RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Obama's Broken Promises

REACH OUT AND TOUCH SOMEONE

• For all the talk about an Obama transition team not using Washington lobbyists for assistance, there sure are a lot of private meetings being held with Washington corporate lobbyists at Obama transition offices around the nation's capital.
  
  According to Obama transition insiders, senior Obama staff have held or have scheduled meetings with lobbyists from the telecom, health-care, pharmaceutical, energy, and automotive industries, asking for their input into stimulus packages and for their assistance in lobbying the House and the Senate for tax credits and line item funding items for appropriations and budget items to be placed in legislation that may come before Congress before the Obama Administration takes office.
  
  "We ran against companies like that throughout the campaign, and now we're getting in bed with them. It stinks, and we want it to end," says the source.

WASHINGTON -- The Obama team, pledging the ''most open and transparent transition in history,'' gets an ''A'' for disclosing donors to the Jan. 20 inauguration and a ''F'' when it comes to revealing transition meetings with groups. Contrary to its own ''seat at the table transparency policy,'' meetings are not posted on a Web site.

During the presidential primary campaign, then candidate Obama, still an Illinois senator, made a pledge I heard for the first time on Oct. 24, 2007. In a school gym in Dover, N.H., Obama said if president, he would post his meetings on the Internet. That was interesting to me because Obama's Senate staff had been very selective about what Obama Senate-related meetings they disclosed and seemed to be guided by a ''less is best'' policy.

A month after the election, on Dec. 5, John Podesta, a transition co-chair, issued an Obama transparency policy. When it comes to meetings, ''the date and organizations represented at official meetings in the Transition headquarters or agency offices'' would be ''posted on our Web site,'' at http://www.change.gov.

Indeed, the ''seat at the table'' section states ''on this page, you can track these meetings, view documents provided to the Transition and leave comments for the team,'' but the statement is only partly true.

What is posted are materials -- for example, briefing or position papers -- submitted by groups in connection with a transition meeting. There is no list of meetings on the site, with a meeting defined in the policy as having three or more participants.

Transition spokesman Nick Shapiro, asked why the meetings are not posted despite the policy, said, ''This policy is part of President-elect Obama's commitment to run the most open and transparent transition in history. The transition staff has been instructed that this is a floor and not a ceiling. No transition has ever attempted to implement such disclosure requirements, and as we continue to evaluate the policy, refinements will be made to it."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., are to receive details on Monday. Obama plans meetings next week with other congressional leaders — including Republican members whose support he will need — and made an effort not to blame his predecessor, the unpopular President George W. Bush.

"However we got here, the problems we face today are not Democratic problems or Republican problems," Obama said. "The dreams of putting a child through college, or staying in your home, or retiring with dignity and security know no boundaries of party or ideology. ... I am optimistic that if we come together to seek solutions that advance not the interests of any party, or the agenda of any one group, but the aspirations of all Americans, then we will meet the challenges of our time just as previous generations have met the challenges of theirs."

WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama appointed a defense contractor's lobbyist Thursday to become the No. 2 official at the Defense Department, acknowledging that his choice appeared to break with his self-imposed rules to keep lobbyists at arm's length.

William J. Lynn III, Obama's choice for deputy defense secretary, is a former Pentagon official who now is senior vice president for government operations at Raytheon Co. Lynn hasn't been a registered lobbyist since July, meaning he can't personally lobby Congress or the White House. In the first three months of 2008, his lobbying team reported spending $1.15 million to influence issues including missiles, sensors and radar, advanced technology programs and intelligence funding.

Obama has vowed that no political appointees in his administration would be permitted to work on areas that "directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years." His transition team, which voluntarily disclosed Lynn's lobbying activities, said Lynn's talents made him worth the apparent exception to the spirit of Obama's anti-lobbyists policy. It said it will work with Lynn to maintain Obama's high ethics standards.

Some government watchdogs questioned the revolving-door aspect of Lynn's appointment even while acknowledging his qualifications.

