Campaign-Promises.com

By: David Rogers
January 15, 2009 09:00 AM EST

Top Obama advisers met late Wednesday with Senate Republicans in hopes of defusing a messy fight over bank bailout funds — a first test of strength for the new president and his ability to deliver on his larger economic recovery plan.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) remains confident that Obama can win the crucial vote, which could come as early as late Thursday or Friday. But Republican support for the Treasury program has plummeted, and Democratic freshmen — who campaigned against the rescue effort in the fall — could be required to step in to help Obama.

“Circumstances have changed,” Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) told Politico.

At issue is the release of $350 billion, the second half of the $700 billion Treasury rescue fund enacted in October to help stabilize credit markets. But more is at stake than just dollars.

Obama already has his eye on a much larger economic recovery plan approaching $850 billion. Anxious Democrats have warned labor allies that if the incoming president loses on this round, it will endanger both the stimulus bill and separate legislation making it easier for unions to organize workers.

The president-elect is slated to tour an Ohio manufacturing company and speak on his recovery plan on Friday, by which point Democrats hope to have completed a draft of their two-year package to go before House and Senate committees next week.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) still hopes to uphold a cap in the vicinity of $850 billion or slightly lower, and the tax cuts included will probably be somewhat less than the 40 percent share envisioned by the Obama team. After a leadership meeting Wednesday, it appeared less likely that the bill will include a costly $70 billion provision related to the alternative minimum tax. But Democrats predicted that an Obama-backed business tax break allowing an accelerated write-off of a company’s net operating losses will survive, despite criticism from some liberals.

“We have to make choices as to what creates the most jobs. That’s the standard: Create jobs, grow the economy,” Pelosi told Politico. “We have to go with our first priorities, which are investments and those tax credits and tax cuts that help middle-income people and stay within our cap.”

“If we do all of that, then we can decide what else we can do,” she added.

State aid commands an ever-increasing share of the package, which will use health care and education programs to pump tens of billions of dollars to governors struggling with their own deficits and layoffs.

An estimated $90 billion would help reduce the cost of Medicaid, the joint federal-state health care program for the poor and disabled. And another $80 billion in funds would be channeled to states and localities with the requirement that at least 60 percent goes for education.

The massive government intervention bets heavily on the economic theory that by pumping up demand, Washington can create jobs to stave off rising unemployment. But given the economy’s condition, Obama has warned that the jobless rate will still grow in the coming months, and a big part of the package includes new health and unemployment benefits for those thrown out of work.

The current program of extended unemployment benefits will be authorized through the end of 2009, and Pelosi is pressing for what could be up to a $50 increase in the weekly benefit. An estimated $20 billion is budgeted for increased food stamp and nutrition spending, and about $35 billion is allocated to preserve some health insurance coverage for those who have lost their jobs.

Many of these expenditures are unprecedented in scale. It’s estimated that total federal aid to education could increase by as much as $140 billion over two years, virtually doubling the annual rate today.

But the same investments could help Obama navigate between the Wall Street vs. Main Street politics that so dominated last fall’s debate over the financial rescue package. Congress was urged then by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to make the $700 billion commitment to avert a credit meltdown, but voters were angered by the cost and the failure to do more to help homeowners deal with the threat of foreclosure.

Thirty-four Senate Republicans, led by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, were pivotal to passing the bailout bill in October, but the mood has soured dramatically since November’s elections.

After a tough campaign in Kentucky, McConnell returned to Washington in a much more skeptical frame of mind. In a speech Wednesday on the Senate floor, he warned he would “find it exceedingly difficult to support additional taxpayer funds without serious assurances from the incoming administration that the taxpayers will be protected.”

Those remarks set the stage for Obama to send his senior economic adviser, Lawrence Summers, as well as the incoming White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, to meet with Senate Republicans in the late afternoon. In the time remaining before the floor vote, a key issue will be how far Obama will go to assure Republicans that he won’t use the Treasury funds as a tool for industrial policy.

