"We were able to hold it off with George Bush. The idea that we might find ourselves fighting with the Obama administration over these powers is really stunning." --Unnamed and dismayed human rights advocate, on legalizing indefinite detention of alleged terrorists, New York Times, May 21
WASHINGTON – If hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue, then the flip-flops on previously denounced anti-terror measures are the homage that Barack Obama pays to George Bush. Within 125 days, Obama has adopted with only minor modifications huge swaths of the entire, allegedly lawless Bush program.
The latest flip-flop is the restoration of military tribunals. During the 2008 campaign, Obama denounced them repeatedly, calling them an “enormous failure.” Obama suspended them upon his swearing in. Now they’re back.
Of course, Obama will never admit in word what he’s doing in deed. As in his rhetorically brilliant national-security speech on Thursday claiming to have undone Bush’s moral travesties, the military commissions flip-flop is accompanied by the usual Obama three-step: (a) excoriate the Bush policy, (b) ostentatiously unveil cosmetic changes, (c) adopt the Bush policy.
Cosmetic changes such as Obama’s declaration that “we will give detainees greater latitude in selecting their own counsel.” Laughable.
High-toned liberal law firms are climbing over each other for the frisson of representing these miscreants in court.
What about disallowing evidence received under coercive interrogation?
Hardly new, notes former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy. Under the existing rules, military judges have that authority, and exercised it under the Bush administration to dismiss charges against al-Qaeda operative Mohammed al-Qahtani on precisely those grounds.
On Guantanamo, it’s Obama’s fellow Democrats who have suddenly discovered the wisdom of Bush’s choice. In open rebellion against Obama’s pledge to shut it down, the Senate voted 90 to 6 to reject appropriating a single penny until the president explains where he intends to put the inmates. Sen. James Webb, the de facto Democratic authority on national defense, wants the closing to be put on hold. And on Tuesday, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said, no Gitmo inmates on American soil – not even in American jails.
That doesn’t leave a lot of places. The home countries won’t take them. Europe is recalcitrant. Saint Helena needs refurbishing. Elba didn’t work out too well the first time. And Devil’s Island is now a tourist destination. Gitmo is starting to look good again.
Observers of all political stripes are stunned by how much of the Bush national security agenda is being adopted by this new Democratic government. Victor Davis Hanson (National Review) offers a partial list:
“The Patriot Act, wiretaps, e-mail intercepts, military tribunals, Predator drone attacks, Iraq (i.e. slowing the withdrawal), Afghanistan (i.e. the surge) – and now Guantanamo.”
Jack Goldsmith (The New Republic) adds: rendition – turning over terrorists seized abroad to foreign countries; state secrets – claiming them in court to quash legal proceedings on rendition and other erstwhile barbarisms; and the denial of habeas corpus – to detainees in Afghanistan’s Bagram prison, indistinguishable logically and morally from Guantanamo.
What does it all mean? Democratic hypocrisy and demagoguery? Sure, but in Washington, opportunism and cynicism are hardly news.
There is something much larger at play – an undeniable, irresistible national interest that, in the end, beyond the cheap politics, asserts itself. The urgencies and necessities of the actual post-9/11 world, as opposed to the fanciful world of the opposition politician, present a rather narrow range of acceptable alternatives.
Among them: reviving the tradition of military tribunals, used historically by George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Winfield Scott, Abraham Lincoln, Arthur MacArthur and Franklin Roosevelt. And inventing Guantanamo – accessible, secure, offshore and nicely symbolic (the tradition of island exile for those outside the pale of civilization is a venerable one) – a quite brilliant choice for the placement of terrorists, some of whom, the Bush administration immediately understood, would have to be detained without trial in a war that could be endless.
The genius of democracy is that the rotation of power forces the opposition to come to its senses when it takes over. When the new guys, brought to power by popular will, then adopt the policies of the old guys, a national consensus is forged and a new legitimacy established.
That’s happening before our eyes. The Bush policies in the war on terror won’t have to await vindication by historians. Obama is doing it day by day. His denials mean nothing. Look at his deeds.
The liberals are eating their own again. Fair warning it's MSNBC's Rachel Maddow so it will be painful to watch.
I have seen some encouraging signs from Obama on national security, one way to tell he's doing things to defend America is to see American haters like Maddow criticize him. Obama to his discredit thinks that it is all about bashing Bush/Cheney, thats why in his speech he basically said he would continue and expand their policies while at the same time bashing them. He naively thought that would soothe the liberal anti-American establishment, but it seems they saw through the pretty words and realized he was talking about defending America.
He is in my mind not doing nearly enough, closing Gitmo is a mistake. Releasing half memos and stirring this torture nonsense are not helpful in keeping us safe. He has a lot of learning to do, but it is encouraging to see him push back those who would destroy us from the inside.
it kills liberals to see a strong woman speak out about their values, as they believe the only way to be strong is to be submissive to the liberal cause....
Google's dominance of the digital world may be not enough for the Internet giant as some key executives migrate to the Obama administration.
Google boss Eric Schmidt is a member of President Obama's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and three other company executives have left the firm to work in the Obama administration, including Andrew McLaughlin, who will become the nation's deputy technology officer.
But two consumer groups are seeking to throw a roadblock in front of one those appointments. The Center of Digital Democracy and Consumer Watchdog urged President Obama in a letter this week to withdraw the pending appointment of McLaughlin, who was Google's top global public policy official, arguing that it would violate Obama's ethics rules aimed at eliminating the influence of lobbyists on the federal government.
"No lobbyist or special interest political operative from one of the leading Internet companies should be placed in such a key position where they can influence technology policy," said Jeffrey A. Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy.
"Appointing someone from a Google (or Microsoft, AT&T, etc.) lobbying shop to this position sends the wrong message – that the well-connected can still make a quick trip to the White House through a special interest revolving door.
"The goal of the Obama administration to use new technology to improve how the government works requires someone whose background ensures they can make independent decisions that will benefit all Americans."
John M. Simpson, a consumer advocate at Consumer Watchdog, said McLaughlin is good at what he does – "lobbying around the world for Google's interests," he said. "That's not what this job requires. It should not go to any person whose most recent position has been advocating policy for a technology company," he said.
The White House refused to comment on the opposition to McLaughlin because it has not announced his appointment yet. Google did not return an e-mail or a voice mail message seeking a comment.
But Google has told Politico that McLauglin was mistakenly listed in Senate records as a lobbyist in 2007 and the company amended the reports in 2008.