"He left public service and went into lobbying for one of the largest defense contractors in the nation. And that's the part that's troubling," said Bill Buzenberg, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity. "Even if he's completely above board and ethical, it raises questions about his loyalty."

During his presidential campaign, Obama took pains to tell voters he wouldn't tolerate influence-peddling.

"I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over," Obama said in November 2007 in Des Moines, Iowa. "I have done more than any other candidate in this race to take on lobbyists and won. They have not funded my campaign, they will not run my White House, and they will not drown out the voices of the American people when I am president."

It will be difficult for Lynn to avoid defense issues related to Raytheon, said James Thurber, who teaches lobbying at American University.

"I think it's impossible in our system not to have people that have been in the advocacy system," he said. "They're the people who know the issues and have the expertise." The key is for the administration to disclose those connections and avoid financial conflicts, he said.

Under Obama's rules, political appointees also would be precluded from lobbying the executive branch after leaving government service during the remainder of the administration.

Lynn has been an officer with Waltham, Mass.-based Raytheon since 2005.

The company, with 2007 sales of $21.3 billion, specializes in worldwide defense and homeland security-related sales.

Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Obama's picks were "strong leaders who have shown strategic vision and pragmatism."

Reed said Lynn in particular brought "a great deal of wisdom and experience to the table."

WASHINGTON – Unemployment is up. The stock market is down. Let's party.

The price tag for President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration gala is expected to break records, with some estimates reaching as high as $150 million. Despite the bleak economy, however, Democrats who called on President George W. Bush to be frugal four years ago are issuing no such demands now that an inaugural weekend of rock concerts and star-studded parties has begun.

Obama's inaugural committee has raised more than $41 million to cover events ranging from a Philadelphia-to-Washington train ride to a megastar concert with Beyonce, U2 and Bruce Springsteen to 10 official inaugural balls. Add to that the massive costs of security and transportation — costs absorbed by U.S. taxpayers — and the historic inauguration will produce an equally historic bill.

In 2005, Reps. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., and Jim McDermott, D-Wash., asked Bush to show a little less pomp and be a little more circumspect at his party.

"President Roosevelt held his 1945 inaugural at the White House, making a short speech and serving guests cold chicken salad and plain pound cake," the two lawmakers wrote in a letter. "During World War I, President Wilson did not have any parties at his 1917 inaugural, saying that such festivities would be undignified."

The thinking was that, with the nation at war, excessive celebration was inappropriate. Four years later, the nation is still at war. Unemployment has risen sharply. And Obama pressed Congress to release the second half of a $700 billion bailout package in hopes of rescuing a faltering banking industry.

Obama's inauguration committee says it is mindful of the times and is not worried people will see the four days of festivities as excessive.

WASHINGTON -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appears to differ from Barack Obama on at least two issues -- rolling back tax cuts for the wealthy and investigating the Bush administration.

But the two Democrats agree on the need to address the soaring cost of entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare -- the programs that provide retirement benefits and health insurance primarily for the nation's growing senior population.

Pelosi, who as speaker is the top figure in the House leadership, said Sunday she wants Congress to consider repealing President Bush's tax cuts on those who make more than $250,000 well before they expire at the end of 2010. Obama had promised to repeal the tax cuts as well during the presidential campaign, but he has since backed off that pledge, signaling he would be willing to simply let them expire.

"We had campaigned in saying what the Republican Congressional Budget Office told us: Nothing contributed more to the budget deficit than the tax cuts for the wealthiest people in America," Pelosi said in an interview broadcast Sunday.

The California Democrat is pushing the president-elect to make good on a campaign promise that attracted some of the harshest criticism during the election -- that Obama is a typical tax-and-spend Democrat who would raise taxes once in office.

Obama has fought that label, emphasizing that any tax increase would be directed at those making more than $250,000. However, since the election, Obama has been reluctant even to raise taxes on people making that much.

Lawrence Summers, Obama's choice for director of the National Economic Council, signaled again Sunday that repealing the Bush tax cuts would not be a priority.

