged down in distraction, delay or politics as usual while millions of Americans are being put out of work,” said Mr. Obama, who has recently shown less patience for Republican resistance to the bill.

Most Senate Republicans remained opposed to the measure, criticizing it as a case study in excessive spending that would do little to lift the economy. Some conservatives indicated Friday night that they would push for time to study the new legislation before any final vote.

“We want to stimulate the economy, not mortgage the future of our children and grandchildren by the kind of fiscally profligate spending embodied in this legislation,” said Senator John McCain of Arizona, the defeated Republican presidential nominee, who has emerged as a chief opponent of the proposal.

Republicans were clearly irritated at the outcome and faulted those involved in working out the bargain. “When you say this was the best we could do, I disagree with you,” Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said on the floor. “This not remotely close to what we could have done if we had sat down in a true bipartisan fashion and found a better way.”

The Senate’s proposed cuts took aim at an array of popular spending programs that critics said should not be part of a fiscal recovery bill, even if they represent laudable policy goals, because they would not deliver a quick enough jolt to the economy.

Even Mr. Obama’s signature tax cut for middle-class Americans was scaled back as part of the deal. Under the new plan, tax credits of up to $500 for individuals and $1,000 for couples would begin to phase out at lower income levels than first proposed, saving the government $2 billion.

The biggest cut, roughly $40 billion in aid to states, was likely to spur a fierce fight in negotiations with the House over the final bill. Many states, hit hard by the recession, face wrenching cuts in services and layoffs of public employees as they struggle to comply with laws requiring them to balance their budgets.

When debate began this week, the price tag on the Senate version of the stimulus bill was roughly $884 billion, but it grew to more than $900 billion as senators added provisions including tax breaks totaling $30 billion for purchases of homes and cars.

Lawmakers said that by poring over the 736-page bill they had excised about $110 billion, bringing the total cost to about $780 billion — $40 billion less than the stimulus bill approved by the House last week. Because of consumer tax breaks and spending for health research that had been added in the Senate, the new total for the measure could be about $820 billion. But even the senators behind the compromise were uncertain of the number.

In addition to the large cut in state aid, the Senate agreement would cut nearly $20 billion proposed for school construction; $8 billion to refurbish federal buildings and make them more energy efficient; $1 billion for the early childhood program Head Start; and $2 billion from a plan to expand broadband data networks in rural and underserved areas.

The administration had initially hoped that it could win the support of as many as 80 senators, but that goal disappeared after House Republicans voted unanimously against the measure. As questions were raised about the total spending, getting even three or four Republican senators to sign on became difficult.

Ms. Collins said she believed the changes had significantly improved the measure. Mr. Specter said that while he still had reservations, he had come to accept Mr. Obama’s push to enact the economic plan by mid-February. “I believe we do have to act,” Mr. Specter said, “and under the circumstances this is the best we can do.”

But several other Republicans who had taken part in the talks said they could not support the compromise.

“Unfortunately, there was too much in the Democratic counterproposal that was not stimulative,” said Senator George V. Voinovich of Ohio, “and that did not provide the jump-start our economy so desperately needs.”

The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said most Republicans remained unconvinced that the package would reinvigorate the economy.

“You have to balance the likelihood of success versus the crushing debt that we’re levying on the backs of our children, our grandchildren and, yes, their children,” Mr. McConnell said.

Mr. Reid urged Republicans to get behind the plan. “This is a critical day for this new Congress and our country,” he said. “Faced with this grave and growing economic crisis, Republicans must decide today whether they will join the president and Congressional Democrats on that road to recovery.”

HHS Pick Built Connections Over Decades

By Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 3, 2009

As he battles this week to save his nomination to be secretary of health and human services, one thing is certain: No one in Washington has a better-positioned network of allies in the Obama administration than Thomas A. Daschle.

Over three decades on Capitol Hill, including 10 years as the Senate Democratic leader, Daschle has nurtured one of the largest, most experienced talent pools in the city. His charges guided Barack Obama from his first days in the Senate, through the presidential race and into the White House. Daschle’s tentacles, moreover, stretch far beyond the agency Obama picked him to lead, reaching across the entire administration from the upper echelons of the White House to mid-level departmental positions to Obama’s kitchen cabinet.

The network is being tapped this week as Daschle and his allies scramble to explain why he did not pay more than $100,000 in back taxes, primarily for the use of a car and driver for three years. After a 75-minute closed-door meeting yesterday with the Senate Finance Committee, he emerged ashen-faced and apologetic. His confirmation vote has been postponed until at least the middle of next week.

Republicans remained noncommittal yesterday, weighing the costs and benefits of perhaps killing the nomination of a former colleague and close personal friend of the president. Democrats rose to Daschle’s defense, including, most notably, the man who would be without much of his top staff were it not for Daschle.

Asked yesterday morning whether he stands by Daschle, Obama said firmly: “Absolutely.”

If he weathers the tax controversy, Daschle is likely to be one of the best-connected Cabinet secretaries in the administration, if not history.

