Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Wednesday, December 08, 2010
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Monday, November 08, 2010
Saturday, November 06, 2010
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Friday, October 22, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Monday, June 28, 2010
Saturday, June 26, 2010
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/37937282#37937282
He signed a bill that gave amnesty to undocumented immigrants. He grew the size of the federal government and the budget, added a whole new cabinet level agency and added tens of thousands of government workers to the federal payroll. He tripled the deficit. He bailed out and expanded social security with a big fat tax increase. He raised corporate taxes by hundreds of billions of dollars. He raised taxes on gasoline. He, in fact, signed into law the largest tax increase in history. He supported federal handgun controls. He called for a world without nuclear weapons. He was Ronald Reagan. As a conservative saint, as the right-wing rock star, as king of the Republican prom in perpetuity, as a transformative figure for people who call themselves conservative, the facts of Ronald Reagan's legislative record are awkward. Ronald Reagan's record has in it a lot of things that would get him kicked out of today's Republican Party, which is not to say that President Reagan was a secret liberal. He was not. What he was, was complex, but accomplished in his own way. With the passage of financial regulation in Washington today, President Obama took to the very un-momentous setting of "Twitters," as he called it yesterday, to say this, quote, "Last night's House Senate agreement on Wall Street reform represents the toughest financial reform since the Great Depression." It turns out that a lot of things that have happened in the less than two years of this administration are the biggest or first or most important in generations. On the occasion of the Wall Street reform announcement today, Taegan Goddard at " CQ Politics" wrote, "Not since FDR has a president done so much to transform this country." Even before today's historic Wall Street reform agreement, President Obama, of course, did what politicians have been trying to do for more than 60 years. He passed health reform, which, for the first time, establishes government responsibility for the health care of American citizens. Consider also the stimulus bill. It didn't just throw a lasso around our entire economy and yank and yank it back from the brink. It also pumped about $100 billion into the crumbling embarrassment of our national infrastructure and transportation system. It was the largest investment in infrastructure since Ike. For solving our country's energy problems, something Obama has compared to man walking on the moon, it contained about $60 billion in spending and tax incentives for renewable and clean energy, also a historic investment. It also included an unheralded but giant investment in science and tech, amping up the budgets at NASA, the National Science Foundation, and an experimental energy research agency that was created under President George W. Bush, but never funded until now. President Obama also expanded state kids` health insurance to cover another four million kids. He signed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act amending the 1964 civil rights act for equal pay for equal work. He signed a nuclear arms deal with Russia that would reduce both countries` arsenals by a third. He created a new global nonproliferation initiative to keep nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists. He set forth an international way forward on that radical left-wing proposition of Ronald Reagan, a world without nuclear weapons. Then there are the legislative and policy achievements that don't just build on previously-set precedents, but set new ones. The Hate Crimes Prevention Act, also known as the Matthew Shepard Act. It had languished in Congress for years. The Food and Drug Administration permitted for the first time to regulate tobacco. Better late than never, he dismantled the scandal-plagued Minerals Management Service, broke it into three parts so that the folks who collect money from oil leases aren't the same ones regulating the industry. And now, it will actually investigate the industry that it was busy schtupping and doing drugs with during the last administration. Obama fired two wartime commanding generals in little over a year. He overhauled the astonishing stupidity of the student loan system in which banks were being subsidized to give loans that were guaranteed by the government anyway, a license to print money. That was ended in the savings put toward actual aid to students. He canceled a weapons program that was bloated, unnecessary and totally irrelevant to either of our current wars, the F-22. Why even mention the cancellation of a single weapons system? Because that never happens. Weapons systems never get canceled. The F-22 did, which is itself a miracle. In each of these achievements and in the list of things he has yet to do "Don`t Ask, Don`t Tell," closing Guantanamo in each of these things, there is room for liberal disappointment. I sing a bittersweet lullaby to the lost public option when I go to sleep at night. But presidential legacies are complex. Not even the Reagan administration`s legacy is pure as the conservative-driven snow. But Taegan Goddard at " CQ Politics" was right today about nothing this big happening since FDR. The list of legislative accomplishments of this president in half a term even before energy reform which he`s probably going to get to is, to quote the vice president, "a big freaking deal." Love this administration or hate it, this president is getting a lot done. The last time any president did this much in office, booze was illegal. If you believe in policy, if you believe in government that addresses problems, cheers to that.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Fox & Friends ignores international aid in attacking Obama over oil spill response
Fox & Friends repeatedly falsely suggested that no international aid has been used in response to the Gulf oil spill because President Obama has not waived the Jones Act, even after White House press secretary Robert Gibbs informed them that this was not the case. Indeed, there are currently 15 foreign-flagged vessels in the Gulf responding to the spill -- each of which reportedly did not require Jones Act waivers -- and Fox News itself has previously reported that foreign technology is being used as part of the response
Citing Jones Act, Fox & Friends falsely suggests foreign aid not being used in Gulf
Beck: Obama "needs to explain ... why we turned down all the international help." On the June 15 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, Glenn Beck said that Obama "needs to explain why we haven't -- why we turned down all the international help. They offered it within a couple of days. We said no." Beck further stated that Obama needs to address "why we then went back and said well, we'll give you an answer in a couple of days, and it took two weeks. I think the president needs to explain why he hasn't suspended the Jones amendment, which is letting international ships go in and help."
