Obama — GOP Holding Middle-Class Tax Cuts ‘Hostage’

Just hours after the Senate voted to extend tax cuts for the middle class, President Obama accused House Republicans of holding the tax cuts “hostage” until the nation agrees to spend $1 trillion on tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans.

Speaking to supporters at the House of Blues, the president praised the Senate for moving forward with his plan to extend the Bush-era tax rate for families earning less than $250,000 a year and to let the rate expire for higher earners.

“This is something I deeply believe in, because the middle class is still struggling, recovering from this recession.  You don’t need your taxes to go up and we could give you certainty right now,” he said.

When it comes to House Republicans, however, the president said their desire to preserve the tax rate for all earners “makes no sense.”

“If Congress doesn’t act, the typical middle-class family is going to see their tax bill go up about $2,200. Small businesses will also see their taxes go up,” he said. “But so far, they don’t see it that way.  Gov.  Romney doesn’t see it that way.”

The president cast the dueling tax plans as indicative of the broader economic visions at stake in the election.

 ”They believe in top-down economics,” he said of Republicans. “Their plan is to cut more taxes for the wealthy, cut more regulations on banks and corporations, cut more investments in things like education, job training, science, research — all with the thought that somehow that’s going to help us create jobs.  That’s what Mitt Romney believes. That’s what Washington Republicans believe.”

“That’s not what I believe.  That’s not what you believe.  That’s not what most Americans believe.  We believe not in top-down economics; we believe in middle-class-out economics.  We believe in bottom-up economics.  That’s what we’re fighting for,” he said.

The president spoke before about 400 supporters who’d paid at least $250 each to attend the event, one of two fundraisers Obama attended in the Big Easy tonight.

In shirt-sleeves and a loose tie, a relaxed Obama said it was good to be back in New Orleans.

“I’ve got to admit I was thinking about just blowing everything off and going and getting something to eat,” he joked. “The next time I come down, drinks are on me.”

Source  http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/07/obama-gop-holding-middle-class-tax-cuts-hostage-2/

Despite "boos," Obama re-inspires the faithful in Boston

To Fenway-trained ears, it sounded mostly like “Yooouuk,” the guttural chorus that traditionally broke out when ever longtime Red Sox third baseman Kevin Youkilis stepped up to the plate. But President Obama clearly believed he triggered another traditional sound, after he thanked Boston for trading Youkilis to his favorite team, the Chicago White Sox.

“I didn’t think I’d get any boos out of here, but I guess I shouldn’t have — I should not have brought up baseball,” Obama said to supporters who filled Boston Symphony Hall on Monday night. “My mistake, my mistake. You’ve got to know your crowd.”

Politics and sports are a treacherous mix. Boston baseball fans booed John Kerry when he threw out the first pitch before the start of a Sox-Yankees game that preceded the 2004 convention that selected the senator from Massachusetts as its nominee. But the pro-Obama crowd that filled Symphony Hall quickly settled any confusion over their response to the president’s words.

“We still love you,” a woman’s voice rang out, bringing the warm ovation that is more common in Obama-crazy Massachusetts.

About 1,800 Obama supporters paid $250 to $10,000 to fill the balconies and sit around small, Pops-style circular tables on the floor. In return, they heard a campaign speech aimed at re-inspiring the faithful by reminding them of the shared vision of 2008, the “compact that binds us together as a people.”

Four years later, it is striking to realize just how hard Obama must work to reconstruct the shared vision that catapulted him to the White House: the “basic bargain” that a country bought into so passionately in 2008.

Now, the narrative is complicated by Obama’s version of the challenges he confronted once elected: “surpluses turned into deficits… two wars fought on credit cards… the worst financial crisis of our lifetime.” Now, he has to spend time quietly stitching together the story of what he tried to do, and who tried to stop him, before he can thunder the phrases that bring supporters to their feet. Now, he has to argue “there is nothing radical” about his vision, and insist that he does not believe government is the answer to all problems. Now, to arouse passion in listeners, he must divide up the electorate around specific causes. They include women’s right “to control their own health choices”; the right of gays not to be “kicked out of the military”; and the desire of illegal immigrants to one day attain citizenship.

“How do we reclaim that basic bargain? How do we do it?” he asked the faithful. Obama calls the answer “the defining issue of our time,” and he’s right. His challenge in 2012 is that there are two dramatically different visions of what it takes to re-ignite confidence in the country. And confidence is key to achieving the shared goal of turning the economy around for all citizens.

Even in Boston, Obama may not have had everyone at hello. But by the end of this speech, he reminded this gathering why they see it his way.

“It was a quiet conversation about what’s at stake,” said Boston City Councilor Michael P. Ross. “He brought the crowd to his side.”