At least a dozen Daschle alumni are stepping into the highest positions of the federal government. Already, Obama and Vice President Biden have tapped Daschle veterans to manage their staffs, guide foreign policy and craft public relations strategy. In addition to the new HHS chief of staff, the chiefs of staff to Biden, the National Security Council and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner all worked for Daschle. His allies oversaw Obama’s transition team — including vetting Daschle himself — and one serves as the president’s personal lawyer.

“This is notable for the breadth and scope and number,” said Chris Jennings, who was the Clinton administration point man on health care and knows the challenges of navigating the White House bureaucracy.

As news broke over the weekend that Daschle had made several tax errors, many of those former colleagues and aides helped mount a defense, praising his integrity on talk shows, in news releases and in whispered asides. Not a single lawmaker has called for him to withdraw.

But the real potency of the network will come if Daschle is confirmed, said Ross K. Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University. With such well-placed, trusted advisers, he would be in a position to promote his priorities and shape policy well beyond the contours of his department.

“The fact that he has eyes and ears in the White House, rather than way down in the HHS bureaucracy, is really an advantage,” Baker said. He likened Daschle’s sphere of influence to the broad power that Henry Kissinger held as secretary of state in the Nixon administration.

“Geography is determinant of influence,” he said. “To have people proximate to the president is a real advantage.”

Like Daschle, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton can lay claim to an impressive network of insiders, developed during her husband’s eight years in the Oval Office and her eight in the Senate. Many have worked for Daschle as well. But the Clinton coalition has become fractured and she carries the lingering scars of a contentious fight with Obama in the Democratic presidential primaries.

By contrast, Daschle and Obama share an uncommon bond, forged during the 2004 campaign. Many — including aides to Daschle — had expected him to seek the White House. But the South Dakotan lost a nasty reelection fight, and the young Illinois legislator burst onto the national scene and into the U.S. Senate.

“Tom was the first guy to go with Obama” in the pre-presidential campaign season, said Frederick H. Graefe, a Washington lobbyist and one of Daschle’s oldest friends. “He told him, ‘Run now, don’t wait, don’t make the mistake I made. I’ll give you everybody I have — the campaign team, the personal staff, leadership staff, fundraising lists — lock, stock and barrel.’ ”

“It was a ready-made team,” Graefe added.

As a Senate leader with authority over not just his personal staff but several policy and campaign committees as well, Daschle employed more than 100 people at any given time. From 1994 to 2005, even more than the Clinton White House, “the University of Daschle” was the place to learn the inner workings of governing, Baker said.

More than half a dozen Daschle veterans hold high-ranking White House positions, most notably Pete Rouse, who was his chief of staff and is now senior adviser to the president, and Phil Schiliro, Obama’s legislative liaison.

Daschle-ites are also taking positions at the Agriculture Department and the Democratic National Committee. Some of his closest allies are among Obama’s most trusted outside advisers, a select group whose influence comes not from a title but from a personal bond. They include John D. Podesta, the Center for American Progress president who masterminded Obama’s transition; lawyer Robert Bauer; and political consultant Anita Dunn.

“The spokes of the wheel all lead to Pete Rouse,” said Dunn, who has deep ties to both men. “When Pete went to work for Barack, what Barack got — and I don’t think he realized it — was the only network in Democratic circles that from both a policy and political perspective came close to the Clinton network.”

Rouse got his start in Washington in the early 1970s when he and Daschle were young aides to then-Sen. James Abourezk (D-S.D.). In 1986, he began an 18-year stint with Daschle.

When Daschle lost in 2004, he encouraged his team to sign on with Obama. Rouse agreed and eventually recruited many of Obama’s top aides, including Schiliro and the husband-and-wife team Dan Pfeiffer and Sarah Feinberg.

If confirmed, Daschle will be “HHS secretary plus,” said Dunn, referring to the additional role as head of the new White House Office of Health Reform, which has a small but well-situated office in the basement of the West Wing.

If Daschle were working at HHS headquarters, his “embeds,” as Dunn calls them, could provide “an extraordinary level of information and access that most Cabinet secretaries don’t have.”

“It’s a matter of him not having to go in and forge relationships,” she said. “Daschle gets to deal directly with people he knows and is comfortable with.”

If as HHS secretary he wanted to tweak health tax policy, his longtime chief of staff, Mark Childress, would need only pick up the phone and call former colleague Mark Patterson, Geithner’s chief of staff. If there were an international health issue to resolve, Childress could contact Daschle alums Mark Lippert at the NSC and Denis McDonough on the White House staff.

And if Daschle needed assistance from Biden, he could turn to Ron Klain, the vice president’s chief of staff, who oversaw the Senate Democratic Leadership Committee for Daschle in 1995. Biden was making calls on Daschle’s behalf yesterday.

The Daschle hires that Obama has made are the “cream of the crop” of the Democratic establishment, Jennings said.

“People outside the Daschle orbit recognize his friendship with and influence with President Obama,” he said. “It’s the cumulative perceptions of his respect and influence within the administration and his former staff. Whether it’s an accurate perception or not, perception is reality in Washington.”

Staff writers Paul Kane and Joe Stephens and research editor Alice Crites contributed to this report.