Carlson suggests that because Jones Act "has not been waived," foreign ships have not been allowed into Gulf to help. In a later segment on the June 15 Fox & Friends, co-host Gretchen Carlson hosted Sen. George LeMieux (R-FL) and stated: "Steve Doocy asked [White House press secretary Robert Gibbs] why the Jones Act has not been waived, allowing international ships to come into the Gulf." LeMieux later responded, in part, "The Jones Act shouldn't be preventing any foreign ships from coming to help in the skimming operations."
Ingraham suggests Jones Act has prevented international help from reaching Gulf. Later on Fox & Friends, Fox News contributor Laura Ingraham stated that one of the "things the president needs to talk about and needs to do" is to "waive the Jones Act" so that "all of our technology, all of our manpower, all the skimmers internationally" could reach the Gulf. Ingraham did not note that there are already international ships in the Gulf responding to the spill.
In fact, "15 foreign-flagged vessels are involved" in response to spill; vessels did not require Jones Act waivers
Gibbs tells Fox & Friends that foreign aid is being used in Gulf. In an interview on the June 15 edition of Fox & Friends, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs stated that "[w]e have talked to several countries" and that "foreign entities are operating within the Gulf that help us respond" to the oil spill. Despite this, both Carlson and Ingraham continued to falsely suggest that foreign aide was being denied.
JIC: Fifteen foreign-flagged vessels currently involved in response to Gulf oil spill; vessels did not require Jones Act waivers. In a June 15 press release, the Deepwater Horizon Incident Joint Information Center (JIC) stated that "[c]urrently, 15 foreign-flagged vessels are involved in the largest response to an oil spill in U.S. history." The JIC further explained, "No Jones Act waivers have been granted because none of these vessels have required such a waiver to conduct their operations in the Gulf of Mexico." The press release further stated:
To date, the administration has leveraged assets and skills from numerous foreign countries and international organizations as part of this historic, all-hands-on-deck response, including Canada, Germany, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, the United Nations' International Maritime Organization and the European Union's Monitoring and Information Centre. In some cases, offers of international assistance have been turned down because the offer didn't fit the needs of the response.
Fox News' Brian Wilson previously reported that "some foreign technology is being used in the current cleanup effort." On June 10, Fox News reporter Brian Wilson wrote on his blog that "[t]he Coast Guard and the Administration are quick to point out that some foreign technology is being used in the current cleanup effort." According to Wilson, this technology includes:
- Canada's offer of 3,000 meters of containment boom
- Three sets of COSEQ sweeping arms from the Dutch
- Mexico's offer of two skimmers and 4200 meters of boom
- Norway's offer of 8 skimming systems
Gibbs: "We are using equipment ... from countries like Norway, Canada, the Netherlands"; no need "thus far" for "any type of waiver." In a June 10 press briefing, Gibbs fielded a question on the administration's position in issuing waivers to the Jones Act. Gibbs stated that "there has not been any problem" with "using equipment" from foreign countries. From the briefing:
Q Senator Bill Nelson is going to write a letter to the President today asking for some clarification on the Jones Act and whether or not it is in any way inhibiting the U.S. government's use of offers from other foreign nations and foreign-flagged vessels to help in any way -- mediation, skimming, any of the other operations you're doing on the Gulf. What is the administration's position on it? The Jones Act was waived during Katrina by the Bush administration to bring oil in. What's your position on this?
MR. GIBBS: I would say this --
Q Is it an impediment or are you open to waiving it if you need to?
MR. GIBBS: No, no, as Admiral Allen said today, we are using equipment and vessels from countries like Norway, Canada, the Netherlands. There has not been any problem with this. If there is the need for any type of waiver, that would obviously be granted. But this -- we've not had that problem thus far in the Gulf.
