The President's so called fiscal policy

This week President Obama decided to finally attempt to get serious about reducing the staggering US federal budget deficit and debt. After his ridiculous, insincere FY 2012 budget proposal this past February that was panned by basically everyone, the President gave a speech at George Washington University where he was to reveal his plan for reducing the deficit and debt.

Why did the President give the speech? Maybe because every credible political consultant and media organization had basically dismissed his original proposal as a farce and that Republican Representative Paul Ryan had produced a significant budget proposal that would reduce the deficit by $6.2 trillion over the next ten years. The Ryan plan begins to look at entitlement programs that are one of the biggest contributors to both the current deficit and debt but also to the long term debt the country faces. The Ryan plan does not impact anyone currently receiving retirement benefits, or for that matter those close to retirement, those 55 and older. By taking the courageous step of at least looking at ways to reform entitlement spending, Rep. Ryan has put the President on the defensive and made him debate the issue on the Republicans terms.

The speech that the President gave, turned out to be basically just the President’s kickoff speech for his 2012 campaign. It demonized the Republicans for basically wanting to kill any senior and to give huge tax breaks to only the rich in this country. There were a few really important issues with the President’s speech that need to be examined if people are going to take the President seriously.

First, the President’s proposal reduces the federal deficit by $4.2 trillion over the next twelve years. Why does the President’s plan cover twelve years as opposed to the Ryan plan that reduces the deficit by $6.2 trillion over ten years? Basically the answer is that it delays most of the cuts so far into the future that no one voting today will likely be impacted by his proposal, at least for a longer term. By delaying any significant cuts, the President can also demonize the Republican plan by stating that they want to take away benefits from our parents and grandparents. By extending the time period for implementing his proposed “cuts”, the President believes that it will lessen the pain anyone feels.

However, most of the President’s so called cuts are actually tax increases or assumptions that are unlikely to occur. First, the President continues to believe that ObamaCare will reduce the deficit by $1 trillion. No one outside the Obama Administration actually believes this, but he is continuing the charade. The President stated that another pillar of his plan, “is to reduce spending in the tax code, so-called tax expenditures.” So now tax reductions are actually tax expenditures. Basically, what this means is that the President believes that it is not our money we earn by going to work each day, but rather it is the government’s money and we are only able to keep a small part of it. By increasing tax rates, the government is going to be able to “save” money because it won’t be paying us as much. Another big part of the President’s plan is based upon the assumption that the economy will grow at an increased rate from what we have seen the past few years. Estimates of growth in excess of five percent are the baseline projections for the President’s plan. What happens if, as is likely, the economy doesn’t grow that fast?

Rep. Ryan’s plan was passed earlier today in basically a straight party line vote. The bill now heads to the Senate where it likely won’t move forward. Will Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid actually pass a budget this year? It is likely that just like last year, he won’t move anything forward. The President was late to the discussion on the deficit and debt and his plan will likely not improve our long-term economic future.

March Madness

With the start of the NCAA basketball tournament, there has been a lot of focus placed on the yearly basketball tournament. Terms like brackets, upsets and seeding are thrown around offices as folks try to win their tournaments and have bragging rights for the next year.

In Washington, DC March Madness seems to be taking on a different tack. While the Verizon Center is hosting some of the first round match-ups, other situations around the world seem to be giving the term March Madness new relevancy. The budget battle continues on Capital Hill. Earlier this week, both Houses of Congress passed a three-week continuing resolution to keep the federal government funded. In the debate related to the continuing resolution, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid basically laid down some markers as to what might be acceptable for any rest of the year budget. Off the table were cuts to federal funding of Planned Parenthood, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting as well as Social Security. The first two areas are minimal in the overall budget battle. They are however examples of what a lot of folks believe is wasteful Washington spending. Why is the federal government funding a media organization? Why is the federal government funding an organization that provides abortions? Social Security and the other two main entitlements, Medicare and Medicaid are bankrupting the country. Social Security is basically a ponzi scheme at this point in that folks pay into the “fund” today with no hope of getting any of the payments tomorrow, unless the system is updated. The biggest issue related to the budget battle currently going on is that it was all avoidable. The Democrats had huge majorities in both Houses of Congress last year as well as the White House and yet they refused to even propose a budget. Why? Because they knew that if they proposed a budget with the cuts needed to satisfy the increasingly skeptical American public, they would anger there most loyal supporters. If they proposed a budget that didn’t include the necessary budget cuts, they would have likely lost more than the 63 seats in the House and 7 Senate seats. So they abdicated their leadership and punted until the next Congress was elected. The Republicans are also experiencing internal fighting. The freshmen House members want cuts much more substantive than those proposed by longer serving members. They ran on balancing the budget and are unwilling to accept a budget that doesn’t at least reduce the deficit in a meaningful manner. The President has basically sat out the discussion. The Administration tried to state that there proposed budget was almost as much as the proposed Republican budget, but that line was basically laughed at by everyone. It will be interesting to see what happens over the net few weeks as both sides try to reach an agreement.