UPDATE

Daschle Ends Bid for Post; Obama Concedes Mistake

WASHINGTON — Tom Daschle withdrew his nomination as secretary of health and human services on Tuesday after weathering four days of scrutiny over unpaid taxes, prompting President Obama to concede having “screwed up” in undermining his own ethical standards by pushing the appointment.

“I’ve got to own up to my mistake, which is that ultimately it’s important for this administration to send a message that there aren’t two sets of rules,” Mr. Obama said in an interview with NBC News. “You know, one for prominent people and one for ordinary folks who have to pay their taxes.”

Mr. Daschle, a closer confidant to Mr. Obama than any other cabinet nominee, had offered to step down over the weekend, but officials close to both men said Mr. Obama had urged him to fight for confirmation.

Mr. Daschle went to Capitol Hill on Monday to keep his confirmation on track, but by Tuesday morning, with the pressure showing no signs of easing, he told the president that he believed he had become a distraction and too wounded to be effective.

It was the rockiest day yet for the new White House. Two hours before Mr. Daschle withdrew, Mr. Obama’s nominee to be the chief White House performance officer, Nancy Killefer, pulled her name from consideration because of unpaid payroll taxes for a household employee.

The developments distracted attention from Mr. Obama’s effort to push his economic stimulus plan through the Senate and complicated the initiative that Mr. Daschle was to have led, his plan for overhauling the health care system.

The nominees’ tax problems also gave Republicans a new argument against Mr. Obama and his party as the economic debate proceeds: that Democrats are cavalier about taxing other people because they do not abide by the tax laws themselves.

In evening interviews on broadcast and cable television networks, Mr. Obama said he took responsibility for the errors. “And so I’m frustrated with myself, with our team,” he told NBC, “but ultimately my job is to get this thing back on track because what we need to focus on is a deteriorating economy and getting people back to work.”

He added, “I’m here on television saying I screwed up and that’s part of the era of responsibility.”

Mr. Daschle delivered the news in a call on Tuesday morning to Mr. Obama, who was in his study, just off the Oval Office. He also stepped down from his position as White House heath czar, a job with a West Wing office.

Mr. Daschle said Monday that his failure to pay $128,000 in taxes for the use of a friend’s chauffer and car service was “completely inadvertent.”

Declining an interview request on Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Daschle said in a brief statement distributed by the White House that he would not have been able to lead an overhaul of the nation’s health care system “with the full faith of the Congress and the American people.”

“I am not that leader,” Mr. Daschle said, “and will not be a distraction.”

The withdrawals by the two advisers represent the highest-level political casualties of the young administration and raised fresh questions about the vetting procedures for officials already selected and scores of positions that remain open.

Senate Republicans signaled their intention to step up scrutiny of all appointees. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner was confirmed last week after apologizing and weathering weeks of criticism for late payment of $34,000 in income taxes.

Both Mr. Daschle and Ms. Killefer pulled out on their own accord, officials said, after their tax returns were scrutinized by the Senate Finance Committee. On the campaign trail, Mr. Obama often expressed frustration to aides about the practice of cutting loose advisers at the first sign of political trouble.

“They both decided and recognized that their nominations would distract from the important goals and the critical agenda that the president put forward,” Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said Tuesday.

Asked repeatedly whether the White House had quietly urged Mr. Daschle to step aside to quell the controversy, Mr. Gibbs said, “He did not get a signal.”

Among the people mentioned as possible candidates for the job of health secretary are Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, a former state insurance commissioner; former Gov. John A. Kitzhaber of Oregon, a doctor; and Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm of Michigan. All are Democrats.

In the Senate, Democrats were caught by surprise by Mr. Daschle’s decision, particularly after his appearance at the Finance Committee on Monday, as well as several indications that he could win confirmation.

But Republicans were intensifying their criticism of his tax failings, and Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, said Mr. Daschle told him in a phone call on Tuesday morning that he believed the nomination was getting too much attention.

Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, said Mr. Daschle, the former Senate majority leader, had done “the honorable thing to spare his family, the president and his colleagues in the Senate from a tough political battle that would lie ahead.”

Mr. Durbin added, “I think he would have prevailed in the end, but it would have taken a while, and there would have been some suffering.”

The day had been scripted by advisers to turn the page on the tax controversy and refocus on the economy. In a rare move, television anchors for five broadcast and cable networks had been invited to interview Mr. Obama about the urgency of passing the economic recovery plan, a decision that magnified the troubles at the White House by giving them increased prominence on the evening news.

He delivered almost precisely the same mea culpa to each of the anchors as they cycled through the Oval Office.

Hours earlier, as his advisers huddled in the West Wing to shape a strategy for responding to the dizzying turn of events, Mr. Obama and his wife, Michelle, made an unscheduled stop at a public school not far away.

“We were just tired of being in the White House,” Mr. Obama told second graders at Capital City Public Charter School.

Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, who sits on the Finance Committee, said he believed Mr. Daschle should not have withdrawn his name.

“I believe that when the smoke clears and the frenzy has ended, no one will believe that this unwitting mistake should have erased 30 years of selfless public service and remarkable legislative skill and expertise on health care,” Mr. Kerry said.

