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The day’s top political news:
Democrats, GOP: Summit will not break logjam on health
Here's one point on which Democrats and Republicans agree on health care: President Barack Obama's much-touted televised summit has virtually no chance of breaking the political logjam. That means Democrats will be forced to find a way to pass an overhaul on their own or face a huge political defeat.
Lawmakers from both parties suggested the Obama-hosted meeting Thursday will amount to little more than political theater. No cracks appeared in the GOP's overwhelming opposition to Democrats' efforts. And both parties saw the president's revised, far-reaching proposal, released Monday, as a call for Democrats to try to pass the legislation on their own under Senate rules that would bar Republican delaying tactics.
Democrats are almost certain to portray the GOP alternatives as flimsy and unworkable. They hope the session will embolden rank-and-file Democratic lawmakers who face re-election this fall amid worries that public opposition to a full-scale overhaul of health care could doom them. Failing to pass a bill would be even worse, party leaders say.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100224/D9E2B75O1.html
Exclusive: White House privately plots 2012 campaign run
President Barack Obama’s top advisers are quietly laying the groundwork for the 2012 reelection campaign, which is likely to be run out of Chicago and managed by White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina, according to Democrats familiar with the discussions.
The planning for now consists entirely of private conversations, with Obama aides at all levels indulging occasionally in closed-door 2012 discussions while focusing ferociously on the midterm elections and health care reform, the Democratic sources said. “The gathering storm is the 2010 elections,” one top official said.
David Axelrod, White House senior adviser, may leave the West Wing to rejoin his family in Chicago and reprise his role as Obama’s muse, overseeing the campaign’s tone, themes, messages and advertising, the sources said. David Plouffe, the Obama for America campaign manager, described by one friend as "the father of all this," will be a central player in the reelect, perhaps as an outside adviser.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/33411.html#ixzz0gSgl55sA
Big Questions Still Linger on Eve of Health Care Meeting
Thursday’s bipartisan meeting at the White House feels a bit like the start of the final act. And Congress could still end up passing a sweeping bill, a small bill or no bill at all. Democrats and Republicans are well aware of each other’s ideas by now.
The White House’s biggest mistake has been its hands-off approach to the process. President Obama and his aides forgot about what economists call the time value of money — and of political capital.
As a result, health reform has flirted with failure more than once. After those raucous town hall meetings, Mr. Obama needed a prime-time address to get the effort back on track. More recently, Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts stopped everything, even though the Senate had already passed a bill and the House could pass that bill this afternoon.
Opinion:
Democrats think they can create an impression they have their own tea party movement
In one of my stranger moments of late, I got a call two nights ago – on my cell phone, yet – from Obama’s ground force “Organizing for America”. It was an invitation to me to attend a meeting Friday afternoon. No details were offered – frankly, none were needed.
Democrats are ramping up to generate a flood of calls to Congressmen and Senators, urging them to back the Obama health care scheme. In emails to insiders, Obama’s people are shooting for 100.000 people to participate. They apparently want me to join in helping gin up phone calls, emails, and faxes to our elected denizens of Capitol Hill.
To be sure, 100,000 is substantially less than the tea party movement can marshal, but who’s counting? Given liberal resources in terms of dependable manpower such as the far left, violence inclined giant SEIU Union, Obama’s own ACORN, and other leftist extremist groups that are always ready to march on cue and follow orders, they can act when needed. Add to that the minions in OFA, and a ready-made crowd is always on hand for whatever manipulation Obama and his people need.
The liberal “call to action” provides further proof Democrats still simply have no clue about the tea party movement and the source of its power. What the Democrats are trying to create this weekend, is what Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others have derisively called “Astroturf” – as opposed to “grass roots”. Democrats just cannot believe so many normal Americans would spontaneously rise up and vent anger against liberal government. They just naturally assume the evil Insurance companies and their lobbyists must somehow be creating the mobs that crowded town hall meetings of Capitol Hill incumbents last summer and, ultimately, forced the Obama legislative agenda off its time line.
Of course, the Democrat perspective is wrong again. Democrats are paying heavily for their lack of insight. A price measured in a string of losing elections, including the incredible upset in Massachusetts. A major segment of the American voting public is opposed to Democrats and the candidates its offers.