Japan’s earthquake and resulting tsunami has caused the environmental community to scream that the world is falling. Reporters and commentators are projecting that the west coast of the US will basically see a mushroom cloud of radioactive material within the next few weeks. The situation in Japan is a tragedy and should not be taken lightly. However, the fact that there has not been too much of a radioactive fallout so far, shows that nuclear energy must be part of a comprehensive energy plan that reduces the US’s dependence on foreign oil. According to reports all four reactors have experienced explosions over the past week, yet there still has only been limited radioactive fallout so far. Many commentators compare this situation with Three Mile Island. The big misnomer with Three Mile Island is that no one died in that situation and that there are folks who live within site of Three Mile Island still today. Nuclear energy is a lot “greener” than oil and coal and if the US is trying to reduce its environmental impact, nuclear has to be part of the solution. Hopefully, as a result of the situation in Japan, the proposed nuclear facilities throughout the US will take a second look at how they would react to different natural disasters so that they will be prepared for anything that might happen.

The situation in the Middle East has also gotten much worse over the past few days. Libya is basically in the midst of a civil war. Saudi Arabia recently sent in troops to assist the leadership of Bahrain. Egypt has seen a change in its leadership. The situation across the Middle East is unstable and is having an impact on the US economy. The price of oil has risen over the past month with the increase in violence and protests. The price at the pump for a gallon of gas has risen to nearly $4. Should gas stay at $4 or rise even higher, there will be a huge impact on the US economy that the Obama Administration likely can’t afford. With independents only supporting the President at 37%, any additional economic issues will likely add to the problems facing the President and his administration. Yesterday, the Administration seemed to get a win at the UN Security Council with the passage of a “No Fly Zone” in Libya. The only issue related to the passage is was its passage too late? Has the dictator Gaddafi already basically won the civil war in Libya? Doesn’t the US typically stand with those who search for freedom and a say in the operation of their governments? Why is it that the Obama Administration seems to always be sitting on the sidelines when folks rise up against brutal dictators? The US didn’t help when students in Iran rose up against the tyrants. They didn’t do too much in Egypt when the protestors rose up against Mubarak. And they have refused to get involved with the protests against Gaddafi. Didn’t the President run his campaign on the theme that everyone would like us more if he were President? Unfortunately, it looks like the President’s self belief in his ability to “charm” other world leaders has fallen short and we are now taking a back seat to Italy and France in world leadership. I bet no Americans thought that was the likely outcome of the elections in 2008.

There are always a ton of issues facing the President. The decisions that he is forced to make are likely some of the most difficult and whatever the decision, its implications are felt across the world. The inability of the Obama Administration to come up with an adequate strategy for dealing with some of the world crisis has put the US in a bad spot. We are no longer thought of as the world’s lone superpower. Other countries have taken a larger leadership role in the ways of the world. This truly is March Madness and unfortunately it isn’t related to a college basketball game…

Budget 2.0

Early yesterday morning, the US House of Representatives, under the leadership of new Speaker of the House John Boehner, passed a FY2011 budget that cut approximately $61 billion in federal spending. Democrats across the government decried this budget as “draconian” stating that the cuts would negatively impact the US economy and its citizens. Why are we even having this debate?

Last year, Democrats in both the House and Senate refused to even propose a budget for FY 2011. Why? Because they were afraid of the political impact in last years elections should they proposed a budget that either cut certain discretionary spending that the public opposed or a budget that kept on spending money that the government doesn’t have. Realizing the huge political implications in an election year where the American public were angry at the way the Washington, DC continually operates, Democrats realized that their position related to the budget and the US debt were causing a huge surge towards the Republican party and away from the Democrats. Independents, Republicans and Democrats across the country were angry that unlike everyone else, the US government decided that it didn’t need to limit spending in an economic downturn and instead dramatically increased spending by nearly 25% since FY 2008. No business or family could afford to increase spending at such a rate when revenues decrease.

So instead of doing their job last year and at least proposing a budget, the Democrats decided to do nothing and just implement a continuing resolution that maintained spending at FY 2010 levels. Fearful of the political implications of actually doing their jobs, Democrats decided to just maintain spending at FY 2010 levels. That certainly isn’t leadership. That certainly isn’t doing the job that they were elected to do. And they wonder why they were thrown out of office at such a large rate last November and why they could be in for more losses in next year’s election should they once again refuse to seriously address the fiscal problems facing America.