In the case of Ms. Killefer, administration officials said she had failed to pay more than a year’s worth of unemployment taxes on household help.

The District of Columbia filed a $946.69 tax lien on her home in 2005 for failure to pay the tax. That was disclosed to the Senate Finance Committee, but officials said her tax records were being further scrutinized.

“I recognize that your agenda and the duties facing your chief performance officer are urgent,” Ms. Killefer wrote in a letter to Mr. Obama on Tuesday.

“I have also come to realize in the current environment that my personal tax issue of D.C. unemployment tax could be used to create exactly the kind of distraction and delay those duties must avoid.”

Ms. Killefer, head of the Washington office of the consulting firm McKinsey & Company, was named to the new position on Jan. 7. In the announcement, Mr. Obama said she would help “restore the American people’s confidence in their government.”

He said at the time that her role would be to scour the budget for wasteful or inefficient spending.

Robert Pear and Carl Hulse contributing reporting.

By PHILIP ELLIOTT

WASHINGTON (AP)

Republican Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire said Friday that he’s being considered by President Barack Obama for a Cabinet appointment as head of the Commerce Department. Senior Democrats said the New Hampshire senator is among those at the top of a list for the job, although they emphasized that no move was imminent. They spoke on condition of anonymity because no decision has been made and they were not authorized to discuss the administration’s thinking. “I am aware that my name is one of those being considered by the White House for secretary of commerce, and am honored to be considered, along with others, for the position,” Gregg said in a statement. “Beyond that there is nothing more I can say at this time.” A Capitol Hill leadership aide said Thursday evening that Obama had talked with his party’s leaders about the move to appoint Gregg, which could put Democrats within reach of a 60-person, filibuster-proof majority in the Senate if New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch were to name a fellow Democrat. Democrats hold a 56-41 majority in the 100-member Senate, and two independents caucus with them. The Senate seat from Minnesota remains undecided, with Sen. Norm Coleman and challenger Al Franken in a close, court-based contest. Gregg has said he plans to run for re-election in 2010. He was the GOP’s chief negotiator for the $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, a plan unpopular with many Republicans. New Hampshire has been trending toward the Democrats, although independents remain a major force in the “Live Free or Die” state. Obama’s first choice to run the Commerce Department, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, dropped out of consideration amid a grand jury investigation over how state contracts were issued to political donors. White House officials insisted Thursday that no decision had been made. It was also not clear if Lynch — popular, but for many fellow Democrats frustratingly moderate at times — would pick someone out of party loyalty. During the state’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary, Lynch made positive statements about Republican John McCain and attended one of his signature town halls. He also named GOP star Kelly Ayotte his attorney general as part of a centrist governing style that delivered him re-election with 70 percent of the vote. A member of a New Hampshire political family and a policy wonk, Gregg rose through the Senate ranks to serve as chairman of the powerful Budget Committee and the Appropriations subcommittee that funds homeland security. Now in the minority, he is the ranking Republican member on the Budget Committee but still has large sway in the GOP’s response to Obama’s legislative agenda.

Gregg to Be Nominated Tuesday for Commerce Job

By Anne E. Kornblut and Shailagh Murray
President Obama will nominate Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) tomorrow for commerce secretary, a White House official said tonight.

The nomination is the last for Obama’s Cabinet. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) was nominated Dec. 3 to head the Commerce Department, but he withdrew his name from consideration a month later because of a federal investigation involving state government contracts.

Gregg appears willing to take the Commerce job, but he announced one condition today: His replacement in the Senate had to be a Republican.

“I have made it clear to the Senate leadership on both sides of the aisle and to the Governor that I would not leave the Senate if I felt my departure would cause a change in the makeup of the Senate,” Gregg said in a statement.

Over the weekend, White House officials said that Gregg was the leading candidate for the Commerce.

Senate Republicans said they were somewhat mystified by Gregg’s potential move. As the ranking GOP senator on the Budget Committee, Gregg could play a potentially pivotal role in budget and entitlement reform, potentially the most challenging items on Obama’s ambitious to-do list. But if Gregg takes the Cabinet slot, he would likely be replaced as ranking member by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), one of the most conservative members of the Senate with a highly partisan track record.

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, declined to answer questions about Gregg during his daily briefing. “Obviously the president has great respect for Senator Gregg. I’m not going to get into personnel announcements before we are there,” Gibbs said. “And as it relates to picking senators in states that need new senators, I think you can rest reasonably assured that this administration has had nothing and wants nothing to do with that going forward. And I would bold and underline that.”

Lynch is widely expected to appoint a Republican to replace Gregg, someone who could be a caretaker in the seat until the next election, in 2010. But Lynch has not officially said so. In a statement on Monday, Lynch said: “We are in the midst of a national economic crisis, and it calls for cooperation on all of our parts. We all need to work together to do what is in the best interest of our country and our state. I have had conversations with Senator Gregg, the White House and the U.S. Senate leadership. Senator Gregg has said he would not resign his seat in the U.S. Senate if it changed the balance in the Senate. Based on my discussions, it is clear the White House and Senate leadership understand this as well.”