Another interesting aspect of the call from OFA the other night: this particular county – and much of the Florida Panhandle – has a somewhat consistent record of voting as much as 70% in favor of Republicans. Not to mention that I am a registered Republican. Plus, instead of simply calling me and reinforcing the message, perhaps, with an email follow up, they want me to come to a bad part of town for a meeting. Maybe they need even more than I am assuming.
Having been involved over the years with trying to arrange the sorts of demonstrations liberals are working to bring about, I know the smart operatives do a lot of careful targeting and go after recruits in those areas and among those voters who are most likely to be allies. As an old time Democrat politician advised me years ago “pick the blackberries where they grow the thickest”. His admonition has proven good advice over the years. I live where Democrat blackberries can be rare.
I am given to conclude, therefore, that Democrats are somewhat desperate. If they wasted a phone bank, boiler room-generated call to me, then they must be digging deeply to try and draw a crowd. They think this is the way the tea party movement works.
The power of the tea party movement, of course, lies in its total spontaneity. It is genuine. It produces crowds reflecting pent up anger and fury aimed at what many normal Americans see as out-of-control politics in Washington – and that translates into a fervent anti Democrat political movement. No phone banks needed.
I suspect the Democrats will get their 100,000 people – if they cant squeeze such numbers from their allies at ACORN and SEIU – the NY Times and other far left media, will claim they did. After all– as I said before – who’s counting?
Senators and Congressmen should be aware of the liberal scam – and most will be. But it seems some are taking seriously the Obama show and tell TV show this week. The meeting is a transparent ploy by Obama – an effort to create an impression his health care scam is bi-partisan and honest. In truth, it is neither. The meeting is a trap and a political reality show without scantily-clad young women.
Expect more tricks and traps as we get closer and closer to November. Democrats are desperate and are facing a tsunami of political opposition. They are also a very crafty lot. Their professionals know they face REAL opposition, not phony, drummed up groups. “Astroturf” applies to this week’s Democrat effort, with special emphasis on the first syllable.
Buddy
Top Blogs:
1.
White House Accused of Federal Crime in Specter, Bennet Races
Jeffrey Lord
"Whoever solicits or receives … any….thing of value, in consideration of the promise of support or use of influence in obtaining for any person any appointive office or place under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both." -- 18 USC Sec. 211 -- Bribery, Graft and Conflicts of Interest: Acceptance or solicitation to obtain appointive public office
"In the face of a White House denial, U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak stuck to his story yesterday that the Obama administration offered him a "high-ranking" government post if he would not run against U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania's Democratic primary."
-- Philadelphia Inquirer
February 19, 2010
"D.C. job alleged as attempt to deter Romanoff"
--Denver Post
September 27, 2009
A bombshell has just exploded in the 2010 elections.
For the second time in five months, the Obama White House is being accused -- by Democrats -- of offering high ranking government jobs in return for political favors. What no one is reporting is that this is a violation of federal law that can lead to prison time, a fine or both, according to Title 18, Chapter 11, Section 211 of the United States Code.
The jobs in question? Secretary of the Navy and a position within the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The favor requested in return? Withdrawal from Senate challenges to two sitting United States Senators, both Democrats supported by President Obama. The Senators are Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania and Michael Bennet in Colorado.
On Friday, Pennsylvania Congressman Joe Sestak, the Democrat challenging Specter for re-nomination, launched the controversy by accusing the Obama White House of offering him a federal job in exchange for his agreeing to abandon his race against Specter.
In August of 2009, the Denver Post reported last September, Deputy White House Chief of Staff Jim Messina "offered specific suggestions" for a job in the Obama Administration to Colorado Democrat Andrew Romanoff, a former state House Speaker, if Romanoff would agree to abandon a nomination challenge to U.S. Senator Michael Bennet. Bennet was appointed to the seat upon the resignation of then-Senator Ken Salazar after Salazar was appointed by Obama to serve as Secretary of the Interior. According to the Post, the specific job mentioned was in the U.S. Agency for International Development. The Post cited "several sources who described the communication to The Denver Post."
The paper also describes Messina as "President Barack Obama's deputy chief of staff and a storied fixer in the White House political shop." Messina's immediate boss is White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.
Sestak is standing by his story. Romanoff refused to discuss it with the Denver paper. In both instances the White House has denied the offers took place. The Sestak story in the Philadelphia Inquirer, reported by Thomas Fitzgerald, can be found here, While the Denver Post story, reported by Michael Riley, from September 27, 2009, can be read here.