Another result of the budget crisis/debate going on in DC is the impact it has on state and local budgets. Two years ago, with the passage of the “stimulus bill”, many states put off making the necessary tough decisions to remodel their state budgets. They used stimulus money to offset budget deficits that many were required to balance. Now that there is no additional stimulus money coming into the states, many are faced with severe budget deficits. Much has been made regarding Wisconsin’s proposal to ensure that state government employees start contributing to their own pensions and to pay a small portion of their health benefits. Schools across the state were closed Thursday and Friday when teachers called in “sick” in order to protest in Madison against these reasonable proposals that almost everyone outside of government employees already pays into, usually at a much higher rate. Teachers, who typically cry out that their job is to help develop the children of our country, decided that the best way to teach our children is to walk off their job to protest having to do what everyone else does. Governor Scott Walker told the residents of Wisconsin during the campaign that he would propose these agenda items and would fight certain collective bargaining rights of state workers. All the Wisconsin plan entailed was eliminating collective bargaining with respect to pay, not benefits and to have elections every year to make sure that the employees still want to have unions represent them. As President Obama stated two years ago in one of his few meetings with Republican leaders, “elections have consequences.” Republicans won across the country, except possibly in California, and have committed to reigning in spending and it seems that the Democrats are too afraid, or just hoping to use this issue as a political tool to try and minimize their losses in future elections.

Not a serious proposal

President Obama released his FY2012 budget earlier this week. The Administration proclaimed that they were being fiscally responsible by projecting that their budget would reduce the deficit by $1.1 trillion over the next ten years. This projection makes a number of assumptions. First, it expects that the US economy will grow faster than any reasonable economist has projected. The budget also includes reductions in spending based upon cuts that were already budgeted for with respect to spending in the war on terror. It assumes budget cuts based upon a higher current spending level then includes cuts that were already assumed to provide a majority of the $1.1 trillion cuts. What the budget also projects is a deficit for FY 2012 of $1.3 trillion.

The budget proposal submitted by the Obama Administration is not a serious proposal. Media organizations across the country have stated everything from the Administration “punting” on a serious budget to “not being serious.” The major causes of the federal deficit are entitlement programs: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The Obama Administration did not even attempt to look at any ideas to reduce the costs associated with any of these problems. House Republicans currently are debating the FY2011 budget that the Democrats refused to even start working on before last years election. The current proposal includes nearly $61 billion in budget cuts for the budget that ends at the end of September. While the Senate is unlikely to approve the House bill, and the President has stated that he would veto the bill, at least the House is trying to be realistic with respect to the budget. In households and in every business across the country, budgets are determined on projections of anticipated revenues and expenditures. If the expected revenues decline, reductions in spending must be implemented so that the budget remains balanced. The House seems to realize that expanding the federal deficit is a recipe for disaster and reductions in spending must be made today in order to survive tomorrow. As the House starts to prepare their FY2012 budget, they have stated that entitlements will be addressed. The Administration seems to be more interested in politics and blaming the Republicans for proposed “cuts” that will hurt Americans. Instead of having the “adult conversation” about the budget, the Administration and the Democrats are going back to the only thing they seem to know, make it a political argument and blame the Republicans for eliminating police and emergency responders, teachers and so forth and of course, hurting our seniors with the potential changes to our entitlement programs. Typical Democrats and not a good situation, neither short term or long term, for America. You know it is a strange situation when ever the liberal main stream media is calling out the Democrats and Administration for not being serious about the budget situation.

The lack of US intelligence

Yesterday was a tough day for American Intelligence agencies. At an open hearing before the House Intelligence Committee, two rather strange statements were provided by CIA head Leon Panetta and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Director Panetta stated that he anticipated that Egypt’s President, Hosni Mubarack would resign his position by the end of the day. DNI Clapper stated that the Muslim Brotherhood was “largely secular” and has “eschewed violence.” Both of these statements seem to defy logic and bring into question how reliable our intelligence services are. While Panetta was only a day off, it still shows how important having credible and reliable intelligence is to the operation of the US government. Both of these statements provided our allies and enemies across the world a rare glimpse into exactly how bad our intelligence situation is. Our government relies on the intelligence briefings it receives. These briefings help our government make its decisions. With faulty, mistaken, or flat out wrong intelligence, the actions of our government are severely hindered.

The residents of Egypt were able to finally get what they have been protesting for the past eighteen days for, a removal of the reign of 30 year leader/dictator Hosni Mubarack. This change in power can lead to a lot of uncertainty in the Middle East. What type of government is going to take hold in Egypt? For now, the military is taking over. Is that same military going to still be an ally of the US? While they get $1.3 billion in US aid each year, no one knows for certain what the future holds for Egypt and our relationship with its new government. While the will of the people seem to have taken hold, one can only hope that the new government in Egypt provides a model for other countries in the region by providing a democracy for its citizens. Maybe this change in government in Egypt will provoke a change in government in countries like Iran. However, we are unlikely to be able to rely on our intelligence services to provide adequate predictions for when or if such a change would happen.

Happy Birthday Mr. President

One hundred years ago today, Ronald Reagan, a historic figure, was born. Today across multiple media sources you will likely see columns written describing the former President and his role and impact in the course of the United States.