"Our overall focus is going to be on increasing spending," Summers said in a broadcast interview. "Beyond that, there's going to be a substantial tax cut for the American people."

Obama's aides worked with House Democrats to craft their version of an economic stimulus package. The package, unveiled last week, includes $550 billion in government spending and $275 billion in tax cuts. It would leave the Bush tax cuts in place.

Pelosi said she won't use the stimulus bill to address tax cuts. But she also said: "I don't want them to wait two years to expire. Because they have to prove their worth to me as to how they grow the economy, how they create jobs."

Republicans disputed the House speaker's assertion about tax cuts and the deficit.

"There is no CBO report that says tax cuts for the wealthiest are the biggest contributor to the deficit," said Don Stewart, spokesman for Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. "Though we agree that Congress must carefully pursue ways to strengthen our economy, raising taxes won't grow jobs."

Pelosi and Obama appear to be on the same page when it comes to entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare. Obama announced last week that he would convene a "fiscal responsibility summit" in February to focus on long-term problems with the economy and the skyrocketing costs of benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

"I support what he wants to do, to have a summit of that kind," Pelosi said Sunday. "We will have our own initiatives in the Congress to work with him on that."

Pelosi said everything should be on the table, including benefit cuts.

"The only thing we didn't want to put on the table is eliminating Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid," she said.

Pelosi appeared on "FOX News Sunday." Summers was interviewed on CBS' "Face the Nation."

...

It's nice to see McCain's stance that Obama's policies would lead to a cut in Social Security benefits has been proven so fast. MEM, I'm sorry you had to see this.

I think the wardrobe thing was pretty silly, but you do leave yourself open when you run on the "small town values" ticket and then spend thousands on clothes.
On the other hand if she wore the same crappy cheap suit at every appearance.

WASHINGTON – First lady Michelle Obama wore a sparkling yellow-gold sheath dress with matching coat by Cuban-born American designer Isabel Toledo for the inauguration of her husband, a choice many applauded as a cheerful message of hope and a vote for the American fashion industry.

She paired the embellished ensemble with green gloves from J. Crew and green shoes.

President Barack Obama wore a red tie and white shirt with his suit, topped with an overcoat adorned with an American flag pin.

Their daughters were style icons in their own right, with 10-year-old Malia in a double-breasted periwinkle-blue coat with a blue-ribbon bow at the waist, and Sasha, 7, in a pink coat with orange scarf and satin belt, a coral-colored dress peeking out at the hem. Their coats were from Crewcuts by J. Crew.

The fashion industry has anxiously looked to the election of Obama for months, embracing his wife as an emblem and ambassador of modern American style. She has won praise for her penchant for lesser-known designers and bold fashion choices, mixed with her unabashed love for mass fashion from mainstream American retailers.

"She is single-handedly breathing new life into designers like Narciso Rodriguez and Isabel Toledo, who have had a rocky past," said red-carpet and editorial stylist Mary Alice Stephenson.

"What's so powerful about Michelle Obama is we all see ourselves in her. She's a modern woman who is fashionable and even flamboyant in her style and she is still taken seriously," she said. "She's wearing that dress today for all of us. We're all wearing that dress with her. The dress is elegant, appropriate and has the individual style stamp of Michelle Obama and is timely for a woman in her 40s — and she wears embellishment during the day. Hallelujah!"

Nicole Phelps, executive editor of Style.com, notes that Michelle Obama has found an elegant silhouette that works for her: the narrow sheath dress and complementary coat.

The inaugural outfit is a "classic choice — rather conservative compared to some of the things she's worn so far," Phelps said, but she still gives her fashion wink with her gloves and colored pumps. The gold, she adds, captures the glistening sun.

"This choice sends a great message to the fashion community. She could have gone with someone more obvious, like Ralph Lauren, but this sends a message to the American designers who are struggling. ... It also says that just because she's in the White House, she'll support the under-the-radar designers she wore on the way to the White House," Phelps said.