Q But you're open to waiving it if you need to?
MR. GIBBS: If there's anything that needs to happen, that will -- we will make sure that it happens.
Administration has stated that Jones Act requests for waivers would be issued if necessary
Allen "announced the development of specific guidance to ensure accelerated processing of requests for Jones Act waivers should they be received as a part of the BP oil spill response." The June 15 JIC press release stated that "National Incident Commander Admiral Thad Allen today announced the development of specific guidance to ensure accelerated processing of requests for Jones Act waivers should they be received as a part of the BP oil spill response." The press release quoted Allen saying, "Should any waivers be needed, we are prepared to process them as quickly as possible." From the press release:
National Incident Commander Admiral Thad Allen today announced the development of specific guidance to ensure accelerated processing of requests for Jones Act waivers should they be received as a part of the BP oil spill response.
Currently, 15 foreign-flagged vessels are involved in the largest response to an oil spill in U.S. history. No Jones Act waivers have been granted because none of these vessels have required such a waiver to conduct their operations in the Gulf of Mexico.
However, in order to prepare for any potential need, Admiral Allen has provided guidance to the Coast Guard Federal On-Scene Coordinator, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and the U.S. Maritime Administration to ensure any Jones Act waiver requests receive urgent attention and processing.
"While we have not seen any need to waive the Jones Act as part of this historic response, we continue to prepare for all possible scenarios," said Admiral Allen. "Should any waivers be needed, we are prepared to process them as quickly as possible to allow vital spill response activities being undertaken by foreign-flagged vessels to continue without delay."
[...]
Generally, federal law prohibits a foreign-flagged vessel from transporting merchandise between points in the United States encompassed by the Coastwise laws. CBP makes determinations as to whether or not the Jones Act applies to the activities of a foreign-flagged vessel operating within U.S. waters.
Even if the Jones Act applies, a foreign flagged vessel can still conduct certain planned operations as part of the BP oil spill response if the vessel is an oil spill response vessel and meets the requirements of 46 USC § 55113.
The guidance provided by Admiral Allen would route waivers related to the BP oil spill response through the Federal On-Scene Coordinator, who will forward requests immediately through the National Incident Commander for expedited clearance.
Gibbs on Fox & Friends: If waiver is requested, administration would "waive the Jones Act in 10 seconds." On the June 15 Fox & Friends, Gibbs explained that "there are no pending requests for foreign vessels to come into the Gulf" but that "if somebody down [in the Gulf] needed a ship from the Netherlands or somewhere else, the president and Admiral Allen would waive the Jones Act in 10 seconds."
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Wednesday, June 02, 2010
Barbarism on the High Seas
America's Complicity in Evil
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
As I write at 5pm on Monday, May 31, all day has passed since the early morning reports of the Israeli commando attack on the unarmed ships carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza, and there has been no response from President Obama except to say that he needed to learn “all the facts about this morning’s tragic events” and that Israeli prime minister Netanyahu had canceled his plans to meet with him at the White House. Thus has Obama made America complicit once again in Israel’s barbaric war crimes. Just as the US Congress voted to deep-six Judge Goldstone’s report on Israel’s war crimes committed in Israel’s January 2009 invasion of Gaza, Obama has deep-sixed Israel’s latest act of barbarism by pretending that he doesn’t know what has happened.
No one in the world will believe that Israel attacked ships in international waters carrying Israeli citizens, a Nobel Laureate, elected politicians, and noted humanitarians bringing medicines and building materials to Palestinians in Gaza, who have been living in the rubble of their homes without repairs or medicines since January 2009, without first clearing the crime with its American protector. Without America’s protection, Israel, a totally artificial state, could not exist. No one in the world will believe that America’s spy apparatus did not detect the movement of the Israeli attack force toward the aid ships in international waters in an act of piracy, killing 20, wounding 50, and kidnapping the rest. Obama’s pretense at ignorance confirms his complicity.
Once again the US government has permitted the Israeli state to murder good people known for their moral conscience. The Israeli state has declared that anyone with a moral conscience is an enemy of Israel, and every American president except Eisenhower and Carter has agreed.
Obama’s 12-hour silence in the face of extreme barbarity is his signal to the controlled corporate media to remain on the sidelines until Israeli propaganda sets the story.