Recently, even Time magazine included President Reagan on its cover, including him with his arm around current President Obama with the headline, “Why Obama loves Reagan.” This cover along with multiple political pundits who in the aftermath of the recent State of the Union address, proclaimed how Obama is today’s generation Reagan. Reagan was proclaimed the “Great Communicator” and President Obama has also drawn comparisons to the former President’s ability to connect with the American public. His oratory skills likely helped him become President.

I am one who completely disagrees with the assessment that Obama is today’s Reagan.
While the two politicians represent different political parties and therefore have a different set of beliefs on the role of government. That isn’t the only big difference between the two. President Reagan was the eternal optimist, proudly proclaiming that America is that “shining city on a hill.” His campaigns brought a new group of voters into the American public, “Reagan Democrats.” These voters, personified by the voters in suburban Detroit, were working class individuals who cared deeply about America but were worried about the direction of the country, both economically and globally, under the leadership of President Carter. These voters are still the most sought after voters today, the classic independent voters that win national elections.

While President Obama’s 2008 campaign for President brought him a large number of independents into the Democratic side, most of those independents now have a negative impression of him. President Obama also seems to have a negative impression of America and its role in the world and global economy. All to often it seems as if he is embarrassed about the role of America and seems to always apologize for America being the world leader. He doesn’t see America as the shining city on the hill but rather as the shining example of how a country has fallen due to the advancements of some of its citizens and businesses at the expense of the overall collective. He doesn’t exude the sense of optimism that Reagan always seemed to do.

The belief that Obama is today’s Reagan is completely off the mark. While it is true that Obama has the ability to really connect with the American public through his communication, he has not embraced the positive, hopeful, optimistic message that Reagan stood for. America will celebrate President Reagan today and for a long time as those of us who grew up under his leadership and long for a return to the policy agenda that he promoted. Today it is way too early to even think about comparing President Obama to the legend of the Gipper. He can only pray that in two years, the American public provide him the opportunity to continue to serve the American public as its President.

The situation in Egypt

Following the uprising in Tunisia, Egypt has become the center of uprisings and protests against the Mubarak government. Egypt, I believe is the recipient of the second most US aid at around $1.5 billion per year. Moments ago, Fox News reported that the Obama government was considering suspending its financial support of Egypt in the wake of the uprising and the lack of any contact with President Mubarak. As the press secretary Robert Gibbs stated, "Grievances in Egypt have to be addresses by the government."

The situation in Egypt could be a huge problem for the Middle East and the world. Egypt has typically been one of the US's best allies in the region, outside of Israel. If Egypt's government is to fall and be replaced by a islamic govern run by a group such as the Muslim Brotherhood, many other countries in the Middle East might also run into many problems. Countries, such as Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE and Oman might also become the targets of radical islamic protestors hoping to overthrow the governments. The US can not allow that to happen. The US must stand with its allies. We can not accept a radical islamic takeover of the Middle East.

This situation is a huge issue for the Obama Administration and we can only hope that they understand that this protest could lead to additional situations throughout the region. The fact that President Obama has not reached out to President Mubarak so far sends a pretty strong signal that the administration either doesn't feel that the situation is all that bad or that they believe that Mubarak is no longer in control of the country, or in the worst case scenario that they have no idea what to do. This sounds a lot like the 2008 campaign where then Senator Clinton ran the ad referring to the 2:00am phone call stating a diplomatic crisis breaking out and who do you want to take that call? We can only hope that a peaceful resolution is found and a non-radical islamic government does not take over...

State of the Union... Next steps

Last night President Obama presented his State of the Union to the American public. While reactions have varied from Democrats stating that the speech was terrific to Republicans stating that the speech was too focused on increasing spending, each side will continue to stress how valuable the speech was to the advocacy of their particular political point of view.

I have one main statement to mention in response to the speech. It was something that my mom used to always say, “Actions speak louder than words.” President Obama last year throughout the speech stated that creating jobs was the number one priority. However, instead of focusing on job creation, the Administration and Congress spent the majority of the year on the job killing, ObamaCare. They rushed the bill through Congress, voting on the over 2,000 page bill just hours after the final draft was published. No one had a real chance to read, let alone understand what was in the bill and what the potential implications of the bill would be. Too often in DC, there is the case of unintended consequences. No one really paid too much attention to the 1099 issue that would require every business to provide a 1099 for every vendor that they pay more than $600 to. This excessive bookkeeping issue will likely cause numerous small businesses excessive costs that will likely result in a decrease in employment.

Americans are looking to the President for leadership and are hopeful that he can direct the country out of its current economic slowdown. There are too many people unemployed as well as underemployed. Those that have jobs are concerned that they may lose their jobs soon if the economy doesn’t improve. This uncertainty has everyone on edge and concerned about the future. Should President Obama hope to be re-elected next year, he must provide an economic vision that will reduce the rate of unemployment beyond the current 9.4 percent. If the rate drops below 8 percent, the chances of the President’s re-election increase substantially, if not, the Republicans have a chance to retake the White House. The Obama Administration must focus strictly on improving the economy. Every initiative, speech and outreach effort has to be focused on improving the economy.