Simpson told FOXNews.com said the reports were citing a distinction without a difference.
"He essentially got their whole lobbying shop started," he said. "There's some questions about whether he lobbied or not. The point is he's running the public policy efforts around the world. He may not be knocking on the doors themselves, but he was telling them what to do and say."
Simpson acknowledged that he's concerned about Google's growing influence everywhere. "But that's not the reason for this particular objection," he said, adding that he would have opposed lobbyists from Microsoft or companies working in the Obama administration.
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.
If only Palin had been a liberal, dressing nicely would have been an asset instead of a blunder in the press corp eyes....
Michelle Obama has taken casual to a haute new level.
While volunteering Wednesday at a D.C. food bank, the First Lady sported her usual J.Crew cardigan, a pair of utilitarian capri pants and, on her feet, a sneaky splurge: trainers that go for $540.
That's right: These sneakers - suede, with grosgrain ribbon laces and metallic pink toe caps - are made by French design house Lanvin, one of fashion's hottest labels. They come in denim and satin versions, and have been a brisk seller all spring.
They're out of stock at posh Meatpacking District boutique Jeffrey, and Barneys New York boasts a limited selection of the sneaks, which are a cult favorite among fashionistas.
It's likely Michelle got hers through Ikram, the Chicago retailer that often outfits her.
"They're shoes," the First Lady's reps sniffed when curious reporters inquired about the fancy footwear.
Michelle has stepped out in Lanvin before while getting down to business. A week ago, she shoveled dirt at a tree planting while wearing the line's chiffon tank.
Dresses and strappy pumps cost upward of $1,500, while tops go for $400 to $1,000.
Other celebrity fans of Lanvin's costly kicks include Ellen DeGeneres and Kanye West, who has blogged about his faves.
this reminded me of this AFP story that ran today:
Quote:
A US "taster" tested the food being dished up to President Barack Obama at a dinner in a French restaurant, a waiter said on Sunday.
"They have someone who tastes the dishes," said waiter Gabriel de Carvalho from the "La Fontaine de Mars" restaurant where Obama and his family turned up for dinner on Saturday night.
"It wasn't very pleasant for the cooks at first, but the person was very nice and was relaxed, so it all went well," he said on the Itele news channel.
Asked by AFP to comment, the restaurant confirmed the report.
WASHINGTON – When President Obama returned from his first European trip, I observed that while over there he had been “acting the philosopher-king who hovers above the fray mediating” between America and the world. Now that Obama has returned from his “Muslim world” pilgrimage, even the left agrees. “Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world. He’s sort of God,” Newsweek’s Evan Thomas said to a concurring Chris Matthews, reflecting on Obama’s lofty perception of himself as the great transcender.
Not that Obama considers himself divine. (He sees himself as merely messianic, or, at worst, apostolic.) But he does position himself as hovering above mere mortals, mere country, to gaze benignly upon the darkling plain beneath him where ignorant armies clash by night, blind to the common humanity that only he can see. Traveling the world, he brings the gospel of understanding and godly forbearance. We have all sinned against each other. We must now look beyond that and walk together to the sunny uplands of comity and understanding. He shall guide you. Thus:
(A) He told Iran that, on the one hand, America once helped overthrow an Iranian government, while on the other hand “Iran has played a role in acts of hostage-taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians.” (Played a role?!) We have both sinned; let us bury the past and begin anew.
(B) On religious tolerance, he gently referenced the Christians of Lebanon and Egypt, then lamented that the “divisions between Sunni and Shia have led to tragic violence” (note the use of the passive voice). He then criticized (in the active voice) Western religious intolerance for regulating the wearing of the hijab – after citing America for making it difficult for Muslims to give to charity.
(C) Obama offered Muslims a careful admonition about women’s rights, noting how denying women education impoverishes a country – balanced, of course, with “meanwhile, the struggle for women’s equality continues in many aspects of American life.”
Well, yes. On the one hand, there certainly is some American university where the women’s softball team has received insufficient Title IX funds – while, on the other hand, Saudi women showing ankle are beaten in the street, Afghan school girls have acid thrown in their faces, and Iranian women are publicly stoned to death for adultery. (Gays, as well – but then again we have Prop 8.) We all have our shortcomings, our national foibles. Who’s to judge?
That’s the problem with Obama’s transcultural evenhandedness. It gives the veneer of professorial sophistication to the most simple-minded observation: Of course there are rights and wrongs in all human affairs.
Our species is a fallen one. But that doesn’t mean that these rights and wrongs are of equal weight.
A CIA rent-a-mob in a coup 56 years ago does not balance the hostage-takings, throat-slittings, terror bombings and wanton slaughters perpetrated for 30 years by a thug regime in Teheran (and its surrogates) that our own State Department calls the world’s “most active state sponsor of terrorism.”
True, France prohibits the wearing of the hijab in certain public places, in part to allow the force of law to protect Muslim women who might be coerced into wearing it by neighborhood fundamentalist gangs. But it borders on the obscene to compare this mild preference for secularization (seen in Muslim Turkey as well) to the violence that has been visited upon Copts, Maronites, Baha’i, Druze and other minorities in Muslim lands, and to the unspeakable cruelties perpetrated by Shiites and Sunnis upon each other.
Even on freedom of religion, Obama could not resist the compulsion to find fault with his own country: “For instance, in the United States, rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation” – disgracefully giving the impression to a foreign audience not versed in our laws that there is active discrimination against Muslims, when the only restriction, applied to all donors regardless of religion, is on funding charities that serve as fronts for terror.
Obama undoubtedly thinks he is demonstrating historical magnanimity with all these moral equivalencies and self-flagellating apologetics. On the contrary. He’s showing cheap condescension, an unseemly hunger for applause and a willingness to distort history for political effect.
Distorting history is not truth-telling, but the telling of soft lies.
Creating false equivalencies is not moral leadership, but moral abdication.
And hovering above it all, above country and history, is a sign not of transcendence but of a disturbing ambivalence toward one’s own country.
A gallon of gasoline has hit $2.67 average nationwide. Remember how the push for offshore drilling started gaining traction last summer, and then Obama surprised everyone by saying he was open to expanding offshore drilling?
Seen any offshore drilling lately?
Nope. Here we are a year later, and we find: "Congress lifted its 27-year moratorium on drilling off Florida and the East and West Coast last year, but billions of barrels of that oil remains untouched and off-limits because the Obama administration has postponed development there."
it appears Obama was going to stick to his pledge to leave gay marriage up to the States yesterday:
Quote:
U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, one of the nation’s leading gay rights champions, blasted President Obama yesterday over a controversial anti-gay marriage court filing and is calling on the commander in chief to explain himself.