Lynch continued: “It is important that President Obama be able to select the advisers he feels are necessary to help him address the challenges facing our nation.”

WASHINGTON — President Obama branded Wall Street bankers “shameful” on Thursday for giving themselves nearly $20 billion in bonuses as the economy was deteriorating and the government was spending billions to bail out some of the nation’s most prominent financial institutions.

“There will be time for them to make profits, and there will be time for them to get bonuses,” Mr. Obama said during an appearance in the Oval Office with Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner. “Now’s not that time. And that’s a message that I intend to send directly to them, I expect Secretary Geithner to send to them.”

It was a pointed — if calculated — flash of anger from the president, who frequently railed against excesses in executive compensation on the campaign trail. He struck his populist tone as he confronted the possibility of having to ask Congress for additional large sums of money, beyond the $700 billion already authorized, to prop up the financial system, even as he pushes Congress to move quickly on a separate economic stimulus package that could cost taxpayers as much as $900 billion.

This week alone, American companies reported as many as 65,000 job cuts, and public anger is rising over reports of profligate spending by banks and investment firms that are receiving help from the $700 billion bailout fund. About half of that money is still available, but the new administration has yet to announce how it will use it, and many analysts think it will take far more to stabilize the banking system.

Should Mr. Obama have to go to Congress to seek more money for the bailout fund to avert the failure of more banks, he would most likely encounter opposition within both parties and demands for tighter restrictions on pay for executives of institutions that receive government assistance.

Mr. Geithner has already signaled a willingness to impose stricter compensation limits as part of a revamped approach to dealing with the banking crisis, but with his strong words on Thursday, Mr. Obama seemed intent on reassuring Congress and the public that he would step up the pressure on bankers before granting them additional assistance.

Mr. Obama was reacting to a report by the New York State comptroller that found financial executives had received an estimated $18.4 billion in bonuses for 2008, less than for the previous several years but the same level of bonuses as they received in 2004, when times were flush.

“That is the height of irresponsibility,” Mr. Obama said. “It is shameful. And part of what we’re going to need is for the folks on Wall Street who are asking for help to show some restraint and show some discipline and show some sense of responsibility.”

The Obama administration and lawmakers have begun to consider ways to control executive pay; the bailout fund, known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, would be the main vehicle for exerting such control. The administration of former President George W. Bush issued guidelines last October to try to control executive pay at companies receiving government help, but so far they have done little to curb large salaries.

During his confirmation hearings, Mr. Geithner said the administration is preparing rules that would require executives at companies receiving taxpayer money to agree that any compensation above a certain amount — he did not specify how much — be “paid in restricted stock or similar form” that could not be liquidated or sold until the government had been repaid.

Some lawmakers, meanwhile, have said they are considering so-called “clawback” provisions that could be invoked by the government to take back bonuses and executive pay from officials at companies that encountered problems.

In the meantime, public outrage is already forcing some companies to rein in their lavish spending. John A. Thain, the former Merrill Lynch executive who was forced out of Bank of America, said this week he would reimburse Bank of America for an expensive renovation of his office that included an $87,000 area rug and $35,000 commode.

But it took the urging of the Obama administration to force Citigroup, which received an infusion of taxpayer funds last year, to abandon plans to buy a $50 million corporate jet. On Thursday, Mr. Obama made reference to the jet, without singling out Citigroup by name; his remarks came one day after the president met at the White House with business leaders, including Richard D. Parsons, the new chairman of Citigroup.

On Capitol Hill, Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, issued his own warning on Thursday, saying companies would be summoned to testify if taxpayer money was involved.

“Whether it was used directly or indirectly, this infuriates the American people and rightly so,” Mr. Dodd said. “So I say to anyone else who does it, if you do it, I’m going to bring you before the committee.”

There is also political pressure to rein in pay in industries beyond banks and investment firms. The pressure reflects the substantial disparities between pay increases for senior executives, the low rate of wage growth for workers and the frequent disconnect between compensation and the long-term strategic success or failure of corporations.

Mr. Obama’s message on Thursday was reinforced by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who pledged in an interview with CNBC and The New York Times that the government would spend the remaining $350 billion of the troubled assets money “wisely and prudently and transparently.”

Mr. Biden said that he, like the president, was outraged by reports of large bonuses going to Wall Street executives.

“I’d like to throw these guys in the brig,” he said. “They’re thinking the same old thing that got us here, greed. They’re thinking, ‘Take care of me.’  ”

John Harwood contributed reporting.

UPDATE

In Curbing Pay, Obama Seeks to Alter Corporate Culture

WASHINGTON — In announcing executive pay limits on Wednesday, President Obama is trying to hold the financial industry accountable to taxpayers while aiming to change an entrenched corporate culture that endorses outsize bonuses and perks that often bear little relationship to corporate performance.

Mr. Obama also needs to deflect a growing populist outrage over sky-high pay among the banks and other companies now on the public dole. His announcement comes just days before the administration is expected to unveil a new strategy — and possibly request more money from Congress — to guarantee or buy outright hundreds of billions of dollars in bad assets held by banks.