Then again, it was Boston. If he can’t do it there, he can’t do it anywhere.

Source  http://articles.boston.com/2012-06-26/bostonglobe/32427179_1_president-obama-vision-credit-cards

Obama's Economists Say U.S. Household Wealth Recovering

The White House, in a rebuttal to a Federal Reserve study, said the “entire decline” of almost 39 percent in household wealth reported by the central bank occurred before President Barack Obama took office and that much of the wealth has returned. 

“The numbers are a tough and brutal snapshot of the financial crisis and housing bubble that President Obama inherited,” White House economists Gene Sperling and Jason Furman wrote in an official blog posted today. All of the decline in wealth occurred before Obama took office on Jan. 20, 2009, they said. 

The June 11 report, released five months before presidential and congressional elections, showed almost every demographic group experienced losses during the 2007-2010 period of study. The losses may hurt retirement prospects for middle- income families, who are the focus of Obama’s re-election effort.

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has criticized Obama’s handling of the economy, including that the U.S. unemployment rate rose last month even as the Fed maintained record stimulus and after Obama’s $830 billion stimulus program. 

The U.S. economy grew more slowly in the first quarter than previously estimated, expanding at a 1.9 percent annual rate, down from a 2.2 percent prior estimate. Retail sales in the U.S. fell in May for a second month, the Commerce Department reported today, another sign the U.S. economy is cooling. 

The financial crisis wiped out 18 years of gains for the median U.S. household net worth, with a 38.8 percent plunge from 2007 to 2010 that was led by the collapse in home prices, the Federal Reserve study showed.

Wealth Rising

Sperling, director of the National Economic Council, and Furman, its principal deputy director, said in the White House blog that wealth “has risen every year” since Obama came to office, though it hasn’t fully recovered. 

The economists said household wealth fell 24 percent between the third quarter of 2007 and the first quarter of 2009, when George W. Bush was president. They said Americans’ net worth grew by 15 percent between the first quarter of 2009 and the third quarter of 2010. 

“Household wealth has risen every year President Obama has been in office, by a total of 23 percent overall,” Sperling and Furman wrote, citing gains the in value of mutual funds, increasing bank deposits and gains in stock values, aided by stabilizing home values. 

Even so, they said, “These data show that wealth still has not fully recovered from the worst recession since the Great Depression and reinforces how much more work we have to do.” 

Source  http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-06-13/obamas-economists-say-u-dot-s-dot-household-wealth-recovering

Romney and Obama: Lost in the Arizona Desert

The Supreme Court yesterday heard arguments on Arizona's anti-immigrant law SB 1070. I was inside the chamber as the justices indicated they were inclined to uphold at least part of the law, the "show me your papers" provision. It allows police to detain people they believe are in the country illegally while their immigration status is determined.

It's tragic that we have even gotten to this point. At the same time, compelling arguments have been made about how opponents of SB 1070 might benefit from galvanizing the support of the Latino community.  A political silver lining for some, perhaps, but that won't matter for the families who suddenly find themselves at the mercy of local law enforcement able to freely discriminate.

Earlier this year while campaigning in Arizona, Mitt Romney declared his support for the state's 'model' immigration law, and pledged to drop the Justice Department's challenge to SB 1070 should he become president.

Even worse, he told voters about his plan for addressing undocumented immigration, which amounts to finding ways to make life so difficult for the undocumented that they 'self deport.'
Imagine how that might play out.

Perhaps it will look something like the Underground Railroad of the Free State/Slave State days or a mass exodus of the oppressed out of the hands of their oppressors a la biblical Egypt.

To anti-immigration extremists, this scenario might seem like sound, constitutional public policy. To me, it sounds like an America where we might have to put the Statue of Liberty in storage or be called hypocrites.
Now that Romney is virtually assured the GOP nomination, he is desperately trying to shed his 'severely' anti-immigration skin that has baked in the Arizona desert while he pandered to the SB 1070 zealots. No doubt about it, Mitt must molt. Conditions have changed.

'Self deport' and praise for SB 1070, for example, have repelled potential Latino supporters in battleground states as well as farmers and businessmen. It was no surprise that in an attempt to back away from SB 1070, a Romney campaign spokesperson last week 'clarified' that the candidate, in fact, did not call SB 1070 a model immigration law, but was instead referring to Arizona's e-verify system.

That was news to the law's author, former Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce, who, like the rest of us, was sure Romney was referring to SB 1070. So was I, which may be the only time you'll hear me agreeing with anything said by Pearce.

President Obama's immigration record isn't exactly blemish-free either. Under his watch, the federal government's unjust Secure Communities deportation program has greatly expanded. Though perhaps not as toxic as SB 1070, Secure Communities often results in racial profiling and leads minority communities to distrust law enforcement.