“I think the administration made a big mistake. The wording they used was inappropriate,” Frank (D-Newton) said of a brief filed by Obama’s Department of Justice that supported the Defense of Marriage Act.
The DOJ brief, which has touched off a firestorm of anger in the gay community, argued that states should not have to recognize same-sex marriages from other states, just as states don’t have to recognize incestuous marriages or unions involving underage girls.
“I’ve been in touch with the White House and I’m hoping the president will make clear these were not his views,” Frank said.
The controversy has prompted some prominent gay political donors and activists to boycott a gay/lesbian Democratic National Committee fund-raiser being co-hosted by Frank next week in Washington, D.C., Vice President Biden is slated to be the keynote speaker, but protests could mar the $1,000-a-head event.
Among those who’ve already pulled out of the fund-raiser are noted gay bloggers Andrew Towle and David Mixner, a former adviser to President Clinton.
Mixner called the DOJ brief “a sickening document that could have been written by the Rev. Pat Robertson.”
“Using the worst of stereotypes, it intimates that we don’t have constitutional guarantees, invokes scenarios of incest, of children and advocates that we don’t have the same rights as others,” Mixner wrote on his blog.
Frank said he understands the rage but vowed that the fund-raiser - one of the gay community’s biggest of the year - will go on.
“There are a lot of people who aren’t boycotting,” he said. “I think it’s a mistake to deny money to the DNC.”
DNC Treasurer Andrew Tobias, a staunch gay rights advocate, defended Obama, telling Politico, “If this debacle of a brief represented the president’s views, I’d boycott too. I totally understand all the hurt and anger . . . (but I) still personally totally believe in the president.”
Loss of campaign $ later he pulls a UAW $ thank you:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Wednesday extended limited job benefits to gay partners of U.S. government workers in what he called a first step to end discrimination against gays and lesbians.
Under pressure from gay rights groups, Obama urged Congress to pass legislation that would extend full healthcare and retirement benefits to gay families in the 1.9 million-strong federal workforce, as many U.S. businesses already do.
"Many of our government's hardworking and dedicated and patriotic public servants have long been denied basic rights that their colleagues enjoyed for one simple reason: the people that they love are of the same sex," Obama said before signing an order to extend benefits for federal workers' gay partners.
"It's a day that marks a historic step toward the changes we seek, but I think we all have to acknowledge this is only one step."
Obama's announcement showed that his administration may focus more on incremental, tangible gains for gays and lesbians, rather than wading directly into the divisive gay marriage debate that has played out at the state level.
Gay rights groups called Wednesday's move a welcome first step and said they understood that the president had been busy trying to shore up the economy and lay the groundwork for landmark healthcare and climate-change legislation.
But they said they would continue to press the administration to outlaw workplace discrimination and extend benefits for same-sex couples.
"Those things should happen today, should have happened yesterday and they haven't and until they do there's going to be a frustration," said Joe Solomonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay-rights group.
Obama did not back gay marriage during the 2008 campaign, but he did promise to repeal a 1996 law that prevents the government from recognizing same-sex marriages.
The administration will work with Congress to repeal that law, the Defense of Marriage Act, and extend workplace-discrimination laws to cover gays, said John Berry, head of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
The administration will also try to overturn the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy that allows the U.S. military to expel troops that are openly gay, Berry said.
Oversight: The inspector general for the AmeriCorps program is fired after accusing an administration supporter of misappropriating funds. The only thing transparent in this administration is its cronyism and hypocrisy.
After "hope" and "change," transparency was the thing most promised by the new administration. Everything would be above aboard and visible. We wouldn't see things like the Bush administration firing U.S. attorneys for "political" reasons even though it had the right to do so.
Enter — or should we say, exit — Gerald Walpin, who until Thursday was inspector general for the AmeriCorps program, that army of paid volunteers soon to be transformed into an endlessly funded national service program.
Seems that Mr. Walpin did a very bad thing — his job. He followed the money and discovered that the St. Hope Academy in Sacramento, Calif., had misappropriated hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal AmeriCorps funds.
The nonprofit education group, led by Sacramento mayor and former professional basketball star Kevin Johnson, had apparently spent the money on local politics. Specifically, according to the AP, funds were used "to pay volunteers to engage in school-board political activities, run personal errands for Johnson and even wash his car." All this, presumably, was to stimulate the local Sacramento economy.
As a result of Walpin's efforts, Sacramento U.S. attorney Larry Brown reached an agreement with Mayor Johnson and the group to repay half of the $850,000 in grant money it had received, including $72,836.50 that came out of Johnson's own wallet.
So does Walpin get an "atta boy" from the administration? Is a press conference held praising him for his due diligence and the oversight of this administration as it carefully shepherds every single taxpayer dollar through the system? Not exactly.
On Wednesday evening, Walpin was contacted by White House counsel Norman L. Eisen and given one hour to resign or be fired. Walpin refused, saying in an e-mail that it "would be a disservice to the independent scheme that Congress has mandated — and could possibly raise questions as to my own integrity."
If you read the letter of the law that President Obama himself co-sponsored as legislation in the U.S. Senate in 2007, this attempt to intimidate Walpin into resigning was illegal. Unlike U.S. attorneys, who can be fired at will, there's a specific and difficult process to fire an inspector general designed to guard the independence of an IG and block political interference.
The president must first, not as an afterthought, send a letter to Congress declaring his intention to fire an IG and giving the specific reasons why that person should be fired. After the ultimatum, President Obama did send a letter, one saying he no longer "had the fullest confidence" in Walpin and not much else. That's not good enough.
As commentator Rush Limbaugh noted on his radio program Friday: "Firing an inspector general is a big deal. If you'll remember, Alberto Gonzales as attorney general fired a couple of U.S. attorneys. He took hell for it. This is bigger. Inspectors general are supposed to be completely above politics."
Walpin was appointed by President George W. Bush and sworn into office in January 2007 after being confirmed by the Senate. Mayor Johnson, as it turns out, is a big Obama supporter and contributor. In August 2007, he gave $2,300 to Obama For America. Hmmm: Bush appointee fired after investigating Obama contributor.
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who also co-sponsored with then-Sen. Obama the Inspector General Reform Act, immediately fired off a letter to the president questioning both the firing of Walpin and the way it was done.