The State of our Union reaction

My first impressions and thoughts of tonight’s State of the Union speech was when did White House senior staff attend the address and walk in with the members of the cabinet? I can’t remember if the Bush Administration’s White House Senior staff watched the speech from the floor of the Congress. I can understand having the chief of staff attend and am pretty sure that Secretary Card or Josh Bolton did in fact watch from the floor, but did the head of the domestic policy council attend? I can’t recall….

I am not sure if it is just my television, but does the President look a little orange? I don’t know much about makeup, but I think that whoever did the President’s tonight needs to start looking for a new job. He and Speaker Boehner seem to be competing for who can look the strangest. It is also pretty funny that VP Biden is as pale as a ghost.

The President has continued to base his economic growth plans on clean, renewable energy sources. While I do support the development of certain clean energy, the US does not have the infrastructure set up to handle electric cars by 2015 and the goal of 80% of America’s energy coming from clean energy. Also, by eliminating the “tax breaks” for oil companies to pay for the expansion of renewable energy sources, what you are doing is taxing the American public every time they turn on their cars to go to work, to the store or to school. Oil companies are an easy target since they make profits and the environmentalists believe that it is a huge pollutant.

Another focus of the early portion of the speech was on infrastructure. “China is developing faster trains…” Americans don’t use Amtrak currently and won’t use the “new” high-speed trains especially since high speed is still slower than a car. Giving 80% of Americans access to high-speed rail sounds potentially interesting in theory, but Americans are not going to use this type of travel since it likely won’t be as economical as auto transportation. While I try and use the DC Metro system as often as possible, the system does not encompass all of the Metro DC area. For example, I can’t take Metro to Dulles Airport. Another problem with Metro is that it is so poorly run, that last year there were numerous fare increases and yet the system still lost money. If the government can’t run a single city’s train system, how is it going to run a national system? There is no chance that they will ever be able to do that effectively. Already states like Ohio and Wisconsin have already decided against accepting federal funds to begin the building of a regional high-speed rail system in the mid-west.

The President offered his support for free trade by promoting the recently re-negotiated Korea Free Trade Agreement. This is an important step but it should be taken in conjunction with the pending agreements with Colombia and Panama. All three of these agreements will reduce tariffs on US produced goods and services and making these products much more competitive in the global economy. Economists have estimated that for each $1 billion in exports, 6,000 new jobs are created here in the US. Those jobs typically pay higher than non-trade related manufacturing jobs. Trade is needed for our economy to grow and create the much-needed jobs.

The President also mentioned ObamaCare. He mentioned that almost everyone agrees that the bill could be improved. He mentioned the bookkeeping challenges for small businesses as a result of ObamaCare. One might think that if any member of Congress had actually read the bill before being forced to vote on it, they might have been able to eliminate this obvious problem. In the Democrats rush to get the bill passed quickly before the public actually was able to understand exactly what was in the bill and therefore complain, they passed a bill that was poorly written and included many unintended consequences. The President stated that Congress should just fix what needs to be fixed within the bill. What he doesn’t seem to understand is that almost the entire bill is a problem and unless there are major changes to the bill, America will be paying for this mistake the rest of our history.

The President also spoke on his proposal to freeze annual domestic related spending for the next five years. This proposal would reduce the federal deficit by an estimated $400 billion over the next five years. This is an interesting proposal but it pales in comparison to the Republican proposal to reduce the federal deficit by $1.2 trillion over the course of the next ten years. With the rapid growth of spending over the past few years, unless the federal government dramatically changes the way it operates, current and future generations of Americans will be burdened with an enormous amount of debt and it will likely slow our economy.

The President finished his speech with a reference to the greatness of America. He spoke of how a kid growing up sweeping the floor of his father’s bar in Cincinnati could grow up to be the Speaker of the House and that a kid from Scranton, PA could grow up to be the Vice President. America is the greatest country in the world and it should provide every citizen the opportunity to live the American dream. Americas elected officials have a large job in front of them and unless they are willing to challenge the status quo, a year from now when all of us are reviewing the President’s 2012 State of the Union we will still be facing many of the problems that we all face today. Let’s hope that these elected officials remember this past November’s election and work together to start to fix many of the challenges facing the country.

The State of our Union is... (Preview #2)

The State of Our Union is…

With tonight’s State of the Union address, President Obama has the entire country watching him and anticipating where the President would like to take the country. He will also provide a synopsis of how he views the current state of the country. A lot of the pre-address pontificating by the so called experts has focused on what the potential balance between the President’s attempt to “invest” in certain government initiatives and the Republican attempt to cut spending. The Democrats don’t seem to remember what happened just a few months ago when Republicans won overwhelmingly across the country – taking over the House of Representatives, multiple Governor seats, and state legislative bodies. A lot of the Republican commentary has focused on how many times the word “investment” will be used. This term is the Democrats way of stating how much the government will spend. They seem to not be too worried about the dramatic increase in the federal deficit over the past five years and think that an over $10 trillion deficit is not too much of a problem. The Democratically led Congress has spent way beyond its means since they took over in January 2007.