Designer Toledo, who just a few years ago unsuccessfully tried to infuse more modern style into the venerable Anne Klein label, is considered among the more avant garde U.S. designers.

Michelle Obama has been noted for choosing unexpected fashion designers, including Narciso Rodriguez, Zero + Maria Cornejo and Chicago designer Maria Pinto. For the "Kids Inaugural" concert on Monday, Michelle Obama wore a J.Crew ensemble, including a metallic lace top, aqua-colored pencil skirt and cardigan.

WASHINGTON – Sen. John McCain says he is disappointed in President Obama's decision to waive a new ethics requirement for the man picked to be the No. 2 at the Pentagon.

McCain, the ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee, said in a statement late Friday that he won't endorse William J. Lynn III until he has more details. Specifically, McCain says he wants to know whether Lynn, a former Raytheon lobbyist, would disqualify himself from certain issues.

The administration delivered a waiver to Capitol Hill late Thursday exempting Lynn from the requirement that people must wait two years before working for an agency they once lobbied.

The Project on Government Oversight finds that Obama's promise on banning lobbyists lasted all of-I dunno-twenty-four hours:

• POGO believes strongly in the revolving door restrictions President Barack Obama has outlined to restore integrity and ethics to government," said POGO executive director Danielle Brian. "It is because we believe so strongly in the positive impact that such a change will have that we urge the President to withdraw his nomination of William J. Lynn III as Deputy Secretary of Defense. President Obama should not compromise his standards and the effectiveness of the Department of Defense by allowing a top defense industry lobbyist to receive a waiver from these standards. The defense industry is in a class of its own among all of the industries that have had a pervasive stranglehold on public policy to advance their own financial interests.

Waivers? A ban with waivers?

Oohhkay....

The Project on Government Oversight finds that Obama's promise on banning lobbyists lasted all of-I dunno-twenty-four hours

(CNN) -- Unfortunately, we are again asking the president to explain why exactly he announced, with great fanfare, new ethics rules if he had no intention of abiding by them.

The Obama administration is yet again asking for a waiver to its very own rules about hiring lobbyists.

This time, it is the new treasury secretary, Tim Geithner. He wants a former lobbyist for Goldman Sachs to be his top aide at the Treasury Department.

My view is simple: Mr. President, if you want to hire former lobbyists because you think they are the best people to do the job, then hire former lobbyists. Just don't hold a big news conference first to tell us how your administration is going to be so different from previous administrations in that you won't be hiring lobbyists.

Don't make your disdain for lobbyists and your pledges that they won't wield influence in your administration a centerpiece of your campaign.

It's the hypocrisy and the double-talk that makes so many of us so cynical. Do what you think is best for the country. Just be straight with us about how you're going to do it.

Poor Campbell Brown, I'm guessing they'll ask her to clean out her desk by Sunday.

Former South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle waited nearly a month after being nominated to be secretary of health and human services before informing President Obama that he had not paid years of back taxes, the Washington Post reports.

On Jan. 2, Daschle paid $140,000 in back taxes and interest to the U.S. Treasury and about two days later informed the White House and the Senate Finance Committee, the White House confirmed to the Post.

Obama's transition team discovered in December that $15,000 of the $276,000 in charitable contributions claimed by Daschle lacked proper documentation. But Daschle waited until after amended returns were filed before he mentioned the larger tax liability.

The second-ranking GOP senator said Sunday he is troubled by Daschle's admission that he failed to pay taxes, but added that it is too early to know if the blunder will affect his chances of becoming the next health chief.

Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona -- who serves on the Senate Finance Committee that is set to meet Monday to discuss Daschle's nomination -- suggested that the speed at which Obama selected his cabinet members might have prevented candidates from being properly vetted.

"You wonder if this would have happened with Bush," Kyl said on FOX News Sunday.

Daschle spokeswoman Jenny Backus said he had known since June 208 that his luxury car and driver provided by wealthy Democratic donor, longtime friend and business associate Leo Hindery might be taxable, but never expected the amount to be such a "jaw-dropping" sum and "thought it was being taken care of" by his accountant.