Grassley reminded the president of the statutory requirement to submit 30 days' notice to Congress of an IG's dismissal and pointedly noted, "No such notice was provided to Congress in this instance."
We await the righteous indignation of Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews and the New York Times, as well as all those senators and congressmen who said, "Give us the head of Alberto Gonzales."
A leading Democratic Senator who wrote the law shielding the government's inspectors general from political pressure or retaliation says President Obama didn't abide by the law when he fired one of those watchdogs last week. This despite the fact that Senator Obama was a co-sponsor of the legislation when it passed Congress last year.
Senator Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat and longtime Obama supporter, says that in firing Gerald Walpin, Inspector General of the government's community service agency AmeriCorps, proper procedures were flouted. The law requires that any inspector general who is removed be given 30 days notice. The White House told Mr. Walpin he had to leave immediately.
"The White House has failed to follow the proper procedure in notifying Congress as to the removal of the Inspector General for the Corporation for National and Community Service," Ms. McCaskill said. "The legislation which was passed last year requires that the president give a reason for the removal."
She noted that the stated reasons for Mr. Walpin's firing -- that the White House no longer had confidence in him -- were not a sufficient explanation. Mr. Walpin claims he was fired after he refused to reinstate Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson's eligibility for federal funding following the discovery that thousands of dollars given to a non-profit run by Mr. Johnson had been misused. Mr. Johnson, a former NBA player and prominent supporter of Mr. Obama's presidential campaign, recently agreed to return about half of the $800,000 in AmeriCorps funding he had received in previous years.
It didn't take long for the Obama White House to respond to Senator McCaskill's criticism. Last night, Norm Eisen, a White House counsel, sent a letter to the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee attacking Mr. Walpin directly. Mr. Eisen wrote that at a May 20 AmeriCorps board meeting, the inspector general "was confused, disoriented, unable to answer questions and exhibited other behavior that led the Board to question his capacity to serve."
Mr. Walpin, the White House alleged, also engaged in "troubling and inappropriate conduct. Mr. Walpin had become unduly disruptive to agency operations, impairing his effectiveness and, for the reasons stated above, losing the confidence of the Board."
Here's hoping that Senator Joe Lieberman, who has shown streaks of independence in the past as chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, is willing to hold a hearing on the firing and give Mr. Walpin a chance to defend himself.
What's next in the budding scandal over President Obama's abrupt firing of Gerald Walpin, the inspector general of AmeriCorps?
Republican investigators on Capitol Hill know one thing very well. As minorities in both House and Senate, they have no power to compel the White House to disclose anything. And majority Democrats, at least for now, are not inclined to help the opposition uncover embarrassing facts about one of President Obama's favorite federal programs.
So Republicans are brainstorming things they can do by themselves to shake loose information from an administration that has no obligation to cooperate with them. And indeed, there are a few ways.
The first is to enlarge the scope of the AmeriCorps investigation to include the Justice Department. Walpin was fired in part because of his aggressive investigation of the misuse of AmeriCorps funds by Sacramento mayor -- and prominent Obama supporter -- Kevin Johnson. The acting U.S. attorney in Sacramento, Lawrence Brown, took a strongly pro-Johnson position in the matter, even though there's no question that Johnson misused federal money. In the end, Brown played a key role in helping Johnson get off easy and in setting in motion the chain of events that led to Walpin's firing. Republicans intend to pursue the Justice Department for an explanation.
A second possible step involves the candidate, still un-chosen, who will take Walpin's place as the next inspector general for the Corporation for National and Community Service, which oversees AmeriCorps. That person will have to be confirmed by the Senate. Republicans have significant powers to slow down and even block the nomination unless they are given the information they seek about the Walpin affair.
A third step would be to push for greater emphasis on inspectors general at the Corporation. Recently, President Obama signed a $5.7 billion measure that will triple the size of the domestic volunteer agency. Republicans can argue that if you are going to triple the money for an agency, you should also increase the money for the agency's inspector general, to ensure that taxpayer money will be well spent. Increased attention to inspectors general means increased attention to the Walpin affair.
A fourth step concerns Alan Solomont, the Democratic fundraiser appointed by President Obama to chair the Corporation board. It just happens that Solomont has also been nominated to be the next U.S. ambassador to Spain. Republicans could threaten to hold up his nomination until they get the information they seek.
A fifth and final step involves Lawrence Brown, the previously-mentioned acting U.S. attorney in Sacramento. If the president chooses to nominate Brown to be the permanent U.S. attorney, then Brown will have to be confirmed by the Senate. Republicans could put a hold on that nomination, too.
With their majority, Senate Democrats could work around any hold or other measure that has only the support of Republicans. But it could be a slow and frustrating process, especially at a time when Democrats are working to pass the president's hyper-ambitious domestic agenda. That's what could give the GOP leverage.
As the Walpin revelations continue, it appears some Republicans are ready to act. This week, Sen. Charles Grassley, a longtime champion of inspectors general, expressed frustration with his inability to get much information out of the Justice Department. (Grassley has sent many requests to the department, one of them for more information about the AmeriCorps affair.)
"I've learned that holding up nominees for an executive branch agency is an effective tool to get answers," Grassley said. "So, until we start getting answers to these outstanding requests, I'm noticing my intention to hold certain Justice Department nominees."
In the past, you've probably heard about secret holds in the Senate, in which a single senator hides behind the rules to block a nomination while remaining anonymous. Grassley wouldn't do that. Fastidious about keeping the public informed on what he's doing, if Grassley tries to stop a nominee, he'll do it out in the open, by name, and he'll tell the White House exactly why he's doing it. And he'll keep doing it until he gets what he wants.
It's possible that these measures won't be necessary, that the White House will act in accordance with the president's promise to conduct its business in a spirit of transparency and openness. But just in case that doesn't happen, Republicans are studying their options.
Critics say the president has left a huge loophole for himself on the issue of transparency
As a senator, Barack Obama denounced the Bush administration for holding "secret energy meetings" with oil executives at the White House. But last week public-interest groups were dismayed when his own administration rejected a Freedom of Information Act request for Secret Service logs showing the identities of coal executives who had visited the White House to discuss Obama's "clean coal" policies. One reason: the disclosure of such records might impinge on privileged "presidential communications." The refusal, approved by White House counsel Greg Craig's office, is the latest in a series of cases in which Obama officials have opted against public disclosure. Since Obama pledged on his first day in office to usher in a "new era" of openness, "nothing has changed," says David -Sobel, a lawyer who litigates FOIA cases. "For a president who said he was going to bring unprecedented transparency to government, you would certainly expect more than the recycling of old Bush secrecy policies."