Many, like McConnell, were upset when the outgoing Bush administration reversed itself and tapped Treasury funds to help Detroit automakers facing bankruptcy. Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) said Bush’s decision opened a Pandora’s box for conservatives. Prodded by Gregg, Summers and Emanuel emphasized that Obama had no desire to expand Treasury’s commitment to new industries.

“It hopefully gave people some comfort,” said Gregg, who has been a valuable ally for Obama given his standing on fiscal issues. “They made very clear that they aren’t going to use [the Treasury] money outside the financial industry except for what’s committed to auto and maybe something additional under a major reorganization plan for auto.”

Summers and Emanuel left without comment, but McConnell said he would also want something beyond closed-door assurances from the administration. And a second decisive vote could come from Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, Obama’s defeated presidential rival.

Much as this is a first test for Obama, it could also be a first test of that relationship with McCain. The Arizonan’s office refused to comment on his stand, but Gregg said hopefully of McCain: “When I last asked him, he said he was still listening.”

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By: Carol E. Lee
December 23, 2008 08:18 AM EST

Vice President-elect Joe Biden is worried about the “exceedingly high expectations” the world community has for Barack Obama’s presidency.

He believes he and Obama must follow through with action to show how they’re different than George W. Bush, Biden told CNN’s Larry King Monday.

“I have been contacted by so many world leaders. Their expectation for Barack’s presidency is overwhelming,” Biden said. “They are so hungry to have an American leader who they think has a policy that reflects our stated values as well as one they can talk to.”

At the same time, Biden expressed sympathy for Bush over the Baghdad shoe-throwing incident – a day after Biden and Vice President Dick Cheney traded shots on the Sunday shows. “I feel somewhat badly for him,” Biden said. “I think the incident in Iraq was – was unfortunate, that guy throwing the shoes. It was just uncalled for . . .and I think that President Bush and, unlike Vice President Cheney, is, upon reflection beginning to acknowledge some of the serious, if not mistakes, misjudgments that he made.”

Still, Biden made clear Obama must make a clean break with Bush polices past, starting with shutting down the U.S. terror prison at Guantanamo Bay, Biden said. He said Greg Craig, Obama’s incoming White House counsel, and other members of Obama’s team are working on a strategy for closing Gitmo.

“We’re in the process of drawing up plans right now,” Biden said. “It’s going to be complicated to do it. It’s going to take more than a few months. But close it we must.”

But Biden also signaled that there might be some flexibility in another key Obama campaign promise that world leaders are watching closely, bringing home troops from Iraq. Biden said troops would be out “within the next two years” — longer than President-elect Barack Obama’s campaign promise of within 16 months but “in the same ballpark,” Biden said.

He said Obama would have troops out more quickly than the Bush administration’s agreement with the Iraqi government, which calls for troop withdrawal by 2011.

One of the reasons for troop withdrawal in Iraq is because more combat forces are needed in Afghanistan, Biden said.

In the Middle East, Biden said an Obama administration is “going to invest every bit of capital we have in trying to bring about peace.”

Biden also discussed a range of topics:

• He said Illinois Gov. Rod Blagoyevich seems pretty guilty and should go. ‚ÄúI know in our system you are innocent until proven guilty, but those tapes that were released by the special prosecutor, excuse me, by the U.S. attorney seem incredibly, incredibly incriminating,‚Äù Biden said. ‚ÄúIt‚Äôs a decision for the people of Illinois to make the legislature of Illinois to make, but from where I sit he looks like a guy who is not capable of governing.‚Äù
• Biden said he and Sen. John McCain are ‚Äústill close.‚Äù ‚ÄúJohn has been incredibly graceful,‚Äù Biden said. ‚ÄúHe is my friend.‚Äù
• Obama is committed to equality for gays and lesbians, despite his selection of Rick Warren to give the inaugural convocation, Biden said.
• Of Gov. Sarah Palin, Biden said when he met her earlier this month at the meeting of the nation‚Äôs governors he found ‚Äúshe‚Äôs a really likeable person.‚Äù ‚ÄúI‚Äôm confident that she has a future,‚Äù he said.
• Biden said he was one of two running mates Obama had narrowed down to before the formal announcement in August, but declined to disclose who he thinks the other person was.
• Michelle Obama might beg to differ, but Biden said the vice presidential residence ‚Äúis very unlike the White House in the sense that it‚Äôs a very livable residence.‚Äù He said he and his wife, Jill, are looking forward to using it ‚Äúas a place to try to bring people together.‚Äù

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By Jim Angle
FOXNews.com
Monday, December 22, 2008

President-elect Barack Obama has shown almost perfect pitch in crafting his new administration, aptly choosing old hands instead of fresh faces and bringing in the experience he lacks.