The new rules would set a $500,000 cap on cash compensation for the most senior executives, curtail severance pay when top executives left a company, restrict cashing in on stock incentives until government assistance was repaid and prod corporate boards to closely scrutinize luxury perquisites like private jets and country club memberships.

The plan’s effectiveness in curbing executive pay may not be known for years, however. Past administrations have also been critical of excessive pay, but corporate executives have found ingenious ways around limits, often hiring consultants to create new forms of compensation.

Even the new rules allow companies some leeway. While giving shareholders a say in bonuses above the cap and restricting when stock incentives can be cashed in, the rules do not place limits on the size of such awards, which have become the biggest part of many compensation packages. In addition, the toughest new rules apply only to large companies seeking government assistance to survive.

They do not apply to the more than 350 institutions that have already received bailout funds, only to those that seek aid under the next phase of the bailout program. And companies that seek aid but do not need exceptional government assistance can waive the $500,000 pay cap, as long as they submit their executive pay policies to a nonbinding shareholder vote.

Still, the rules represent the most comprehensive effort to curb compensation. “This is America,” Mr. Obama said on Wednesday. “We don’t disparage wealth. We don’t begrudge anybody for achieving success. And we believe that success should be rewarded. But what gets people upset — and rightfully so — are executives being rewarded for failure. Especially when those rewards are subsidized by U.S. taxpayers.”

In 2007, the latest year that figures are available, the largest participants in the bailout program paid their chief executives an average compensation of $11 million, including salary, bonus and benefits. Of that amount, according to a review by Equilar, an executive compensation firm, only about $844,000 was cash salary. About $2.5 million was in a cash bonus, with the bulk — $7.4 million — in stock awards, and the remainder in benefits and perks.

If banks return to the government for more money, the new rules would require a reduction in pay, but not in stock awards, though these would be subject to a non-binding vote of the shareholders and would be in the form of long-term incentives because of restrictions on when they could be cashed in.

The plan will most likely force companies to think twice before coming to Washington for a handout, and it is certain to nudge them to return taxpayer loans more quickly.

On Wednesday, for instance, David A. Viniar, the chief financial officer of Goldman Sachs, which received $10 billion from the Treasury Department, told analysts that his firm wanted to repay the government as quickly as feasible to “be under less scrutiny and under less pressure,” according to Bloomberg News.

The Financial Services Roundtable, which lobbies on behalf of banks and other financial institutions, said that giving shareholders a vote on pay could discourage companies from seeking aid.

The rules would not prohibit a lower-level executive, like a stock trader or investment banker, from continuing to receive tens of millions of dollars in pay. Officials also emphasized that several of the proposals would not be made final until after public comments had been considered.

Still, investor groups, union leaders and lawmakers in both parties embraced the proposal.

“There is absolutely no reason why hard-working American taxpayers should be financing, directly or indirectly, excessive compensation for corporate executives whose decisions, in many cases, have crippled their firms and weakened the broader economy,” said Senator Christopher J. Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat who heads the Senate banking committee.

Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican minority leader, said that pay limits would be more equitable for rank-and-file taxpayers. “If anyone is looking for the taxpayer to help bail their company out,” he said, “these types of executive pay caps are appropriate.”

Officials said that the larger goal of the proposal was to make the boards of major corporations across a wide range of industries award pay packages more consistent with corporate earnings.

Appearing with Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, the architect of the plan, Mr. Obama repeated a theme that he began last week of attacking Wall Street for its excessive compensation.

“For top executives to award themselves these kinds of compensation packages in the midst of this economic crisis is not only in bad taste, it’s a bad strategy, and I will not tolerate it as president,” Mr. Obama said. He said such pay is “exactly the kind of disregard for the costs and consequences of their actions that brought about this crisis — a culture of narrow self-interest and short-term gain at the expense of everything else.”

During the Bush administration, the Securities and Exchange Commission adopted new rules promoting better public disclosure of executive compensation as a way to discourage pay not tied to performance. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. also criticized excessive pay as a factor contributing to the crisis on Wall Street and tried to impose some limits on banks receiving bailout funds.

But none of that put a significant dent in executive pay. A recent study by Equilar, a compensation research firm, found that the chief executives of the 10 largest financial services firms in a survey of 200 companies with revenue of at least $6.5 billion were awarded a total of $320 million last year, even though the companies had mortgage-related losses of $55 billion.

Some companies may not find the new pay curbs all that burdensome. The plan does not limit the size of bonuses that can take the form of restricted stock above the $500,000 cap — though companies would have to give shareholders a nonbinding vote on such awards.

Indeed, troubled financial institutions are already giving executives significant sums of restricted stock — shares that are locked up for years and can be sold only under specified conditions — in part because they are trying to preserve cash. Alan Johnson, managing director of Johnson Associates, a Wall Street pay consulting firm, said that in some cases, restricted stock was making up 60 percent of executives’ total compensation.

Mr. Johnson said the new restrictions could make it harder for the government to resuscitate ailing firms by making it harder for them to retain and recruit talented executives.