Hindery founded InterMedia Partners, a private equity firm, in 1988. Daschle was paid $1 million annually for his consulting services, the Senate Finance Committee said.

Daschle had an unreported consulting income of $88,333, in 2007.

Bloomberg reported that Backus said Daschle was "embarrassed and disappointed" by what had occurred.

"Senator Daschle is embarrassed and disappointed by these errors," Backus said. "He apologized for his part in these errors and expressed his deep regret that the committee had to devote time to them."

The White House acknowledged Friday that Daschle had "some tax issues," which, the administration said, have been resolved and should not bar his confirmation as secretary.

A statement issued by the White House affirmed that Daschle "is the right person to lead the fight for health care reform."

"Senator Daschle brought these issues to the Finance Committee's attention when he submitted his nomination forms and we are confident the committee is going to schedule a hearing for him very soon, and he will be confirmed," it said.

SALT LAKE CITY – Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says he's scrapping the lease of dozens of parcels of federal land for oil and gas drilling in Utah's redrock country.

Salazar says the Bush administration rushed an auction in December of some of the country's most precious landscapes around national parks and the wild Green River.

Salazar on Wednesday ordered the Bureau of Land Management, which is part of the Interior Department, not to cash checks from winning bidders for the parcels at issue in a lawsuit filed by environmental groups.

"A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe."

-- President Obama, Feb. 4.

Catastrophe, mind you. So much for the president who in his inaugural address two weeks earlier declared "we have chosen hope over fear." Until, that is, you need fear to pass a bill.

And so much for the promise to banish the money changers and influence peddlers from the temple. An ostentatious executive order banning lobbyists was immediately followed by the nomination of at least a dozen current or former lobbyists to high position. Followed by a Treasury secretary who allegedly couldn't understand the payroll tax provisions in his 1040. Followed by Tom Daschle, who had to fall on his sword according to the new Washington rule that no Cabinet can have more than one tax delinquent.

The Daschle affair was more serious because his offense involved more than taxes. As Michael Kinsley once observed, in Washington the real scandal isn't what's illegal, but what's legal. Not paying taxes is one thing. But what made this case intolerable was the perfectly legal dealings that amassed Daschle $5.2 million in just two years.

He'd been getting $1 million per year from a law firm. But he's not a lawyer, nor a registered lobbyist. You don't get paid this kind of money to instruct partners on the Senate markup process. You get it for picking up the phone and peddling influence.

At least Tim Geithner, the tax-challenged Treasury secretary, had been working for years as a humble international civil servant earning non-stratospheric wages. Daschle, who had made another cool million a year (plus chauffeur and Caddy) for unspecified services to a pal's private equity firm, represented everything Obama said he'd come to Washington to upend.

And yet more damaging to Obama's image than all the hypocrisies in the appointment process is his signature bill: the stimulus package. He inexplicably delegated the writing to Nancy Pelosi and the barons of the House. The product, which inevitably carries Obama's name, was not just bad, not just flawed, but a legislative abomination.

It's not just pages and pages of special-interest tax breaks, giveaways and protections, one of which would set off a ruinous Smoot-Hawley trade war. It's not just the waste, such as the $88.6 million for new construction for Milwaukee Public Schools, which, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, have shrinking enrollment, 15 vacant schools and, quite logically, no plans for new construction.

It's the essential fraud of rushing through a bill in which the normal rules (committee hearings, finding revenue to pay for the programs) are suspended on the grounds that a national emergency requires an immediate job-creating stimulus -- and then throwing into it hundreds of billions that have nothing to do with stimulus, that Congress's own budget office says won't be spent until 2011 and beyond, and that are little more than the back-scratching, special-interest, lobby-driven parochialism that Obama came to Washington to abolish. He said.