The hard line appears to be no accident. After Obama's much-publicized Jan. 21 "transparency" memo, administration lawyers crafted a key directive implementing the new policy that contained a major loophole, according to FOIA experts. The directive, signed by Attorney General Eric Holder, instructed federal agencies to adopt a "presumption" of disclosure for FOIA requests. This reversal of Bush policy was intended to restore a standard set by President Clinton's attorney general, Janet Reno. But in a little-noticed passage, the Holder memo also said the new standard applies "if practicable" for cases involving "pending litigation." Dan Metcalfe, the former longtime chief of FOIA policy at Justice, says the passage and other "lawyerly hedges" means the Holder memo is now "astonishingly weaker" than the Reno policy. (The visitor-log request falls in this category because of a pending Bush-era lawsuit for such records.)
Administration officials say the Holder memo was drafted by senior Justice lawyers in consultation with Craig's office. The separate standard for "pending" lawsuits was inserted because of the "burden" it would impose on officials to go "backward" and reprocess hundreds of old cases, says Melanie Ann Pustay, who now heads the FOIA office. White House spokesman Ben LaBolt says Obama "has backed up his promise" with actions including the broadcast of White House meetings on the Web. (Others cite the release of the so-called torture memos.) As for the visitor logs, LaBolt says the policy is now "under review."
President Obama left the door open to a new tax on health care benefits Wednesday, and officials said top lawmakers and the White House were seeking $150 billion in concessions from the nation's hospitals as they sought support for legislation struggling to emerge in Congress.
"I don't want to prejudge what they're doing," the president said, referring to proposals in the Senate to tax workers who get expensive insurance policies. Obama, who campaigned against the tax when he ran for president, drew a quick rebuff from one union president.
The chief executive also met with governors and arranged a prime-time, town hall at the White House, the latest in a string of events designed to bend public opinion toward his top domestic initiative to reduce health care costs while making insurance available to the nearly 50 million Americans who lack it.
The flurry of activity extended to the Capitol, where the administration and its allies hoped for a prominent display of progress in the Senate before Congress begins a weeklong vacation on Friday.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., labored in a daylong series of meetings to produce at least an outline of legislation that could command bipartisan support. Of the five House and Senate committees working on health care, Finance is the only one that appears to have a chance at such an agreement.
For their part, key Republicans pressed the White House for assurances that any concessions made now would not merely lead to additional demands at a later date. "We want to know the president is working in good faith along the way as we are," said Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, after meeting with Nancy-Ann DeParle, the top White House official on the issue.
Baucus appeared especially eager to show progress before the exodus from the Capitol began.
To that end, several officials said he was negotiating with representatives of the nation's hospitals, hoping to conclude an agreement that would build on an $80 billion weekend deal with the pharmaceutical industry.
Hospitals were being asked to accept a reduction of roughly $155 billion over the next decade in fees they are promised under government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, according to numerous officials.
Officials at the American Hospital Association and the Federation of American Hospitals said they could not comment on any discussions.
Baucus is seeking similar concessions from nursing homes, insurance companies, medical device makers and possibly others, noting that any legislation would create a huge new pool of customers for industry providers.
At its heart, any legislation is expected to require insurance companies to offer coverage to any applicant, without exclusions or higher premiums for pre-existing medical conditions.
Overall, Baucus has said he hopes to hold the size of any legislation to $1 trillion or less, and in private negotiations, there were discussions about further scaling back eligibility for insurance subsidies from the government.
Additionally, Baucus was still searching for ways to cover the cost of his emerging legislation, and numerous officials said he appeared roughly $200 billion shy of achieving that goal. They added that a proposal to make it harder for taxpayers to itemize their medical expenses was drawing renewed interest among key senators as one way to raise revenue.
Current law allows those expenses to be itemized when they exceed 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income. The proposal under review would raise that to 10 percent, officials said.
At the White House, Obama sidestepped when asked if he was open to taxing health care benefits -- a proposal he opposed vigorously in the campaign for the White House.
"I have identified the ways that I think we should finance this. I think Congress should adopt them. I'm going to wait and see what ideas ultimately they come up with," he said on ABC's "Good Morning America."
"I don't want to prejudge what they're doing. We've put forward what we think is best."
Organized labor weighed in quickly.
Gerald W. McEntee, president of the 1.6 million-member American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said in an interview that union leaders believe Obama is "a person of his word." He was referring to Obama's opposition to taxing those benefits during last year's campaign.
"They're not going to take it," McEntee said of workers' views of that proposal. "They're not going to tolerate that."
It was the latest in a series of signs of presidential flexibility. On Tuesday, he left open the possibility that he could sign legislation that does not contain an option for a government-run insurance plan. And he has said recently he could accept a requirement for individuals to buy insurance, a position he opposed in the campaign.
Baucus and many Republicans support taxing health care benefits, and officials have said discussions center on imposing the tax in cases in which premium costs exceed $17,000 combined in payments by the employer and worker. Democrats want to exempt union members covered by contracts, but Republicans are resisting.
The officials who provided specifics on the negotiations in the Senate did so on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to disclose private talks.
Despite months of efforts, Obama said in the ABC interview, "I think that we're still early in the process. All these issues are getting worked through."
At the same time, some of the Democrats' initial deadlines have slipped under the weight of higher-than-expected cost estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, internal disagreements and other difficulties.
Many Democrats insist on having an option for government-run insurance in the legislation so consumers can have a choice other than a plan from private insurers. Republicans are vehemently opposed, and compromise efforts have centered on a proposal for a nonprofit co-operative that would be initially funded by the federal government.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said Wednesday that the government-run option would "gut the private market."
ABC News was the lone network broadcasting Obama's town hall -- drawing criticism from Republicans who wanted equal time.
In defense, ABC News President David Westin said the show would "include a variety of perspectives coming from private individuals asking the president questions and taking issue with him, as they see fit."
WASHINGTON -- Stymied by Congress so far, the White House is considering issuing an executive order to indefinitely imprison a small number of Guantanamo Bay detainees considered too dangerous to prosecute or release, two administration officials said Friday.
No final decisions have been made about the order, which would be the third major mandate by President Barack Obama to deal with how the United States treats and prosecutes terror detainees.