In an interview with Philadelphia television anchor Larry Kane, who broke the story on Larry Kane: Voice of Reason, a Comcast Network show, Sestak says someone -- unnamed -- in the Obama White House offered him a federal job if he would quit the Senate race against Specter, the latter having the support of President Obama, Vice President Biden and, in the state itself, outgoing Democratic Governor Ed Rendell. Both Biden and Rendell are longtime friends of Specter, with Biden taking personal credit for convincing Specter to leave the Republican Party and switch to the Democrats. Rendell served as a deputy to Specter when the future senator's career began as Philadelphia's District Attorney, a job Rendell himself would eventually hold.
Asked Kane of Sestak in the Comcast interview:
"Is it true that you were offered a high ranking job in the administration in a bid to get you to drop out of the primary against Arlen Specter?"
"Yes" replied Sestak.
Kane: "Was it Secretary of the Navy?"
To which the Congressman replied:
"No comment."
Sestak is a retired Navy admiral.
In the Colorado case, the Post reported that while Romanoff refused comment on a withdrawal-for-a-job offer, "several top Colorado Democrats described Messina's outreach to Romanoff to The Post, including the discussion of specific jobs in the administration. They asked for anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject."
The Post also noted that the day after Romanoff announced his Senate candidacy, President Obama quickly announced his endorsement of Senator Bennet.
The discovery that the White House has now been reported on two separate occasions in two different states to be deliberately committing a potential violation of federal law -- in order to preserve the Democrats' Senate majority -- could prove explosive in this highly political year. The 60-seat majority slipped to 59 seats with the death of Senator Edward Kennedy, a Democrat, and the election of Republican Senator Scott Brown. Many political analysts are suggesting Democrats could lose enough seats to lose their majority altogether.
This is the stuff of congressional investigations and cable news alerts, as an array of questions will inevitably start being asked of the Obama White House.
Here are but a few lines of inquiry, some inevitably straight out of Watergate.
* Who in the White House had this conversation with Congressman Sestak?
* Did Deputy Chief of Staff Messina have the same conversation with Sestak he is alleged to have had with Romanoff -- and has he or anyone else on the White House staff had similar conversations with other candidates that promise federal jobs for political favors?
* They keep logs of these calls. How quickly will they be produced?
* How quickly would e-mails between the White House, Sestak, Specter, Romanoff and Bennet be produced?
* Secretary of the Navy is an important job. Did this job offer or the reported offer of the US AID position to Romanoff have the approval of President Obama or Vice President Biden?
* What did the President know and when did he know it?
* What did the Vice President know and when did he know it? (Note: Vice President Biden, in this tale, is Specter's longtime friend who takes credit for luring Specter to switch parties. Can it really be that an offer of Secretary of the Navy to get Sestak out of Specter's race would not be known and or approved by the Vice President? Does Messina or some other White House staffer -- like Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel -- have that authority?)
* What did White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel know, and when did he know it?
* What did Congressman Sestak know and when did he know it? Was he aware that the offer of a federal job in return for a political favor -- his withdrawal from the Senate race -- could open the White House to a criminal investigation?
* What did Senator Specter know about any of this and when did he know it? .
* What did Governor Rendell, who, as the titular leader of Pennsylvania Democrats, is throwing his political weight and machine to his old friend Specter, know about this? And when did he know it?
* Will the Department of Justice be looking into these two separate news stories, one supplied by a sitting United States Congressman, that paint a clear picture of jobs for political favors?
* Will Attorney General Holder recuse himself from such an investigation?
While in recent years there have been bribery scandals that centered on the exchange of favors for a business deal (Democrat William Jefferson, a Louisiana Congressman) or cash for earmarks (Republican Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham), the idea of violating federal law by offering a federal job in return for a political favor (leaving two hotly contested Senate races in this instance) is not new.
Let's go back in history for a moment.
It's the spring of 1960, in the middle of a bitter fight for the Democratic presidential nomination between then Senators John F. Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, Lyndon Johnson, Stuart Symington and the 1952 and 1956 nominee, ex-Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson.
Covering the campaign for what would become the grandfather of all political campaign books was journalist and JFK friend Theodore H. White. In his book, the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Making of the President 1960, published in 1961, White tells the story of a plane flight with JFK on the candidate's private plane The Caroline. The nomination fight is going on at a furious pace, and White and Kennedy are having another of their innumerable private chats for White's book while the plane brings JFK back from a campaign swing where he spoke to delegates in Montana.
The subject? Let's let White tell the story.