The Israeli story, preposterous as always, is that the humanitarians on one of the ships took two pistols from Israeli commandos, highly trained troops armed with automatic weapons, and fired on the attack force. The Israeli government claims that the commandos’ response (70 casualties at last reporting) was justified self-defense. Israel was innocent. Israel did not do anything except drop commandos aboard from helicopters in order to intercept an arms shipment to Gazans being brought in by ships manned by terrorists.
Many Christian evangelicals, brainwashed by their pastors that it is God’s will for Americans to protect Israel, will believe the Israeli story, especially when it is unlikely they will ever hear any other. Conservative Americans, especially on Memorial Day when they are celebrating feats of American arms, will admire Israel for its toughness. Here in north Georgia where I am at the moment, I have heard several say, admiringly, “Them, Israelis, they don’t put up with nuthin.”
Conservative Americans want the US to be like Israel. They do not understand why the US doesn’t stop pissing around after nine years and just go ahead and defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan. They don’t understand why the US didn’t defeat whoever was opposing American forces in Iraq. Conservatives are incensed that America had to “win” the war by buying off the Iraqis and putting them on the US payroll. Israel murders people and then blames its victims. This appeals to American conservatives, who want the US to do the same.
It is likely that Americans will accept Israeli propagandist Mark Regev’s story that Israelis were met by deadly fire when they tried to intercept an arms shipment to Palestinian terrorists from IHH, a radical Turkish Islamist organization hiding under the cover of humanitarian aid.
Americans will never hear from the US media that Turkey’s prime minister Erdogan declared that the aid ships were carefully inspected before departure from Turkey and that there were no terrorists or arms aboard: "I want to say to the world, to the heads of state and the governments, that these boats that left from Turkey and other countries were checked in a strict way under the framework of the rules of international navigation and were only loaded with humanitarian aid."
Turkey is a US ally, a member of NATO. Turkey’s cooperation is important to American’s plan for world hegemony. Erdogan must wonder about the morality of Israel’s American protector. According to a report in antiwar.com, the Turkish government declared that “future aid ships will be dispatched with a military escort so as to prevent future Israeli attacks.” Will the CIA assassinate Erdogan or pay the Turkish military to overthrow him? Murat Mercan, head of Turkey’s foreign relations committee, said that Israel’s claim that there were terrorists aboard the aid ships was Israel’s way of covering up its crime.
Mercan declared: "Any allegation that the members of this ship is attached to al-Qaeda is a big lie because there are Israeli civilians, Israeli authorities, Israeli parliamentarians on board the ship."
The criminal Israeli state does not deny its act of piracy. Israeli military spokeswoman, Avital Leibovich, confirmed that the attack took place in international waters: “This happened in waters outside of Israeli territory, but we have the right to defend ourselves.” Americans, and their Western European puppet states and the puppet state in Canada, will be persuaded by the servile media to buy the story fabricated by Israeli propaganda that the humanitarian aid ships were manned by terrorists bringing weapons to the Palestinians in Gaza, and that the terrorists posing as humanitarians attacked the force of Israeli commandos with two pistols, clubs, and knives. Many Americans will swallow this story without a hiccup.
Paul Craig Roberts was an editor of the Wall Street Journal and an Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. His latest book, HOW THE ECONOMY WAS LOST, has just been published by CounterPunch/AK Press. He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com
Monday, May 31, 2010
When people speak of what has not been done first one needs to take a look for them self’s to really see what has been done and then speak. Read people a little research wouldn’t kill you, nor would it.
Obama oil response: aggressive as crisis unfolded
By H. JOSEF HEBERT and ERICA WERNER Associated Press Writers © 2010 The Associated Press
May 8, 2010, 11:03PM
WASHINGTON — It was a two-day trip to the Midwest to talk about jobs and clean energy. President Barack Obama didn't mention the drama unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico, where oil was gushing from a broken well pipe a mile beneath the sea.
The situation hadn't become a priority. Soon it would.
On the return to Washington aboard Air Force One, Obama learned the spill had become more worrisome. A third break was discovered at the destroyed well pipe on the ocean floor 40 miles from Louisiana's precious coastal marshes. Federal scientists believed at least 5,000 barrels of oil a day were being released — five times more than original estimates.
And there was no way to stop the flow.
The Gulf region, ravaged five years earlier by Hurricane Katrina, was on the verge of a second ecological disaster. Would there be a repeat of the bureaucratic bungling that marked President George W. Bush's response to the hurricane?
While the Obama administration has faced second-guessing about the speed and effectiveness of some of its actions, a narrative pieced together by The Associated Press, based on documents, interviews and public statements, shows little resemblance to Katrina in either the characterization of the threat or the federal government's response.