The Republican response by Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin provides the Republicans an opportunity to articulate their plan for cutting the size of government. While his speech will likely pale in comparison to the President’s, it is likely to be more of an indication of the direction the country will actually go over the next few years since the Republicans control the House and therefore the spending process in DC. There is also a lot of interest in the “Tea Party” response given by Representative Michelle Bachman of Minnesota. Since many of the networks are likely to cover her remarks, she will likely have the opportunity to speak for a growing political force in the US. Tonight’s speeches will likely provide an ample opportunity for today’s political talking heads to get their face on tv, quoted in tomorrow’s newspapers and provide enough opinions to provide all the media outlets ample column inches to not have to worry about filling the pages of tomorrow’s newspapers.

If you believe that headlines, only the Bush Administration acted this way...

The political media organization, Politico, last night reported that the Office of Special Counsel has determined that the Bush Administration’s Office of Political Affairs violated the Hatch Act which prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activities while at their jobs. The 118 page report, states, “The entire [Office of Political Affairs] staff was enlisted in pursuit of Republican success at the polls and many OPA employees believed that effort was part of their official job duties,” the report concludes. “Based on the extent of the activities described below, OSC concludes that the political activities of OPA employees were not incidental to their official functions, and thus U.S. Treasury funds were unlawfully used to finance efforts to pursue Republican victories at the polls in 2006.”

What did they expect? The Office of Political Affairs paid attention to the political activities of the President’s party and worked to increase the number of Republican members of Congress. That doesn’t seem like too big of an issue. As a political appointee within the Bush Administration, I was briefed on the Hatch Act and what I could do with respect to political activities. I was not allowed to communicate with a campaign’s staff, only the elected officials official government staff. My office worked with numerous elected officials to set up official visits by Commerce Secretary Gutierrez to districts across the country. Part of the purpose of the visit was to provide press coverage of the visit. These visits typically highlighted a policy initiative that the Administration believed was important.

Following the 2006 election that saw the Democrats take control of Congress, our office received a request from Rep. Henry Waxman for all communication with Congressional offices to ensure that our office did not violate the Hatch Act. The request was incredibly general and from our perspective was just a fishing expedition to try and find something wrong with the Bush Administration. Every time the Secretary traveled domestically, the Office of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs notified the local elected officials of the visit and invited them or a representative to join the Secretary at the event. It is true that we often went to Republican districts, we visited districts that made the most sense for advocating the policy positions held by the Administration. We were so concerned with following the Hatch Act that the Department’s Deputy General Counsel attended the strategy meetings that were held each week to discuss potential travel opportunities. When we had a visit that included a political aspect, staff was not able to attend the meeting/event. For example, we put together a visit to Connecticut to visit then Representative Nancy Johnson. The visit started off with a lunch speech to a local chamber of commerce and was followed with a tour of a local chocolate company. Following the site visit, the Secretary left to go to a fundraiser and those of us traveling with him went to the airport to catch a flight back to DC. The funny thing about this visit, on the flight from DC to Connecticut, the House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was on our flight with three staff to go do political events for the candidate running against Representative Johnson.

Everyone on both sides of the isle that works in DC pays attention to the political implications of the activities that they engage in. Politics is what the city is all about. Cabinet officials travel across the country promoting their political agenda. One of the ways that they do this is to support potential candidates that share the same point of view. They try and get officials elected that will help advance their political agenda. Why is it that only now, with a then Democratically controlled congress that the Office of Special Counsel determined that the Bush Office of Political Affairs violated the Hatch Act? Is it just a coincidence that the week before the release of the report, the Obama Administration announced that they were transferring the Office of Political Affairs to the Democratic National Committee? So all the press reports over the past two years about Patrick Gaspard and his office at the White House was just hypothetical? Mr. Gaspard wasn’t involved in advising President Obama on certain travel proposals to help Democratic candidates? So Mr. Gaspard wasn’t the reason that the President went to Massachusetts a year ago to campaign against now Senator Scott Brown? Political considerations didn’t go into the planning of the President’s schedule? If you believe that, there is a bridge in Brooklyn that Iwould like to sell you…

If you just believed the press headlines, you probably missed an important sentence, “the investigators also found that previous White Houses engaged in similar political activities. “The aspects of OPA that came in conflict with the Hatch Act during the Bush II administration have apparently existed for decades,” the report says.” You are never going to get rid of javascript:void(0)politics in DC and almost always, the reason for official travel is to impact the political debate. Administrations of both parties are trying to improve their position in DC and one of the ways to do that is to travel across the country and do press events with elected officials that share the same point of view.

The State of our Union is...