But there is one glaring void. Obama has yet to name key intelligence officials to manage the war against terrorism.

And one of the central reasons he hasn’t come forward with a pick for one of the top jobs is because he’s running into pressure from an unexpected source — left-wing bloggers.

John Brennan, Obama’s chief intelligence adviser and anticipated CIA chief, was recently forced to withdraw his name. There was no drumbeat of opposition to Brennan from the front pages or on cable. Rather, the pick was torpedoed by the blogosphere.

“Apparently there is a lot of pressure on the Obama team from a blog saying that Brennan couldn’t be made the director of the CIA because he was involved in torture and renditions, which he wasn’t,” said Mark Lowenthal, former assistant CIA director.

The turn of events only emphasizes the influence of the Internet on the operation of a president-elect whose campaign was powered in large part by the Web.

“Blogs do have significant influence,” said blogger Glenn Greenwald, one of those critical of Brennan. “I think the Obama team would be foolish if they just ignored what happened on blogs, and I know for a fact that there are people high up in the Obama campaign and now the transition team who read blogs regularly.”

As a result, say knowledgeable sources, the Obama transition team pushed Brennan to withdraw his name. “Their knees buckled,” one intelligence veteran said.

Brennan once served as George Tenet’s chief of staff and later took an administrative role at the CIA, before moving on to what became the National Counterterrorism Center.

Greenwald and other bloggers blamed Brennan, though, for condoning harsh interrogation methods, as well as rendition — the practice of capturing terrorists, like 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and taking them to the U.S. or other countries for interrogation and imprisonment.

But many say Brennan had no control over those policies.

“This is one of those Washington drive-by shootings that we have from time to time where someone is near a policy issue that’s controversial and is dragged down by the conventional wisdom,” said Douglas Paal, former CIA senior analyst.

Brennan did say rendition was a vital tool — after all, without it, Khalid Sheik Mohammed and others might still be free.

But when he withdrew his name from consideration, he wrote a letter to the president-elect, obtained by FOX News, in which he described himself as a Bush critic on many fronts.

“It has been immaterial to the critics that I have been a strong opponent of many of the policies of the Bush administration such as the preemptive war in Iraq and coercive interrogation tactics, to include waterboarding,” Brennan wrote in the Nov. 25 missive.

And Brennan said that as a result of his opposition to Bush policies, he was “twice considered for more senior-level positions in the current administration only to be rebuffed by the White House.”

In that sense, it would seem Brennan was the perfect man for a job with Obama — but not good enough for the critics.

Greenwald said Brennan’s support for rendition and “all of the other enhanced interrogation techniques beyond waterboarding” makes him “unqualified” for the job.

Intelligence veterans, however, say that sets an impossible standard.

“If you were involved in a senior position in the intelligence community during the war on terror, you can’t be nominated for another senior position,” Lowenthal said.

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By: Ben Smith and Nia-Malika Henderson
December 17, 2008

Barack Obama’s choice of a prominent evangelical minister to perform the invocation at his inauguration is a conciliatory gesture toward social conservatives who opposed him in November, but it is drawing fierce challenges from a gay rights movement that – in the wake of a gay marriage ban in California – is looking for a fight.

Rick Warren, the senior pastor of Saddleback Church in southern California, opposes abortion rights but has taken more liberal stances on the government role in fighting poverty, and backed away from other evangelicals’ staunch support for economic conservatism. But it’s his support for the California constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage that drew the most heated criticism from Democrats Wednesday.