On April 20, an explosion engulfed the floating BP oil rig in fire, toppling it into the sea and sending 126 workers fleeing. Eleven never made it and are presumed dead.
Eight days later, from Air Force One, Obama told advisers he wanted an aggressive response to what had suddenly become a more menacing threat to the ecology and economy of the Gulf Coast. The president made no mention of the new developments when he strolled to the back of the plane to chat with the traveling press pool.
The fresh concerns would be outlined by the Coast Guard at a news conference that evening. It was not until the next day — nine days after the explosion and five days after first word the well was spewing oil — that the government would declare it a "spill of national significance."
Critics have asked why the administration did not move more quickly on that declaration, even though the real-world impact is viewed by many as largely symbolic.
This came from Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind.: "The American people deserve to know why the administration was slow to respond, why necessary equipment was not immediately on hand in the area and why the president did not fully deploy Cabinet-level federal officials" to the Gulf Coast until April 30.
The AP review found that the administration — aware of the political scars left on the Bush White House over Katrina — moved early with rescue efforts. Also, the government knew within days that while no leak had been found, the potential for environmental harm existed.
From day to day, as the situation evolved from devastating fire and dramatic rescue to a possible environmental hazard, the response activities changed, too, according to documents and interviews.
___
Word reached Washington at 10:30 on the night of Tuesday, April 20, that the floating drilling rig Deepwater Horizon was on fire. Its workers scrambled to be rescued. The Coast Guard sent a pair of ships and four helicopters.
For a time, it was a rescue operation, and nothing more. The president was alerted because of the potential for great loss of life.
Before noon the next day at the Interior Department, which oversees offshore drilling projects, the department's No. 2 official, Deputy Secretary David Hayes, raced to grab a commercial jet for New Orleans without even time to pack a bag. He sets up shop at a government command center already monitoring events.
"We obviously knew this was a bad situation," Hayes said in a recent interview. "But we were not in a mindset where we thought we were dealing with a major oil spill."
Underwater surveillance showed no active leak from the wellhead. Oil on the water surface was determined to be residual from the pipe and the burned out rig, now floating precariously.
Hayes and other officials were confident the blowout preventer would keep any spill to a minimum. But it failed catastrophically, allowing 3 million gallons of oil into the Gulf so far.
Asked why he flew to Louisiana so soon after the explosion, Hayes said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar was concerned about potential deaths of 11 workers, especially so soon after the April 5 mine collapse in West Virginia that killed 29 workers.
Two days after the fire erupted, Obama convened an Oval Office meeting to get the latest on what still was viewed largely as a major accident and rescue effort — 11 workers could not be found.
He asked departments to respond aggressively to help in the rescue and assess the environmental fallout. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs in a statement called the response "the No. 1 priority."
A team representing 16 agencies and offices that included the Pentagon, the Environmental Protection Agency and the departments of Interior and Homeland Security was formed. As a precaution, 100,000 gallons of chemicals to break up oil on the waster was sent to three Gulf Coast locations.
By Friday, the rig toppled to the sea floor. Efforts to rescue the 11 missing workers ended. BP, which leased the rig for exploratory drilling, insisted that based on remote monitoring, there was no leak from the well pipe. Officials believed they may have dodged a bullet.
But that changed abruptly the following day when Rear Adm. Mary Landry, commander of the Coast Guard's Gulf region, called Hayes, back in Washington, with some bad news. "We found a leak," she told him.
A new centralized command was set up in Robert, La. While the possibility of a major spill never was dismissed, it now became a much greater worry.
Obama had yet to speak publicly about the issue.
For Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, later named as overall head of the response effort, the tipping point from rescue to potentially major environmental crisis came Thursday, April 22. That's when the rig, with 700,000 gallons of diesel fuel, sank to the sea bottom, raising the potential for more damage to the pipe and a worse release of oil.
"At that point we knew this could go very, very bad. We were moving into a much more vulnerable potentially catastrophic situation," he said in a recent interview.
___
Come Saturday, April 24, with the spill estimated at 1,000 barrels a day, containment efforts were stepped up. The number of vessels sent to the scene tripled to 30 and more chemicals were dumped on the growing oil slick.
By Tuesday, April 27, 20 more vessels had been added to skim oil and help out. In Washington, BP's chief executive, Tony Hayward, and other company officials were asked to the White House to describe their latest efforts to plug the leak and their plans to mitigate the spill's impact. Officials were told a relief well to stop the oil could take three months to drill.