Not just to abolish but to create something new -- a new politics where the moneyed pork-barreling and corrupt logrolling of the past would give way to a bottom-up, grass-roots participatory democracy. That is what made Obama so dazzling and new. Turns out the "fierce urgency of now" includes $150 million for livestock (and honeybee and farm-raised fish) insurance.

The Age of Obama begins with perhaps the greatest frenzy of old-politics influence peddling ever seen in Washington. By the time the stimulus bill reached the Senate, reports the Wall Street Journal, pharmaceutical and high-tech companies were lobbying furiously for a new plan to repatriate overseas profits that would yield major tax savings. California wine growers and Florida citrus producers were fighting to change a single phrase in one provision. Substituting "planted" for "ready to market" would mean a windfall garnered from a new "bonus depreciation" incentive.

After Obama's miraculous 2008 presidential campaign, it was clear that at some point the magical mystery tour would have to end. The nation would rub its eyes and begin to emerge from its reverie. The hallucinatory Obama would give way to the mere mortal. The great ethical transformations promised would be seen as a fairy tale that all presidents tell -- and that this president told better than anyone.

I thought the awakening would take six months. It took two and a half weeks.

WASHINGTON -- The White House is considering at least two troop withdrawal options as it weighs a new Iraq strategy -- one that would preserve President Barack Obama's campaign pledge to get all combat brigades out within 16 months and a second that would stretch it to 23 months, two officials said Friday.

A third, in-between option of 19 months is also being weighed, according to the officials, neither of whom would discuss the sensitive topic without being granted anonymity. One of the officials said the main focus appears to be on the 16-month and 23-month options; 23 months would run to the end of 2010.

Under either timeline, the U.S. would hope to leave behind a number of brigades that would be redesigned and reconfigured as multipurpose units to provide training and advising for Iraqi security forces, one official said. These brigades would be considered noncombat outfits and their presence would have to be agreed in advance by the Iraqi government, which under a deal signed late last year insisted that all U.S. forces -- not just combat brigades -- be out of Iraq by the end of 2011.

The concept of the stay-behind training and advising brigades has been well developed, the official said, although the details such as their size and composition are in an early stage of being sorted out.

At the White House's request, top military officials recently offered an assessment of the risks associated with the 16-, 19- and 23-month withdrawal timetables, without saying which is preferred. Obama's top two defense advisers, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, have not yet provided a formal recommendation to the president on a timetable, an official said.

Obama must weigh a number of risks in deciding how fast to pull out the 14 combat brigades that are now in Iraq, including the political risk associated with abandoning his campaign pledge to get out within 16 months.

The calculation is complex and tied to other concerns: relieving stress on war-weary troops and their families; tradeoffs in escalating the war in Afghanistan, and being ready for popup crises elsewhere.

The pace and sequencing of a troop pullout will have implications for preserving recent gains in reducing violence in Iraq. An erosion of security could in turn halt progress toward political reconciliation, raising once again the prospect of widespread sectarian warfare and a new crisis for Obama.

Also at issue is how to ensure proper protection for U.S. civilians, such as State Department members of military-civilian teams supporting Iraqi economic and political rebuilding, as the U.S. military presence shrinks. That civilian work, including the role of international non-governmental groups, will arguably grow in importance as the Iraqis focus less on fighting insurgents and more on building national unity.

The fact that Obama did not immediately order his generals to begin withdrawing -- as some might have expected, given his emphasis during the campaign on refocusing the U.S. military on Afghanistan -- is evidence that he recognized, even before assuming office Jan. 20, the dangers of a precipitous withdrawal.

During Obama's first meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon last week, he did not mention a 16-month timeline, according to officials who were present.

U.S. military commanders in Iraq -- and some senior military leaders in the Pentagon -- still wonder whether the Iraqi security forces will be ready this year to handle what remains of the insurgency without substantial U.S. combat assistance. If they are not, and if a U.S. pullout accelerates, what will happen?

That question may be most important in northern Iraq, where the insurgency is still viable in the Tigris River city of Mosul and where ethnic tensions between Arabs and Kurds are high around the city of Kirkuk.