“Your invitation to Reverend Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at your inauguration is a genuine blow to LGBT Americans,” the president of Human Rights Campaign, Joe Solomonese, wrote Obama Wednesday. “[W]e feel a deep level of disrespect when one of architects and promoters of an anti-gay agenda is given the prominence and the pulpit of your historic nomination.”

The rapid, angry reaction from a range of gay activists comes as the gay rights movement looks for an opportunity to flex its political muscle. Last summer gay groups complained, but were rebuffed by Obama, when an “ex-gay” singer led Obama’s rallies in South Carolina. And many were shocked last month when voters approved the California ban.

“There is a lot of energy and there’s a lot of anger and I think people are wanting to direct it somewhere,” Solomonese told Politico.

The selection of Warren to preside at the inauguration is not a surprise move, but it is a mirror image of President Bill Clinton’s early struggles with issues of gay rights. Obama has worked, and at times succeeded, to bridge the gap between Democrats and evangelical Christians, who form a solid section of the Republican base.
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Obama opposes same-sex marriage, but also opposed the California constitutional amendment Warren backed. In selecting Warren, he is choosing to reach out to conservatives on a hot-button social issue, at the cost of antagonizing gay voters who overwhelmingly supported him.

Clinton, by contrast, drew early praise from gay rights activists by pressing to allow openly gay soldiers to serve, only to retreat into the “don’t ask, don’t tell” compromise that pleased few.

The reaction Wednesday in gay rights circles was universally negative.

“It’s a huge mistake,” said California gay rights activist Rick Jacobs, who chairs the state’s Courage Campaign. “He’s really the wrong person to lead the president into office.

“Can you imagine if he had a man of God doing the invocation who had deliberately said that Jews are not going to be saved and therefore should be excluded from what’s going on in America? People would be up in arms,” he said.

The editor of the Washington Blade, Kevin Naff, called the choice “Obama’s first big mistake.”

“His presence on the inauguration stand is a slap in the faces of the millions of GLBT voters who so enthusiastically supported him,” Naff wrote, referring to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people. “This tone-deafness to our concerns must not be tolerated. We have just endured eight years of endless assaults on our dignity and equality from a president beholden to bigoted conservative Christians. The election was supposed to have ended that era. It appears otherwise.”

Other liberal groups chimed in.

“Rick Warren gets plenty of attention through his books and media appearances. He doesn’t need or deserve this position of honor,” said the president of People for the American Way, Kathryn Kolbert, who described Warren as “someone who has in recent weeks actively promoted legalized discrimination and denigrated the lives and relationships of millions of Americans.”

Warren’s spokeswoman did not respond to a message seeking comment, but he has tried to blend personal tolerance with doctrinal disapproval of homosexuality.

“I have many gay friends, I’ve eaten dinner in gay homes. No church has probably done more for people with AIDS than Saddleback Church,” he said in a recent interview with BeliefNet.

In the same interview, he compared the “redefiniton of a marrige” to include gay marriage to legitimizing incest, child abuse, and polygamy.

Obama’s move may deepen some apparent distance between him among gays and lesbians, one of the very few core Democratic groups among whom his performance was worse than John Kerry’s in 2004. Exit polls suggested that John McCain won 27% of the gay vote in November, up four points from Bush’s 2004 tally – even as almost all other voters slid toward Obama.

But despite the symbolism of picking Warren, Obama is likely to shift several substantive policy areas in directions that will please gay voters and their political leaders, including a pledge to end “don’t ask, don’t tell” in military service.

And some gay activists were holding out hope that they would either persuade Obama to dump Warren or Warren to change his mind.

“Rick Warren did a real disservice to gay families in California and across the country by casually supporting our continued exclusion from marriage,” said the founder of the pro-same sex marriage Freedom to Marry, Evan Wolfson. “I hope in the spirit of the new era that’s dawning, he will open his heart and speak to all Americans about inclusion and our country’s commitment to equality.”

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By: Carol E. Lee, Nia-Malika Henderson
Mon Dec 8, 4:22 am ET

Liberals are growing increasingly nervous – and some just flat-out angry – that President-elect Barack Obama seems to be stiffing them on Cabinet jobs and policy choices.