One of the officials said the order, if issued, would not take effect until after the Oct. 1 start of the upcoming 2010 fiscal year. Already, Congress has blocked the administration from spending any money this year to imprison the detainees in the United States.
The administration also is considering asking Congress to pass new laws that would allow the indefinite detentions, the official said.
Both of the officials spoke Friday on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the still-tentative issue publicly. The possibility of an executive order was first reported by ProPublica and The Washington Post.
"A number of options are being considered," said one of the officials.
Asked if the detainees would be indefinitely held overseas or in the United States, the official said: "There's not really a lot of options overseas."
Christopher Anders, senior legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union Washington office, says the organization strongly opposes any plans for indefinite detention of prisoners.
"We're saying it shouldn't be done at all," he said Friday.
The Senate Armed Services Committee just completed work on its FY-2010 defense authorization bill. It was silent on the matter of indefinite detentions, according to a Senate aide familiar with the bill.
Without legislative backing, an executive order is the only route Obama has to get the needed authority.
The order also would only apply to current detainees at Guantanamo -- and not ones caught and held in future counterinsurgent battles.
There are 229 detainees currently being held at Guantanamo. Several have been transferred to United States for prosecution, while others have been sent to foreign nations. The Obama administration is trying to relocate as many as 100 Yemeni detainees to Saudi Arabia for rehabilitation.
Obama said last month he was looking at continued imprisonment for a small number of Guantanamo detainees whom he described as too dangerous to release. He called it "the toughest issue we will face."
"I am not going to release individuals who endanger the American people," Obama said during a May 21 speech at the National Archives. "Al-Qaida terrorists and their affiliates are at war with the United States, and those that we capture -- like other prisoners of war -- must be prevented from attacking us again."
It's not clear how many detainees could fall into that category. Defense and Justice Department officials have privately said at least some could be freed at trial because prosecutors would be reluctant to expose classified evidence against the detainees.
A Pentagon task force is currently reviewing every case to see which are eligible for transfer or release, which could face trial in civilian U.S. courts, which are best suited to some version of a military commission, and which fall into the category to which Obama was referring: too dangerous to free, but against whom legal cases would have a difficult time being mounted because of the manner in which evidence was gathered --coercion by cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
When it came to taxes, candidate Barack Obama seemed to clearly draw a line in the sand.
"If you are a family making less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes go up," Obama said repeatedly on the campaign trail last year.
But that line in the sand may get harder to spot now that Obama has assumed power and as some lawmakers lobby to tax a portion of the most generous employer-provided health insurance policies to help pay for the president's signature initiative of health care reform.
"The president's going to watch the process," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Tuesday about efforts to overhaul the health care system. "He's going to be flexible, and we'll evaluate as we go."
Obama has proposed limiting itemized deductions for people who make more than $250,000 a year, but that would only raise a third of the lowest estimated cost of adding 40 or 50 million people to the ranks of the insured.
Computerized medical records and other efficiency improvements and emphasizing wellness and preventive care could further reduce costs but not nearly enough, according to Ryan Ellis of Americans for Tax Fairness.
"What the president is talking about won't even pay for a fraction of that," he said.
The first President Bush learned the cost of breaking a campaign promise on taxes can be high. Bush failed to win a second term in 1992 after reneging on his earlier declaration: "Read my lips. No new taxes."
Ellis says Obama already broke his tax promise when he increased the tax on cigarettes a little more than two weeks after taking office to pay for an expansion of the children's health insurance program.
"There aren't many rich smokers in the United States," Ellis said.
Republican presidential nominee John McCain's proposal to tax health care benefits drew strong criticism from the president during the campaign.
White House officials say privately McCain's proposal was a long way from taxing a small portion of employer provided health benefits. And the president told ABC News he's against even that, though he's willing to listen to the proposal, at least for now.
Aides say one lesson of past failed attempts at health care reform is, don't draw lines in the sand.
"Bright lines that cause people to leave the table," Gibbs said. "Everybody's still at the table."
If bright lines cause people to leave the table, bright lights are why presidents prefer not to negotiate in the press. Gibbs says Obama's clearly laid out his financing plan. He just won't say "Read my lips."
In the first six months of the Obama administration, we have witnessed an assault on the truth of a magnitude not seen since the Nixon Watergate years. The prevarication is ironic given the Obama campaign’s accusations that the Bush years were not transparent and that Hillary Clinton, like her husband, was a chronic fabricator. Remember Obama’s own assertions that he was a “student of history” and that “words mean something. You can’t just make stuff up.”
Yet Obama’s war against veracity is multifaceted.
Trotskyization. Sometimes the past is simply airbrushed away. Barack Obama has a disturbing habit of contradicting his past declarations as if spoken words did not mean much at all. The problem is not just that once-memorable statements about everything from NAFTA to public campaign financing were contradicted by his subsequent actions. Rather, these pronouncements simply were ignored to the point of making it seem they were never really uttered at all.
What is stunning about Obama’s hostile demagoguery about Bush’s War on Terror is not that he has now contradicted himself on one or two particulars. Instead, he has reversed himself on every major issue — renditions, military tribunals, intercepts, wiretaps, Predator drone attacks, the release of interrogation photos, Iraq (and, I think, soon Guantanamo Bay) — and yet never acknowledged these reversals.
Are we supposed to think that Obama was never against these protocols at all? Or that he still remains opposed to them even as he keeps them in place? Meanwhile, his attorney general, Eric Holder, is as voluble on the excesses of the Bush War on Terror as he is silent about his own earlier declarations that detainees in this war were not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Convention.
Politicians often go back on earlier promises, and they often exaggerate (remember Obama’s “10,000” who died in a Kansas tornado [12 perished], or his belief that properly inflating tires saves as much energy as offshore drilling can produce?). But the extent of Obama’s distortions suggests that he has complete confidence that observers in the media do not care — or at least do not care enough to inform the public.
The “Big Lie.” Team Obama says that Judge Sotomayor misspoke when she asserted that Latinas were inherently better judges than white males. Yet the people around Obama knew before Sotomayor was nominated that she has reiterated such racialist sentiments repeatedly over many years.
Obama complained that his deficits were largely inherited — even though his newly projected annual deficit and aggregate increase in the national debt may well, if they are not circumvented, equal all the deficit spending compiled by all previous administrations combined.
The president lectures Congress on its financial excesses. He advocates “pay as you go” budgeting. But he remains silent about the unfunded liabilities involved in his own proposals for cap-and-trade, universal health care, and education reform, which will in aggregate require well over a trillion dollars in new spending on top of existing deficits — but without any “pay as you go” proposals to fund them.