The plan does not appear to prohibit a financial institution from sponsoring a major golf tournament that most of its executives attend as part of the company’s marketing strategy. At a White House briefing, senior officials repeatedly declined to answer whether the plan would prohibit a company like Citigroup from paying $400 million to have its name on a baseball stadium. It is also unclear whether lucrative pension plans would be banned.

The administration will have to determine how broadly to apply the most severe restrictions as the TARP program is revised. If the new strategy envisions that many banks will be eligible for assistance, as they have in the past, then the less restrictive pay rules would apply to them.

Eric Dash contributed reporting from New York, and Jeff Zeleny from Washington.

WASHINGTON — Without a single Republican vote, President Obama won House approval on Wednesday for an $819 billion economic recovery plan as Congressional Democrats sought to temper their own differences over the enormous package of tax cuts and spending.

As a piece of legislation, the two-year package is among the biggest in history, reflecting a broad view in Congress that urgent fiscal help is needed for an economy in crisis, at a time when the Federal Reserve has already cut interest rates almost to zero.

But the size and substance of the stimulus package remain in dispute, as House Republicans argued that it tilted heavily toward new spending instead of tax cuts.

All but 11 Democrats voted for the plan, and 177 Republicans voted against it. The 244-to-188 vote came a day after Mr. Obama traveled to Capitol Hill to seek Republican backing, if not for the package then on other issues to come.

Mr. Obama, in a statement hailing the House passage of the plan, did not take note of the partisan divide but signaled that he expected changes to be made in the Senate that might attract support.

“I hope that we can continue to strengthen this plan before it gets to my desk,” he said. “But what we can’t do is drag our feet or allow the same partisan differences to get in our way. We must move swiftly and boldly to put Americans back to work, and that is exactly what this plan begins to do.”

Mr. Obama followed the House vote with a cocktail party at the White House for the Congressional leaders of both parties, from the House and the Senate. The House Republicans, including the minority leader, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, were fresh from their votes against the recovery package.

The failure to win Republican support in the House seemed to echo the early months of the last Democratic administration, when President Bill Clinton in 1993 had to rely solely on Democrats to win passage of a deficit-reduction bill that was a signature element of his presidency.

Mr. Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, had met Tuesday night at the White House with 11 moderate House Republicans, none of whom ended up supporting the bill. “The most important number here for this recovery plan is how many jobs it produces, not how many votes it gets,” Mr. Emanuel said.

As Senate Democrats prepare to bring their version of the package to the floor on Monday, House Democrats and the administration indicated they would ultimately accept a provision in the emerging Senate package that would adjust the alternative minimum tax to hold down many middle-class Americans’ income taxes for 2009. The provision was not in the House legislation.

Its cost would drive the overall package’s tally to nearly $900 billion. That would exceed the roughly $850 billion limit that Mr. Obama has set for Congress, House Democratic leadership aides said, and leave no room for other proposals that senators of both parties are poised to seek during Senate debate next week.

While the House and Senate measures are similar, they are most likely to differ in ways that could snarl negotiations between Democrats from the two chambers, and delay getting a measure to the president. In particular, House and Senate Democrats are split over how to divide $87 billion in relief to the states for Medicaid, with senators favoring a formula more beneficial to less-populous states.

Democrats’ own differences aside, they also are under pressure from the White House to be open to proposals from Senate Republicans who might support the final legislation if their interests are accommodated, and which might draw a few Republican supporters on a final vote next month in the House.

The provision on the alternative minimum tax, for example, was a priority for Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, who added it Tuesday in the Finance Committee’s work on the legislation.

Democrats’ goal is to have the stimulus package, which is roughly two-thirds new spending and one-third tax cuts, to Mr. Obama’s desk for his signature by Feb. 13, before Congress breaks for Presidents’ Day.

“He said he wanted action, bold and swift, and that is exactly what we’re doing today,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, said as debate began.

Democrats voluntarily dropped from the package several provisions that Republicans had singled out for derision in recent days, including money to restore the Jefferson Memorial and for family planning programs. But the day’s debate contrasted with the president’s conciliatory gestures.

Representative Virginia Foxx, Republican of North Carolina, said that former President George Bush’s signature tax cuts in 2001 had created years of growth but that the nation’s problems started when Democrats regained majorities in Congress in the 2006 elections.

Representative Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland and the majority leader, said that “the economics that got us into this mess” were the Republicans’ policies for the six years that Republicans controlled both the White House and Congress, through 2006.

The House voted down several Republican proposals, including a substitute package made up entirely of tax cuts for individuals and businesses. Republicans did not say how much their package would cost, although Mr. Boehner said it would be far less than the Democratic plan. That tax-cut-only approach was defeated on a mostly party-line vote of 266 to 170; two Democrats joined all but nine moderate Republicans in voting for the Republican plan.

By another near-party-line vote, 270 to 159, the House rejected a Republican plan to delete a number of spending programs, including several representing top campaign promises of Mr. Obama, and to add instead $36 billion for highway construction, more than doubling the $30 billion in the bill, and $24 billion for Army Corps of Engineers projects.

After the final vote, Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the second-ranking House Republican, called the Democratic package “a spending bill beyond anyone’s imagination.”