Still, Obama is rightfully challenging unconstitutional immigration laws like Arizona's, and he steadfastly remains on the right side of important legislation like the DREAM Act. But in trying to get Congress to put immigration reform on the agenda, the president has fallen short. Challenging SB 1070 merely on the grounds that state law cannot displace federal law on immigration laws does not address the larger issues at stake.

The Arizona desert can be an unforgiving place. But it can also be one where an immigration policy that is fair and respects civil liberties can flourish. The heat is on for the candidates to make that happen.

Source http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anthony-d-romero/arizona-immigration_b_1457218.html

Obama Introduces Bullying Documentary on Cartoon Network

President Obama opened up a 30-minute documentary on childhood bullying for Cartoon Network this evening, continuing awareness initiatives he set into motion last year.

The minute-long introduction, which was pre-taped, featured the president speaking directly to the camera for the documentary titled “To SPEAK UP Against Bullying,” a 30-minute special broadcast that aired Sunday on Cartoon Network.

“Bullying is not a rite of passage or harmless part of growing up,” Obama said. “It’s wrong. Its destructive and we can all prevent it.”

Obama said that for him the issue is personal.

“I care about this issue deeply, not just as the president, but as a dad,” he said referring to his two daughters, Sasha and Malia.

The president mentioned last year’s White House summit on bullying prevention in his opening remarks, adding that partnerships have been made “with schools and parents to raise awareness.”

According to the White House an estimated 13 million students are bullied each year.

As he closed his remarks, Obama left viewers with a call to action to do more.

“Everyone has to take action against bullying,” he said. “Everyone has an obligation to make our schools and our communities safer for all our kids.”

The commercial-free documentary, which extends the network’s social initiative Stop Bullying: Speak Up, aired on Cartoon Network across the country today at 5:30 p.m.

It featured a number of kids, mostly between the ages of 8 and 13, as well as a number of famous athletes, including tennis star Venus Williams, soccer goalie Hope Solo, extreme bike trickster Matt Wilhelm, and Joey Logano, the youngest NASCAR champ.

The children spoke about their own bullying experiences and how to stand up to bullies.

Young Aaron Cheese said he used to “fight back tears when called names,” causing his grades to fall.

“It wasn’t a really fun elementary-middle school experience for me,” Cheese said.

Other children recounted similar experiences.

“You’d feel really vulnerable,” Alye Pollack said, recounting the names she was called: “Oh, you’re so fat, goodbye and push me into a locker.”

She said her tormentors prompted her to create a YouTube video titled “WORDS DO HURT” to explain to her tormenters how she feels.

Her actions led to apologies, with one child who saw the video telling her how sorry he was for his actions and eventually sticking up for her against another bully.

BMX star Matt Willhelm told a story of how he too was bullied as a child, which eventually led to his desire to do trick biking.

The documentary featured scenarios for how to handle bullies, as well as allowing the children to explain why they don’t speak up — and why they should.

According to Cartoon Network’s website the documentary “captures the authentic, everyday stories of America’s bullied kids and the youth who have helped them” and “seeks to empower all kids to take part in the growing movement to help bring an end to bullying.”

Source http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/03/obama-introduces-bullying-documentary-on-cartoon-network/

Are new unemployment figures a boost for Obama?

An unemployment rate that dropped to 8.3 percent in January as the economy added 243,000 jobs – might have caused the White House staff to do cartwheels. If you’re going to get blamed when things are rough, why not celebrate when they go well?

But that would have been behind closed doors, and the official response was more measured.

“These numbers will go up and down in the coming months, and there's still far too many Americans who need a job or need a job that pays better than the one they have now,” President Obama said. “But the economy is growing stronger.”

Came the quick retort from Mitt Romney, front-runner in the GOP race to try and unseat Obama: “Not so fast, Mr. President. This is the 36th straight month with unemployment above the red line your own administration drew. The real unemployment rate is over 15 percent. Mr. President, America has also had enough of your kind of help.”

(Romney’s “real unemployment rate over 15 percent” apparently includes the underemployed and those who’ve gotten discouraged and stopped looking.)

So the political question is: How much can Obama be credited with what looks to be an economic turnaround – if indeed that’s what we’re seeing?

On ABC’s “This Week” Sunday, Larry Summers, Obama's former economic adviser who served as Treasury Secretary in the Clinton administration, put a positive spin on the new employment figures.

“Unlike many of the favorable past reports, if you look beneath the surface of this one, almost every indicator within it is favorable,” he said. “The growth is mostly from the private sector. The alternative survey, the household survey, suggested 500,000 or more jobs were created. The revisions of past months were favorable. People are working a longer week. Paychecks are going up. The number of vacancies, firms looking for work, are going up.”