Obama has reversed pledges to immediately repeal tax cuts for the wealthy and take on Big Oil. He’s hedged his call for a quick drawdown in Iraq. And he’s stocking his White House with anything but stalwarts of the left.

Now some are shedding a reluctance to puncture the liberal euphoria at being rid of President George W. Bush to say, in effect, that the new boss looks like the old boss.

‚ÄúHe has confirmed what our suspicions were by surrounding himself with a centrist to right cabinet. But we do hope that before it’s all over we can get at least one authentic progressive appointment,‚Äù said Tim Carpenter, national director of the Progressive Democrats of America.

OpenLeft blogger Chris Bowers went so far as to issue this plaintive plea: ‚ÄúIsn’t there ever a point when we can get an actual Democratic administration?‚Äù

Even supporters make clear they’re on the lookout for backsliding. “There’s a concern that he keep his basic promises and people are going to watch him,” said Roger Hickey, a co-founder of Campaign for America’s Future.

Obama insists he hasn’t abandoned the goals that made him feel to some like a liberal savior. But the left’s bill of particulars against Obama is long, and growing.

Obama drew rousing applause at campaign events when he vowed to tax the windfall profits of oil companies. As president-elect, Obama says he won’t enact the tax.

Obama’s pledge to repeal the Bush tax cuts and redistribute that money to the middle class made him a hero among Democrats who said the cuts favored the wealthy. But now he’s struck a more cautious stance on rolling back tax cuts for people making over $250,000 a year, signaling he’ll merely let them expire as scheduled at the end of 2010.

Obama’s post-election rhetoric on Iraq and choices for national security team have some liberal Democrats even more perplexed. As a candidate, Obama defined and separated himself from his challengers by highlighting his opposition to the war in Iraq from the start. He promised to begin to end the war on his first day in office.

Now Obama’s says that on his first day in office he will begin to “design a plan for a responsible drawdown,” as he told NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday. Obama has also filled his national security positions with supporters of the Iraq war: Sen. Hillary Clinton, who voted to authorize force in Iraq, as his secretary of state; and President George W. Bush’s defense secretary, Robert Gates, continuing in the same role.

The central premise of the left’s criticism is direct – don’t bite the hand that feeds, Mr. President-elect. The Internet that helped him so much during the election is lighting up with irritation and critiques.

‚ÄúThere don’t seem to be any liberals in Obama’s cabinet,‚Äù writes John Aravosis, the editor of Americablog.com. ‚ÄúWhat does all of this mean for Obama’s policies, and just as important, Obama Supreme Court announcements?‚Äù

‚ÄúActually, it reminds me a bit of the campaign, at least the beginning and the middle, when the Obama campaign didn’t seem particularly interested in reaching out to progressives,‚Äù Aravosis continues. ‚ÄúOnce they realized that in order to win they needed to marshal everyone on their side, the reaching out began. I hope we’re not seeing a similar ‚Äòwe can do it alone‚Äô approach in the transition team.‚Äù

This isn’t the first liberal letdown over Obama, who promptly angered the left after winning the Democratic primary by announcing he backed a compromise that would allow warrantless wiretapping on U.S. soil to continue.

Now it’s Obama’s Cabinet moves that are drawing the most fire. It’s not just that he’s picked Clinton and Gates. It’s that liberal Democrats say they’re hard-pressed to find one of their own on Obama’s team so far – particularly on the economic side, where people like Tim Geithner and Lawrence Summers are hardly viewed as pro-labor.

‚ÄúAt his announcement of an economic team there was no secretary of labor. If you don‚Äôt think the labor secretary is on the same level as treasury secretary, that gives me pause,‚Äù said Jonathan Tasini, who runs the website workinglife.org. ‚ÄúThe president-elect wouldn’t be president-elect without labor.”

During the campaign Obama gained labor support by saying he favored legislation that would make it easier for unions to form inside companies. The “card check” bill would get rid of a secret-ballot method of voting to form a union and replace it with a system that would require companies to recognize unions simply if a majority of workers signed cards saying they want one. Obama still supports that legislation, aides say – but union leaders are worried that he no longer talks it up much as president-elect.