By the same token, his promise that 95 percent of Americans will receive an Obama “tax cut” is impossible. Remember, almost 40 percent of households currently pay no income taxes at all — and the $1.7-trillion annual deficit will necessitate a broad array of taxes well beyond those assessed on incomes above $250,000.
Obama talks about cutting federal outlays by eliminating $17 billion in expenditures — one-half of one percent of a $3.4-trillion budget. Here the gap between rhetoric and reality is already so wide that it simply makes no difference whether one goes completely beyond the limits of belief. Why would a liberal “budget hawk” go through the trouble of trying to cut 10 or 20 percent of the budget when he might as well celebrate a 0.5 percent cut and receive the same amount of credit or disdain? If one is going to distort, one might as well distort whole-hog.
Outright historical dissimulation. On matters of history, we now know that much of what President Obama says is either not factual or at least misleading. He predictably errs on the side of political correctness. During the campaign, there was his inaccurate account of his great-uncle’s role in liberating Auschwitz. In Berlin, he asserted that the world — rather than the American and British air forces — came together to pull off the Berlin Airlift.
In the Cairo speech, nearly every historical allusion was nonfactual or inexact: the fraudulent claims that Muslims were responsible for European, Chinese, and Hindu discoveries; the notion that a Christian Córdoba was an example of Islamic tolerance during the Inquisition; the politically correct canard that the Renaissance and Enlightenment were fueled by Arab learning; the idea that abolition and civil rights in the United States were accomplished without violence — as if 600,000 did not die in the Civil War, or entire swaths of Detroit, Gary, Newark, and Los Angeles did not go up in flames in the 1960s.
Here we see the omnipotent influence of Obama’s multicultural creed: Western civilization is unexceptional in comparison with other cultures, and history must be the story of an ecumenical, global shared brotherhood.
The half-, and less-than-half, truth. At other times, Obama throws out historical references that are deliberately incomplete. To placate critical hosts, he evokes the American dropping of the bomb. But he is silent about the impossible choices for the Allies — after Japanese atrocities in Manchuria, Korea, the Philippines, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa — facing the necessity of stopping a Japanese imperial killing machine, determined to fight to the death.
He lectures about equivalent culpability between Muslims and Americans without mentioning American largess to Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinians. He mostly ignores American military efforts to save Muslims in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, and Somalia — and American criticism of Russia’s and China’s treatment of their own persecuted Muslim minorities.
When Obama contextualizes the United States’ treatment of Muslims, does he do so in comparison to the Chinese treatment of the Uighurs, the Russians in Chechnya and Afghanistan, or the European colonial experience in North Africa?
When he cites European colonialism’s pernicious role in the Middle East, does he mention nearly 400 years of Ottoman Muslim colonial rule in the Arab-speaking world? Or the Muslim world’s own role in sending several million sub-Saharan Africans to the Middle East as slaves? By no stretch of the imagination is purported Western bias against Islam commensurate with the Islamic threats that have been issued to Danish cartoonists, British novelists, the pope, or German opera producers.
Obama surely knows that a mosque is acceptable in America and Europe in a way that a church is not in most of the Gulf States, or that Muslims freely voice their beliefs in Rotterdam and Dearborn in a way Westerners dare not in Tehran, Damascus, or Riyadh.
Here we see the classic notion of the “noble lie,” or the assumption that facts are to be cited or ignored in accordance with the intended aim: Interfaith reconciliation means downplaying Muslim excesses, or treating Islamic felonies as equivalent with Western misdemeanors.
Why has President Obama developed a general disregard for the truth, in a manner far beyond typical politicians who run one way and govern another, or hide failures and broadcast successes?
First, he has confidence that the media will not be censorious and will simply accept his fiction as fact. A satirist, after all, could not make up anything to match the obsequious journalists who bow to their president, proclaim him a god, and receive sexual-like tingles up their appendages.
Second, Obama is a postmodernist. He believes that all truth is relative, and that assertions gain or lose credibility depending on the race, class, and gender of the speaker. In Obama’s case, his misleading narrative is intended for higher purposes. Thus it is truthful in a way that accurate facts offered by someone of a different, more privileged class and race might not be.
Third, Obama talks more than almost any prior president, weighing in on issues from Stephen Colbert’s haircut, to Sean Hannity’s hostility, to the need to wash our hands. In Obama’s way of thinking, his receptive youthful audiences are proof of his righteousness and wisdom — and empower him to pontificate on matters he knows nothing about.
Finally, our president is a product of a multicultural education: Facts either cannot be ascertained or do not matter, given that the overriding concern is to promote an equality of result among various contending groups. That is best done by inflating the aspirations of those without power, and deflating the “dominant narratives” of those with it.
The problem in the next four years will be not just that the president of the United States serially does not tell the truth. Instead, the real crisis in our brave new relativist world will be that those who demonstrate that he is untruthful will themselves be accused of lying.
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama promised to fix health care and trim the federal budget deficit, all without raising taxes on anyone but the wealthiest Americans. It's a promise he's already broken and will likely have to break again. Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress have already increased tobacco taxes — which disproportionately hit the poor — to pay for extending health coverage to 4 million children in working low-income families.
Now, lawmakers are looking for more revenues to help pay for providing medical insurance to millions more who lack it at a projected cost of $1 trillion over the next decade.
The floated proposals include increasing taxes on alcohol, which could raise $62 billion over the next decade, and a new tax on sugary drinks such as soda, which could raise $52 billion.
Senate Democrats this week pretty much rejected a proposal by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., to tax health benefits, an idea that Obama repeatedly criticized during the presidential election campaign but has refused to take off the table.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said negotiators are still looking for revenue alternatives. Asked during an interview with The Associated Press if they included tax increases on families with incomes less than $250,000 a year, Schumer said, "There are lots of things on the table now."
The health care bill is a long way from Obama's desk, but tax experts say the debate illustrates a stark reality: It is simply implausible for the vast majority of Americans to get a free ride while the nation tackles such an incredibly difficult — and expensive — issue.
"We're all going to have to contribute," said Eugene Steuerle, a former treasury official in the Reagan administration and now vice president of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.
Paying for Obama's agenda might be easier, Steuerle said, if the nation wasn't already facing massive federal budget deficits for the foreseeable future.
"The dilemma is trying to do the new while the old is still unpaid for," Steuerle said.