Blogging in the New Yorker, John Cassidy points out that if January’s rate of hiring continues, within a few months the jobless rate will drop below 7.8 per cent – where it stood when Obama took office.

“At that point, it will be tough for Mitt Romney to stand up and say the President’s policies have made the recession worse,” Cassidy writes. “And it will be impossible for Republicans to deny that things are getting better.”

Republican congressional leaders don’t deny that the employment situation is improving. They just think it would be better if they were in charge – or at least if Obama would urge Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to take up the jobs bills that have passed in the House with bipartisan support.

Political prognosticators say the improving employment news gave a bump to Obama’s standing in the 2012 presidential race.

The Intrade prediction market now gives him a 57 percent chance of being re-elected. Romney has a 38 percent chance of preventing that, according to Intrade.

“While a month of 250,000 jobs added isn’t sufficient to get the president re-elected, it was necessary,” writes Sean Trende at Real Clear Politics. "We should realize that this isn’t exactly the 1.1 million jobs added in September 1983, but it is absolutely an important first step for Obama to get back into the 2012 race.”

Still, in a mock election Obama leads Romney by a scant 2.2 percent in the Real Clear Politics average of recent polls.

And in an article titled “Why Obama should be worried,” Jim Vandehei at Politico warns against “Pollyanna punditry.”

“There are a bunch of real-time numbers coming in that tell a much different tale,” he writes.

“There’s a new Congressional Budget Office report that shows unemployment likely to climb to nearly 9 percent by the election, there’s polling data showing Obama tied or trailing Mitt Romney in the most important swing states (and doing only marginally better against Ron Paul), and there is mounting evidence that the assumption of a decisive Obama fundraising advantage for the fall might be flat wrong,” Vandehei writes.

Over at Gallup, the polling organization reports that in just ten states and the District of Columbia do a majority of those surveyed approve of the job Obama is doing, according to monthly tracking data through 2011.

So if the White House gained a little spring in its step from the latest job figures, it needs to focus on other trends as well.

Source http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/President/2012/0205/Are-new-unemployment-figures-a-boost-for-Obama

PM, Obama meet; discuss implementation of N-deal

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday declared that there were "no irritants" in Indo-US ties as he met US President Barack Obama in Bali and disucssed ways to implement the civil nuclear deal. Singh, who met Obama for the first time after latter's trip to India last November, also

talked about strengthening the bonds of strategic ties put in place during the historic visit of the US President to India in November last year.

"I am very happy to report to you that today there are no irritants whatsoever in our working together in multiplicity of areas both bilaterally and on global issues," Singh said in his opening remarks.

Emerging after their over an hour long meeting on the sidelines of the Asean and East Asia Summits, Singh said he explained to Obama the law of the land on liability issue regarding the civil nuclear deal.

"I explained to him that we have a law in place. Rules have been formulated. These rules will lie before our parliament for 30 days. Therefore, we have gone some way to respond to the concerns of American companies and within the four corners of the law of the land we are ready to address any specific grievances," said Singh.

Prime Minister also said India was ready to ratify the Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage.

"I also told him (Obama) that we'll ratify the Supplementary Convention... that's where the matter stands," Singh said.

Recalling the "historic visit" of Obama to India during the same time last year, Singh said, "in the last one year, we have made progress in every direction, strengthening our bilateral cooperation in investment, trade, higher education, clean energy and defence."

The Prime Minister noted "we have strengthened in many ways the path set out during the historic visit, whether it's civil nuclear cooperation, whether it's humanitarian relief, in disaster management, or maritime security, all the issues which unite us in our quest for a world free from war."

In his opening remarks, Obama refereed to his "extraordinary" trip to India during which the two sides strengthened the bonds of friendship, commercial links and security cooperation.

"We continue to make progress on a wide range of issues. The bonds between our two countries are not just at the leadership level but also at personal levels," he said.

"This is an outstanding opportunity for us to continue to explore how we can work together not only on bilateral front but also at multilateral level," Obama said, identifying some of the issues as maritime security, non-proliferation and terrorism.

The two leaders exchanged pleasantries while expressing immense happiness on meeting each other once again.

Ahead of the meeting, India asserted that its domestic laws with regard to nuclear liability and compensation will have to prevail and any contention otherwise would not be realistic after the Fukushima incident.

The sources said the rules should address concerns that any foreign company could have as these make it clear that liability cannot be unlimited or unending.

Source http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/SouthAsia/PM-Obama-meet-discuss-implementation-of-N-deal/Article1-770730.aspx