‚ÄúIt’s complicated,‚Äù said Tasini, who challenged Clinton for Senate in 2006. ‚ÄúOn the one hand, the guy hasn’t even taken office yet so it’s a little hasty to be criticizing him. On the other hand, there is legitimate cause for concern. I think people are still waiting but there is some edginess about this.‚Äù

That‚Äôs a view that seems to have kept some progressive leaders holding their fire. There are signs of a struggle within the left wing of the Democratic Party about whether it‚Äôs just too soon to criticize Obama — and if there‚Äôs really anything to complain about just yet.

Case in point: One of the Campaign for America’s Future blogs commented on Obama’s decision not to tax oil companies’ windfall profits saying, “Between this move and the move to wait to repeal the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, it seems like the Obama team is buying into the right-wing frame that raising any taxes Рeven those on the richest citizens and wealthiest corporations Рis bad for the economy.”

Yet Campaign for America’s Future will be join about 150 progressive organizations, economists and labor groups to release a statement Tuesday in support of a large economic stimulus package like the one Obama has proposed, said Hickey, a co-founder of the group.

“I’ve heard the most grousing about the windfall profits tax, but on the other hand, Obama has committed himself to a stimulus package that makes a down payment on energy efficiency and green jobs,” Hickey said. “The old argument was, here’s how we afford to make these investments – we tax the oil companies’ windfall profits. … The new argument is, in a bad economy that could get worse, we don’t.”

Obama is asking for patience – saying he’s only shifting his stance on some issues because circumstances are shifting.

Aides say he backed off the windfall profits tax because oil prices have
dropped below $80 a barrel. Obama also defended hedging on the Bush tax cuts.

‚ÄúMy economic team right now is examining, do we repeal that through legislation? Do we let it lapse so that, when the Bush tax cuts expire, they’re not renewed when it comes to wealthiest Americans?‚Äù Obama said on ‚ÄúMeet the Press.‚Äù ‚ÄúWe don’t yet know what the best approach is going to be.‚Äù

On Iraq, he says he’s just trying to make sure any U.S. pullout doesn’t ignite “any resurgence of terrorism in Iraq that could threaten our interests.”

Obama has told his supporters to look beyond his appointments, that the change he promised will come from him and that when his administration comes together they will be happy.

‚ÄúI think that when you ultimately look at what this advisory board looks like, you’ll say this is a cross-section of opinion that in some ways reinforces conventional wisdom, in some ways breaks with orthodoxy in all sorts of way,‚Äù Obama recently said in response to questions about his appointments during a news conference on the economy.

The leaders of some liberal groups are willing to wait and see.

“He hasn’t had a first day in office,” said John Isaacs, the executive director for Council for Livable World. “To me it’s not as important as who’s there, than what kind of policies they carry out.”

“These aren’t out-and-out liberals on the national security team, but they may be successful implementers of what the Obama national security policy is,” Isaacs added. “We want to see what policies are carried forward, as opposed to appointments.”

Juan Cole, who runs a prominent anti-war blog called Informed Comment, said he worries Obama will get bad advice from Clinton on the Middle East, calling her too pro-Israel and ‚Äúbelligerent‚Äù toward Iran. ‚ÄúBut overall, my estimation is that he has chosen competence over ideology, and I’m willing to cut him some slack,‚Äù Cole said.

Other voices of the left don’t like what they’re seeing so far and aren’t waiting for more before they speak up.

New York Times columnist Frank Rich warned that Obama’s economic team of Summers and Geithner reminded him of John F. Kennedy’s “best and the brightest” team, who blundered in Vietnam despite their blue-chip pedigrees.

David Corn, Washington bureau chief of the liberal magazine Mother Jones, wrote in Sunday’s Washington Post that he is “not yet reaching for a pitchfork.”

But the headline of his op-ed sums up his point about Obama’s Cabinet appointments so far: “This Wasn’t Quite the Change We Envisioned.”

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