The conversation began in a burst of anger. A story had appeared in a New York newspaper that evening that an Eastern Governor had claimed that Kennedy had offered him a cabinet post in return for his Convention support. His anger was cold, furious. When Kennedy is angry, he is at his most precise, almost schoolmasterish. It is a federal offense, he said, to offer any man a federal job in return for a favor. This was an accusation of a federal offense. It was not so.
Let's focus on that JFK line again:
"It is a federal offense, he said, to offer any man a federal job in return for a favor."
With a fine and jail time attached if convicted.
What Larry Kane discovered with the response of Congressman Sestak -- and Sestak is sticking to his story -- combined with what the Denver Post has previously reported in the Romanoff case -- appears to be a series of connecting dots.
A connecting of dots -- by Democrats -- that leads from Colorado to Pennsylvania straight into the West Wing of the White House.
And possibly the jail house.
"It is a federal offense," said John F. Kennedy, "to offer any man a federal job in return for a favor."
And so it is.
Jeffrey Lord is a former Reagan White House political director and author. He writes from Pennsylvania at jlpa1@aol.com.
2.
Congressman Spencer Bachus (R-Al): America cannot afford a sequal to the Democrat stimulus bill
WASHINGTON – Congressman Spencer Bachus (AL-6) today said there are better ways to spur the U.S. economy than a second “stimulus” bill that would add billions of dollars to the federal deficit.
“We cannot continue to waste billions of taxpayer dollars on job creation schemes that fail to create jobs,” Bachus said during a House Financial Services Committee hearing that explored the need for a new stimulus bill.
Bachus said the original stimulus added hundreds of billions of dollars to the national debt, but failed to bring down unemployment.
Bachus, who is Ranking Member on the Committee, said the Obama Administration’s costly health care, energy, and regulatory proposals are discouraging businesses from hiring workers. He urged the President and Democrats in Congress to work with Republicans to create jobs.
“This is one way, and one way only, to spur the creation of new jobs. It is to take the heavy hand of government off the economy’s neck and to take the government’s hand out of ordinary people’s pockets. That will let business make what it knows best and people to have enough money to buy the things they need,” Bachus said.
Congressman Bachus made the following remarks at the committee hearing entitled, “Prospects for Employment Growth: Is Additional Stimulus Needed.
“We all want the same thing, Mr. Chairman. We all want every American who wants a job to have a job, and we want those jobs to be real, productive employment.
“A jobless recovery is no recovery for the millions of Americans on the unemployment line.
“Almost exactly a year ago today, the Obama Administration and Congressional Democrats sold the idea of a government stimulus as a way to create three and a half million jobs by the end of 2009 and to cap unemployment at 8 percent. Republicans warned that the stimulus would not work. Republicans said that the way to fix an economy that has been distorted by government meddling was not for the government to meddle further.
“Those warnings have been realized and it is time to re-evaluate our current course of action. The last thing America needs is a sequel to a so-called stimulus which has only succeeded in adding hundreds of billions of dollars in debt to our fiscal catastrophe.
“The time has come, Mr. Chairman, to stop pretending we can spend our way out of a recession caused by excessive debt by borrowing and spending yet more money we just don’t have.
“Before he became the chief White House economic adviser, Larry Summers famously asked, ‘How long can the world’s biggest borrower remain the world’s biggest power?’ We must remember this as we go forward. Unless and until we take the steps necessary to put our fiscal house in order, we will not have an economy capable of producing the kinds of jobs that sustain families and communities.
“We cannot continue to waste billions of taxpayer dollars on job creation schemes which fail to produce jobs.
“What we do need are new solutions that will put Americans back to work without burdening future generations with crushing deficits. A good first step would be to abandon the Administration’s health care and cap-and-trade proposals, which are freezing small businesses in place and impeding economic recovery, and to focus on policies that promote growth and investment.
“There is one way, and one way only, to spur the creation of new jobs. It is to take the heavy hand of government off of the economy’s neck and to take government’s hand out of ordinary people’s pockets. That will let business make what it knows how to make best and people to have enough money to buy the things they need. The government doesn’t make jobs. People create jobs, by making things and buying things. Jobs created by government spending, especially in the public sector, take money out of the private sector where real, productive jobs are created.