There has been a lot of action here in DC the past week. Last week, President Obama hosted Chinese President Hu for a State Dinner. While this State Dinner was less noticeable with respect to not having any party crashers getting into the event, it provided a terrific opportunity for the US to benefit. One of the best ideas that the Administration did during Hu’s visit was to host a meeting with business leaders. For almost his entire term, the Obama Administration has been at odds with the business community. All too often, the President blamed the business community for many of the problems facing the economy and the country. One of the biggest problems many had with the Administration is the complete lack of actual businessmen and women in the senior levels of the government. Who at the White House has actually created a job? Who has had to meet a payroll? You can actually add the Cabinet in those questions. The complete lack of individuals who have faced the issues currently facing today’s business community has really impacted the agenda the Administration has followed. Their questions about why the business community was “sitting” on nearly $2 trillion in cash instead of hiring new employees and purchasing new equipment to strengthen the economy missed the point. The business community has questions about the direction of the economy and the uncertainty surrounding the economy. Recently, the Administration has done more reaching out to the business community. Former Commerce Secretary Bill Daley was named Chief of Staff. The extension of the Bush tax cuts and more outreach meetings with the business community like the one held last week in DC. Following the meeting, more than $45 billion in exports to China was announced. This announcement should provide a boost to the US economy. Economic projections typically estimate that for every $1 billion in exports, there is the creation of 6,000 jobs. Hopefully, this estimate translates into additional job creation over the next few months. Another interesting issues facing the Administration was that with the State Visit, there was not much of a focus on human rights issues in China. During their joint press conference, President Hu mentioned that translation difficulties prevented him from addressing a question about human rights.

This week’s big issue is the President’s State of the Union Address (SOTU). The media and political prognosticators make way too much about this speech. The speech provides the President the opportunity to speak to the American public and push his agenda. We place way too much importance on the speech and what the media believes is the public’s reaction to the speech. All the networks will cover the speech, provide commentary following the speech and even likely will conduct focus groups to see what lines within the speech the “general public” liked and disliked. Typically, the Administration will spend the past few months working on this one speech. It will go through multiple rewrites and every interest group in DC will try to make sure that their pet projects are included in the speech or at the very least are not included in the areas that are no longer relevant or needed. Much will be made about the new programs or initiatives laid out by the President. I think a lot of folks will also be paying attention to what if anything the President proposes to cut in an attempt to reduce the federal budget deficit. The deficit has become one of the biggest issues facing our elected officials. The Republican Study Committee last week presented a plan to reduce the deficit by $2.5 trillion over the next ten years. In order to accomplish this goal, there will certainly be some programs that are very popular with particular segments of the economy see a reduction in their funding. We will also likely hear the President once again mention that job creation is job #1. He stated this in last year’s speech but then decided that getting ObamaCare passed was much more important. Hopefully, the President will focus like a laser on job creation and with the newly improved relationship with the business community, will be able to see some job creation over the next several months. I would imagine that the 9.6% of the American public that is currently unemployed and the larger percentage that are under employed are praying for some miracle program or initiative that will create the environment that stimulates the private sector to add jobs. This issue is the most important issues facing the President in his attempt for re-election. If there is not a sizeable increase in employment, the Obama Administration will be the ones joining the too long lines of those unemployed.

The Arizona Tragedy

This past weekend’s tragic shooting in Arizona of Representative Gabrielle Giffords has drawn a lot of criticism of the current state of political discussion in the US. Many pundits, from both sides of the isle immediately used the situation to capitalize politically. Without all the facts, these pundits inflamed an already tense situation.

Liberal bloggers and pundits on MSNBC immediately tried to blame former Governor Sarah Palin for the tragedy. Since Palin’s PAC had used crosshair symbols in their publicity earlier this year to advocate for the defeat of Representative Giffords. According to the Washington Post, on Saturday night MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann, “blamed Sarah Palin’s rhetoric, saying that if she did not ‘repudiate her own part, however tangential, in amplifying violence and violent imagery in American politics, she must be dismissed from politics.” As recently as last week, liberal site Daily Kos had a column penned by Markos Moulitsas claiming that Representative Giffords was “dead to him.” One would have hoped that followers of both Gov. Palin and Markos were smart enough to understand that imagery and language used by both were to prove a point, not to instigate the shooting/killing of Representative Giffords. However, in today’s world, one must be careful in how they express themselves since there are crazy people out there who will take language and graphics literally. While there has been no proof that this murderer followed either Palin nor Moulitsas, that has not stopped the media and other blogs from pontificating on how they were responsible for this terrible shooting. Folks must realize that the only person responsible for the shooting of Representative Giffords is the murderer, Jared Loughner. All too often, we try to blame others for our own failings, but in this case, it is clear that the responsible party was not some political pundits on either side of the isle, but rather a deranged young man from Arizona who went outside of a Safeway grocery store and opened fire killing and injuring way too many people. We must start taking responsibility for our own actions and quit blaming third parties for the mistakes made by ourselves. Personal responsibility, now that is something that folks on both sides of the isle should start thinking more about and hopefully that will lead to a better political dialogue in the future. Hopefully, Representative Giffords will survive the shooting and continue to serve her constituents in Arizona to the best of her ability in the US House of Representatives.

