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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Geoff Altman who wrote (34591)	4/5/2009 3:01:05 PM
From: Peter Dierks	Respond to of 71588

Couldn't happen to a more deserving group of people. I can't wait until they throw her wrinkled ass out.... She is up for election in a year I believe... Even Speakers of the House are up for election every two years. Pelosi is the worst Representative in my lifetime. The Obama - Pelosi Administration cannot be over soon enough.

To: Geoff Altman who wrote (34591)	4/30/2009 1:22:40 AM
From: Peter Dierks	2 Recommendations Respond to of 71588

Obama Outsources His Presidency He may come to regret letting Congress write his major legislation. APRIL 30, 2009 By KARL ROVE While officials in the Obama White House dismissed yesterday's "100 Days" anniversary as a "Hallmark Holiday," they understood it was what sociologist Daniel J. Boorstin called a "pseudo-event." By that, Boorstin meant an occasion that is not spontaneous but planned for the purpose of being reported -- an event that is important because someone says so, not because it is. What happens in a president's first 100 days rarely characterizes the arc of the 1,361 that follow. Jimmy Carter had a very good first 100 days. Bill Clinton did not. Still, a president would rather start well than poorly -- and Mr. Obama has a job approval of 63%. That leaves him tied with Mr. Carter, one point ahead of George W. Bush, and behind only Ronald Reagan's 67%. Four of the past six presidents had approval ratings that ranged between 62% and 67%, a statistically insignificant spread. Mr. Obama is popular because he is a historic figure, has an attractive personality, has passed key legislation, and receives adoring press coverage. However, there are cautionary signs. Mr. Obama's policies are less popular than his personality, the pace of polarization with Republicans has proceeded faster than ever in history, and independents are thinking more like Republicans on the issues and less like Democrats. The first 100 days can reveal a pattern of behavior that comes to characterize a presidency. In this respect, there are two emerging habits of Team Obama worth watching. One is the gap between what Mr. Obama said he would do and what he is doing. His administration is emphasizing in its official 100 days talking points steps he has taken to "deliver on the change he promised." During the campaign, Mr. Obama denounced the $2.3 trillion added to the national debt on Mr. Bush's watch as "deficits as far as the eye can see." But Mr. Obama's budget adds $9.3 trillion to the debt over the next 10 years. What happened to Obama the deficit hawk? From Mr. Obama's Denver acceptance speech through the campaign, Mr. Obama did not publicly utter the phrase "universal health care." Instead, his campaign ran ads attacking "government-run health care" as "extreme." Now Mr. Obama is asking, as he did at a townhall meeting last month, "Why not do a universal health care system like the European countries?" Maybe because he was elected by intimating that would be "extreme"? Another emphasis in the Obama 100 days talking points is that the president is a decisive leader. However, Mr. Obama is enormously deferential to Democrats in Congress and has outsourced formulation of key policies to them. He appears largely ambivalent about the contents of important legislation, satisfied to simply sign someone else's bill. On the $787 billion stimulus package, he specified less than a quarter of the bill's spending and let House Appropriations Chairman Dave Obey decide the rest. On cap and trade, Mr. Obama is comfortable to let Democratic Reps. Henry Waxman and Edward Markey write that legislation with virtually no White House guidance. On health care, the White House is providing very little detail. Mr. Obama tees up an issue, but leaves its execution to congressional Democrats. This leadership style may be a carryover from his Senate years, when he was unusually detached from the substance of legislation. Mr. Obama's focus on broad descriptions of a goal will produce laws, but handing over control of the process may produce deeply flawed products. The stimulus bill turned into a liberal spending wish list that will retard, not hasten, recovery. Already, with mounting job losses the gap between the 3.675 million jobs he said he would create or protect in his first two years and the number of actual jobs in the economy has risen to nearly five million. Reaching his job target now requires creating 249,400 new jobs a month for the next 20 months. Democrats will not fare well in next year's elections if there is a yawning Obama "job gap." Democratic congressional leaders are ecstatic about Mr. Obama's willingness to outsource major legislation to them. They thrive on sausage making and, with the president's popularity high, they appreciate that his strengths are not their strengths. Yet Mr. Obama clearly did not gain their respect for his legislative abilities during his Senate years. Mr. Obama is a great face for the Democratic Party. He is its best salesman and most persuasive advocate. But he is beginning to leave the impression that he is more concerned with the aesthetics of policy rather than its contents. In the long run, substance and consequences define a presidency more than signing ceremonies and photo-ops. In his first 100 days, Mr. Obama has put the fate of his presidency in the hands of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. He may come to regret that decision. Mr. Rove is the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush. online.wsj.com

To: Geoff Altman who wrote (34591)	1/2/2010 11:14:33 AM
From: Peter Dierks	2 Recommendations Respond to of 71588

Chart: The Real 10 Year Cost of Reid's Health Care Bill Is $2.5 Trillion The Weekly Standard By: Jeffrey H. Anderson, Ph.D 12.29.2009 The Weekly Standard, November 22, 2009 Right Thinking from the Left Coast, November 27, 2009 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Democrats assert that their Senate bill would cost $848 billion over ten years (2010 to 2019). But almost all of those costs would accrue from 2014-onward. Congressional Budget Office projections show that in the bill's true first 10 years (2014 to 2023), it would cost $1.8 trillion. But it gets even worse. The CBO doesn't say that these would be the bill's total costs. Rather, these would merely be the gross costs of the bill's "expansions in insurance coverage." The CBO shows that there are many other costs in the bill as well, including spending related to the CLASS Act, risk-adjustment payments, funding for the government-run "public option" (not a cent of which is included in the figure for "expansions in insurance coverage"), and other new federal spending. Taking all of these into account, the CBO projects that the bill's total costs in its real first 10 years would be $2.5 trillion -- and that its total costs in its real first 15 years would be $4.8 trillion. And that's even without counting the "doc fix" that the Democrats plan to pass afterward. Here's a chart Anderson made using CBO projections to show that the Senate health care bill costs $2.5 trillion during the first ten years that the program is up and running (download the PDF here): liberty.pacificresearch.org