“So, Mr. Chairman, I want to take a page from President Obama’s playbook, and invite you and Congressional Democrats and the President to come work with Republicans. Let’s pass a financial regulatory reform package that fixes what’s wrong, without wrecking what isn’t. Let’s do the same thing with health care, and let’s give business and families some certainty about what their income picture will be like for years to come so they can start budgeting for spending again without worrying over what their government will do next.”
3.
http://townhall.com/columnists/TerryJeffrey/2010/02/24/obama_begins_his_assault_on_your_life_savings
Obama Begins His Assault on Your Life Savings
Terry Jeffrey
The welfare state and your life savings are two cars heading down a one-lane road in opposite directions. One must yield, or there will be a crash.
For Americans who believe in the old-fashioned virtues of hard work, self reliance and respect for private property, the solution is obvious. The welfare state must yield.
For politicians who believe in the welfare state and redistributing wealth, the solution is equally obvious. Your savings must yield.
Barack Obama is of the latter group. In the new health care proposal he outlined this week, he suggested a series of unprecedented tax increases that would extend the greedy hands of government into the life savings of hard-working Americans.
These new taxes would essentially construct a new fiscal pipeline capable of carrying money out of the savings of private citizens and dumping it into government coffers specifically for subsidizing Medicare under the new health care system Obama envisions. The White House summary of Obama's proposal presents this would-be pipeline as a facilitator of economic justice.
"Under current law, workers who earn a salary pay a flat tax of 1.45 percent of their wages to support the Medicare Hospital Insurance (HI) trust fund, but those who have substantial unearned income do not, raising issues of fairness," says the summary. "The Act will include an additional 0.9 percentage point Hospital Insurance tax for households with incomes exceeding $200,000 for singles and $250,000 for married couples filing jointly. In addition, it would add a 2.9 percent tax for such high-income households to unearned income including interest, dividends, annuities, royalties and rents (excluding income from active participation in S corporations)."
There are, of course, multiple unanswered questions here. For starters, wouldn't increasing the Medicare payroll tax on "households with incomes exceeding $200,000 for singles and $250,000 for married couples filing jointly" violate Obama's pledge that, as his campaign literature put it, he would "not raise any tax rate on families making less than $250,000 per year, period." Plenty of single Americans, who are raising children or taking care of other dependents, file their taxes claiming "head of household" status. Aren't they "families" covered by Obama's tax pledge?
Secondly, wouldn't slapping these households with a new 2.9 percent tax on interest, dividends, annuities, royalties and rents also violate Obama's tax pledge?
But the most important question is this: Would allowing the government to tap into the savings of one group of Americans to pay entitlement benefits to another group create a system of taxation that could swiftly destroy the American dream?
Yes, it would. Here's how:
When Obama took office, the federal government confronted a massive long-term fiscal problem. The nonpartisan Peter G. Peterson Foundation estimated that revenues expected under the current tax system would fall $56.4 trillion short of covering the current federal debt and the long-term costs of promised entitlement benefits. That $56.4 trillion equaled $184,000 for every living American and $435,000 for every full-time worker. Given the fiscal trajectory at the end of 2008, the government was headed toward spending 18 percent of gross domestic product by 2028 just to cover the annual costs of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and interest on the debt.
To put that in perspective, the entire federal government cost only 18.2 percent of GDP in 2001 and only 19.6 percent as late as 2007. By 2028, if overall government expenditures were held at the 2001 level as a share of GDP, welfare-state entitlements would squeeze out all other federal spending -- including maintaining an Army and a Navy.
The Mack truck of the welfare state was speeding down the one-lane road straight at the little compact car of your life savings.
How did Obama respond? He massively ramped up short-term spending, submitting a budget that will spend an average of 24.13 percent of GDP over the next four years -- more than the average of 19.13 percent FDR spent during the Depression and World War II. For the long run, Obama is trying to establish a national health care system in which the federal government will subsidize health insurance not only for the elderly and the poor but also for the middle-aged and the middle class.
Redistributionist politicians like Obama see their core constituents as the net recipients of government benefits, not the net payers. Increasing the number of net recipients serves their ideology and political interests.
The new taxes Obama wants to impose on interest, dividends, annuities and rents to pay for his health care plan are in fact taxes on the life savings of the net payers -- on their 401(k)s, savings accounts, paid-off mortgages and life insurance policies -- to cover benefits for the net recipients.
The redistributionists would ultimately need $435,000 from every full-time worker to cover the welfare state's unfunded liabilities -- even if Obama's health care plan were never enacted.
Obama is pointing them down the road where they will find it.
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