The 112th Congress

With the kickoff of the 112th Congress today and the election of John Boehner as the new Speaker of the House, the Republicans have a big job ahead of them. America is struggling economically and has been for a number of years. The American public totally rejected the overreaching of the previous Congress. They did not approve of the healthcare bill passed last year nor did they support the stimulus or TARP legislation. They were frustrated that it seemed that Washington refused to listen to them and their opinion as to the direction of the country. They did not appreciate being talked down to as if their opinions didn’t matter and were irrelevant. They couldn’t believe that an official that they elected basically stated that they were too stupid to understand what the Congress was doing, and only after passing a piece of legislation would the members even bother to read it.

The new Congress has a big job in front of it. Not only does it need to try and implement legislation to get the economy moving forward, but it needs to regain the trust of the American public. Some of the new rules proposed by the Republicans likely will go a long way to improving the relationship with the American public. For example, the Republicans have determined to reduce the size of the budgets of Congressional leadership and committees by five percent. This small reduction shows that Congress at least understands that it can not continue to spend money with no thought to budgets or the impact on the deficit. Republicans have also promised to post proposed legislation online for five days before voting on the legislation so that not only will members have an adequate amount of time to read the proposed legislation but the American public will also have a chance to read the legislation and let their representatives know their opinion. The Democrats and President Obama offered similar rules but decided to ignore this idea when the American public stated their opposition to proposed legislation like health care reform.

There is a lot of work to be done by the 112th Congress. The American public didn’t necessarily vote for Republicans this past election as vote against Democrats. Republicans must remember this as they move their agenda forward and try to improve America. If they ignore the opinion of the American public, the American public will throw them out of office just like they did with the Democrats. Let’s hope that Speaker Boehner and the rest of the new Republican majority puts aside simple partisanship and works to put America first.

Congress, it's time to get to work...

As the beginning of 2011 brings the US a new Congress, we all should look at what exactly we each want/need from government. Many political prognosticators have stated that the size and role of government need to change – Democrats have focused on expanding government to try and assist the economy and to improve the world. Republicans have focused their attention on shrinking the size of government since in their opinion, the government typically is a waste of money.

When President Obama was sworn into office and the debate was on regarding his “stimulus” bill, his economic advisors stated that if the proposed stimulus bill was passed, unemployment would not go above 8%. The bill passed and almost two years later, the unemployment rate for the US is 9.8% and hasn’t seen the rate lower than 9% in over a year.

A big question one should ask though is, how much can government do to improve employment? The government can create jobs by adding to the federal workforce, but these are not the type of jobs most Americans expect. So what else can the government do? The most important thing that they can do is to provide some certainty to the business community. One example is the research and development tax credit. Typically, Congress passes a one or two year extension of this critical tax break for business. Most large businesses don’t have a one year business cycle. They plan today for business three, five or ten years down the line. They invest in research and development today to hopefully develop the next big thing in business tomorrow that will create additional wealth for its shareholders. Another role that the government can have in the creation of jobs is related to education. Employers need qualified employers that are adept at the changing global economy and have the ability to think on their feet and adjust and improve the business processes. Are candidates today able to look at a potential problem, develop a plan to fix the problem with limited costs? Currently, the US educational system is a failure that rewards mediocrity and not excellence. Schools are forced overrun with labor costs. One teacher’s union representative recently said something to the effect of, “once students start paying dues then I’ll focus on the students welfare.” School funding isn’t the only problem with the educational system. The students that graduate, typically are not qualified for the work. The tech community saw that recent graduates in the San Diego area were not very adept at math and science. They decided that they would create a school that focused on math and science since these were the skills needed to succeed in their business. High Tech High was created and is now a model for how the business community can get involved in the educational system and create a system that graduates students that are ready for the business world.

Is the government creating more High Tech Highs? No. Are they providing the stability and certainty that the business community needs to create jobs and expand their businesses? No.

The new Republican leadership in the House of Representatives and the existing Democratic leadership in the Senate better start exploring new ways to do business if they want to remain in office. The American public is tired of all the fighting within Congress and the lack of progress in fixing the problems facing the American public. Instead of political soundbites, Congress should be focused on solving problems and getting the American economy back on the right track. Every day that Congress is not focused on creating jobs is a day wasted in Congress. Let’s hope that with the recent elections, those remaining in DC will listen to the American public and start focusing on the issues that Americans care about. We can only hope that Speaker Boehner is able to lead the Republicans in the House forward with a proactive platform that will create jobs since the previous leadership, or lack thereof, by President Obama and Speaker Reid did nothing to create jobs. We can afford to wait another couple of years for the American economy to come out of its tailspin…