Some Democrats seemed surprised that no Republicans voted for the measure.

“Not one person felt his or her district needed to have any of this assistance?” Representative Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut, asked of the Republicans. “That can’t be.”

Brad Woodhouse, president of the union-supported, pro-Democratic group Americans United for Change, e-mailed a statement condemning the Republicans’ opposition under the subject line “Political Suicide.”

That $355 billion in spending isn’t about the economy.

The stimulus bill currently steaming through Congress looks like a legislative freight train, but given last week’s analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, it is more accurate to think of it as a time machine. That may be the only way to explain how spending on public works in 2011 and beyond will help the economy today.

According to Congressional Budget Office estimates, a mere $26 billion of the House stimulus bill’s $355 billion in new spending would actually be spent in the current fiscal year, and just $110 billion would be spent by the end of 2010. This is highly embarrassing given that Congress’s justification for passing this bill so urgently is to help the economy right now, if not sooner.

And the red Congressional faces must be very red indeed, because CBO’s analysis has since vanished into thin air after having been posted early last week on the Appropriations Committee Web site. Officially, the committee says this is because the estimates have been superseded as the legislation has moved through committee. No doubt.

AP

David Obey.

In addition to suppressing the CBO analysis, Democrats have derided it. Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D., Wis.) called it “off the wall,” never mind that CBO is now run by Democrats. Mr. Obey also suggested that it would be a mistake to debate the stimulus “until the cows come home.” We’d settle for a month or two, so at least the voters can inspect the various Congressional cattle they’re buying with that $355 billion.

The stimulus bill is also a time machine in the sense that it’s based on an old, and largely discredited, economic theory. As Harvard economist Robert Barro pointed out on these pages last Thursday, the “stimulus” claim is based on something called the Keynesian “multiplier,” which is that each $1 of spending the government “injects” into the economy yields 1.5 times that in greater output. There’s little evidence to support this theory, but you have to admire its beauty because it assumes the government can create wealth out of thin air. If it were true, the government should spend $10 trillion and we’d all live in paradise.

The problem is that the money for this spending boom has to come from somewhere, which means it is removed from the private sector as higher taxes or borrowing. For every $1 the government “injects,” it must take $1 away from someone else — either in taxes or by issuing a bond. In either case this leaves $1 less available for private investment or consumption. Mr. Barro wrote about this way back in 1974 in his classic article, “Are Government Bonds Net Wealth?”, in the Journal of Political Economy. Larry Summers and Paul Krugman must have missed it.

The government spending will be a net stimulus only if its $1 goes to more productive purposes than those to which private investors would have put that same $1. There are some ways we may want the government to spend money — on national defense, say — but that doesn’t mean it’s a stimulus.

A similar analysis applies to the tax cuts that are part of President Obama’s proposal. In contrast to the spending, at least the tax cuts will take effect immediately. But the problem is that Mr. Obama wants them to be temporary, which means taxpayers realize they will see no permanent increase in their after-tax incomes. Not being fools, Americans may either save or spend the money but they aren’t likely to change their behavior in ways that will spur growth. For Exhibit A, consider the failure of last February’s tax rebate stimulus, which was a bipartisan production of George W. Bush and Mr. Summers, who is now advising Mr. Obama.

To be genuinely stimulating, tax cuts need to be immediate, permanent and on the “margin,” meaning that they apply to the next dollar of income that an individual or business earns. This was the principle behind the Kennedy tax cuts of 1964, as well as the Reagan tax cuts of 1981, which finally took full effect on January 1, 1983.

If the Obama Democrats can’t abide this because it’s a “tax cut for the rich,” as an alternative they could slash the corporate tax to spur business incentives. The revenue cost of eliminating the corporate tax wouldn’t be any more than their proposed $355 billion in new spending, and we guarantee its “multiplier” effects on growth would be far greater. Research by Mr. Obama’s own White House chief economist, Christina Romer, has shown that every $1 in tax cuts can increase output by as much as $3.

As for all of that new spending, CBO will release an updated analysis this week. And we anticipate that the budget analysts will in the interim have discovered that much more of that $355 billion will somehow find its way to “shovel-ready” projects that the Obama Administration can start building before the crocuses bloom. But in the real world, the CBO’s first estimate is likely to prove closer to the truth.

The spending portion of the stimulus, in short, isn’t really about the economy. It’s about promoting long-time Democratic policy goals, such as subsidizing health care for the middle class and promoting alternative energy. The “stimulus” is merely the mother of all political excuses to pack as much of this spending agenda as possible into a single bill when Mr. Obama is at his political zenith.

Apart from the inevitable waste, the Democrats are taking a big political gamble here. Congress and Mr. Obama are promoting this stimulus as the key to economic revival. Americans who know nothing about multipliers or neo-Keynesians expect it to work. The Federal Reserve is pushing trillions of dollars of monetary stimulus into the economy, and perhaps that along with a better bank rescue strategy will make the difference. But if spring and then summer arrive, and the economy is still in recession, Americans are going to start asking what they bought for that $355 billion.

By Rich Noyes