The federal budget deficit is projected to hit an unprecedented $1.8 trillion this year — on top of a national debt that has already topped $11 trillion. Obama insists that any bill on health care or climate change not add to the debt.
Obama says much of the $1 trillion needed for his health care overhaul will come from cutting costs. So far, drug companies and hospitals have agreed to provide 10-year savings of $235 billion.
Health care experts say cost cutting alone won't produce enough money to insure the nearly 50 million Americans who lack coverage. Moreover, Congress is obligated to follow budget rules that might not recognize many of the promised savings.
"The administration has an extremely difficult educational problem on its hands," said Henry J. Aaron, a health care expert at the Brookings Institution. "They understand that at some point tax increase are going to be necessary across the board.
"Yes, for the middle class, too," he added.
Obama made a firm tax pledge during the presidential campaign, repeating it numerous times in the weeks and months leading up to Election Day: no tax increases for individuals making less than $200,000 a year or couples making less than $250,000.
"Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes," Obama told a crowd in Dover, N.H., last year.
But less than a month after taking office, Obama signed an expansion of child health care financed by 62-cent tax increase on each pack of cigarettes.
Obama also signed an anti-smoking bill in June that grants authority to the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco. To pay for the new program, a fee is being imposed on the industry — and presumably passed on to consumers — estimated to generate more than $5 billion over the next decade.
While not directly increasing taxes, a House-passed version of Obama's plan to reduce greenhouse gases blamed for causing global warming would similarly increase American families' home energy bills by $175 a year on average, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Obama hasn't offered a detailed plan to fix health care, though his aides are working with lawmakers as they craft proposals. Obama included only a down payment for health care reform in the budget proposal he unveiled this spring.
He proposed limiting itemized tax deductions for individuals making more than $200,000 and couples making more than $250,000. The plan, which faces stiff opposition in Congress, would limit deductions for mortgage insurance, state and local taxes and charitable contributions, raising about $270 billion over the next decade.
Obama also proposed a series of business tax increases and accounting changes that would raise an additional $30 billion.
Kenneth Baer, a spokesman for the OMB, said Obama's cost reductions and tax increases add up to "a plan which gets you really close to what you need."
"Congress has other ideas," Baer said. "We'll work with them."
The appeal of Baucus's proposed tax on health benefits was the amount of money it could raise. Currently, employer-provided health benefits are not taxed, regardless of how generous they are.
One version of it would tax health benefits that exceed the value of the basic insurance plan offered to federal workers, raising about $420 billion over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation. But limiting it to individuals making more than $100,000 a year and couples making more than $200,000 would raise only $162 billion.
The math illustrates how difficult it is to raise enough money to pay for expensive programs, when tax increases are limited to the wealthy.
"We're living in an era, over a period of 20 years or more, in which the idea that tax rates would actually be boosted is unutterable," said Aaron, the health care expert. "That has to stop."
WASHINGTON -- House Democrats scrambling for ways to pay for overhauling health care would raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans to levels not seen since the 1980s, breaking one of President Barack Obama's campaign pledges.
The tax increase would be limited to the top 1.2 percent of earners -- families that make more than $350,000 a year. But it would raise a total of $544 billion over the next decade, covering a little more than half the cost of the health care plan.
The bill unveiled by House Democratic leaders Tuesday would create three new tax brackets for high earners, with a top rate of 45 percent for families making more than $1 million. That would be the highest income tax rate since 1986, when the top rate was 50 percent.
The plan would honor Obama's campaign promise not to raise taxes on families making less than $250,000.But it would break an Obama pledge that no one -- including the wealthy -- would pay higher taxes than they did in the 1990s. The pledge, as listed on Obama's campaign Web site, was: "No family will pay higher tax rates than they would have paid in the 1990s."
Democrats argue that high-income families fared well under President George W. Bush's two terms as their taxes dropped and their incomes soared, giving them the ability to absorb higher taxes. Republicans argue that the tax increases would hurt small business owners who typically pay their business taxes on their individual returns.
Rep. Charles Rangel, chairman of tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, called the plan "the moral thing to do."
"This innovative bill provides a uniquely American solution to control costs and put patients first without burdening future generations with debt," the New York Democrat said.
Obama's strategy throughout the health care debate has been to publicly encourage the efforts of congressional Democrats even as they debate proposals that would break his campaign promises. The goal is to keep lawmakers working toward a package that expands coverage and slows the growth in costs.
On Wednesday, Obama said that both the House bill and a separate measure passed by a Senate committee would "take what's best about our system today and make it the basis of our system tomorrow -- reducing costs, raising quality, and ensuring fair treatment of consumers by the insurance industry."
House Democratic leaders hope to pass the health care bill before Congress goes on vacation in August. Under the House plan, the federal government would be responsible for ensuring that all people, regardless of income or the state of their health, have access to an affordable insurance plan. Individuals and employers would have new obligations to get coverage, or face hefty penalties.
The bill would add a 5.4 percent income tax "surcharge" on families making more than $1 million a year, starting in 2011. Families making more than $350,000 would get a 1 percent tax and those making more than $500,000 would get a 1.5 percent tax.
If certain savings in the health care system are not achieved by 2013, the new tax on families making more than $350,000 would increase to 2 percent, and the tax on those making more than $500,000 would go to 3 percent.
Currently, the top marginal income tax rate is 35 percent. Obama wants to let some tax cuts enacted under Bush expire, boosting the top rate to 39.6 percent in 2011. The new health care taxes would increase the top rate to 45 percent.
House Republican leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, called the bill a job killer that would result in rationed care, fewer choices for patients and diminished quality.
"If this isn't bad enough, this new maze of government bureaucracy will be funded by a new small business tax that will cost more American jobs," Boehner said. "During a time of economic recession, the last thing Congress should be doing is punishing small businesses that create a majority of the jobs in this country."
Democrats argue that the tax increases would affect only 4.1 percent of tax filers who report small business income. Those small businesses, however tend to be the ones that employ the most workers, according to data from the National Federation of Independent Business.
The National Association of Manufacturers said the new taxes would make it harder for small businesses to grow, invest and create jobs.
"These new taxes will have longstanding negative consequences to the U.S. economy and cost jobs," Jay Timmons, the association's executive vice president, wrote in a letter to members of Congress.
Rich people have no right to keep their own money. -MEM
whomod said: I generally don't like it when people decide to play by the rules against people who don't play by the rules. It tends to put you immediately at a disadvantage and IMO is a sign of true weakness. This is true both in politics and on the internet."