Obama was briefed, although he did not meet with the oil company executives.
At the same time, an internal report at Homeland Security brought more ominous news. It concluded that marine ecology along the Gulf "may be significantly more impacted than originally estimated" by the volume of oil now believed being released with a high risk of environmental contamination in the Gulf.
The next day Interior Secretary Ken Salazar flew to the BP command center in Houston to review BP's plans to deal with the leak and response efforts.
The news got worse on Wednesday, April 28.
In Washington, senior advisers and department officials were holding their daily meeting in the White House Situation Room when word came in from the Gulf of a third leak found in the submerged pipeline. Separately, government scientists monitoring by air the oil plume already on the water concluded BP's estimate of release was far too low and revised the estimate to 5,000 barrels a day instead of 1,000.
That's when the call was made to Air Force One.
On Thursday, the administration's team participated in a news conference at the White House, followed by Obama in an appearance in the Rose Garden, where he commented publicly for the first time on what he characterized as "the worsening oil spill."
The next day, Friday, April 30, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Salazar and other administration officials flew to the Gulf Coast. The Pentagon made available two C-130 aircraft to drop chemicals on the oil. A quarter-million feet of boom was on site, but in the coming days it grew to 1 million feet, and the number of vessels increased from 75 to 200.
Into the weekend, the weather turned rainy and the wind picked up, bringing the forward fingers of the oil slick within 9 miles Louisiana's eastern wetlands.
On the rainy wind-swept Sunday, 12 days after the $350 million Deepwater Horizon was consumed by flames, Obama flew to the Gulf to get a firsthand look. He took a helicopter flight over the ecologically precious wetlands that may be tarnished by the oil.
As Air Force One returned to Washington, press secretary Gibbs got the question he knew was coming.
Was the president mindful of some people wanting to make comparisons to the Bush administration's Katrina response?
Other than geography, Gibbs insists there is no connection: "We've done everything that we could."
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
By Daniel de Vise
Washington Post Staff WriterMonday, March 22, 2010; A01
Legislation hailed by supporters as the most significant change to college student lending in a generation passed the House on Sunday night.
The student aid initiative, which House Democrats attached to their final amendments to the health-care bill, would overhaul the student loan industry, eliminating a $60 billion program that supports private student loans with federal subsidies and replacing it with government lending to students. The House amendments will now go to the Senate.
By ending the subsidies and effectively eliminating the middleman, the student loan bill would generate $61 billion in savings over 10 years, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
Most of those savings, $36 billion, would go to Pell grants, funding an era of steady and predictable increases in the massive but underfunded federal aid program for needy students. Smaller portions would go toward reducing the deficit and to various Democratic priorities, including community colleges, historically black colleges and universities, and caps on loan payments.
The bill's greatest impact would fall on the more than 6 million students who rely on Pell grants to finance their education. Pell, launched in 1973, once covered more than two-thirds of total costs at a public university. It now covers about one-third.
The student aid measure was initially framed as a boost to the Pell program. Now it is seen as its salvation. Democratic leaders say that without a massive infusion of cash, the maximum grant could be scaled back by more than half to $2,150 and at least 500,000 students could be dropped from the program.
"So if this legislation did not pass, you would see catastrophic cuts to the Pell grant program, effectively slamming the door shut for hundreds of thousands of students, if not millions, who rely on the Pell grant program to go to school," said Rich Williams, higher education associate for U.S. PIRG, the federation of state Public Interest Research Groups.
Late Sunday, Arne Duncan, the U.S. education secretary, said, "Tonight's vote in the House is a big victory for America's students."
Democratic leaders and student advocates hailed the aid package as simple, smart reform: Under the current Federal Family Education Loan program, the government effectively assumes the risk for loans issued by private lenders, who then pocket the subsidies.
"You're taking billions of dollars in wasteful subsidies to student lenders and banks, and you're recycling that money on behalf of families and students to help pay for their college education," said Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee.
House Republicans and lending industry lobbyists oppose the measure, calling it an unnecessary government takeover and envisioning a bumbling bureaucracy replacing efficient private-sector loan operations.
"Instead of making student loans more affordable or preserving choice, competition and innovation in the loan program, Democrats are taking money from struggling students' pockets to help pay for a government takeover of health care," said Rep. Brett Guthrie (Ky.), senior Republican on the House subcommittee that oversees higher education.
The federal government has subsidized private student lending since 1965 and began lending directly to students in the 1990s. The movement to end the subsidies is rooted partly in allegations of past corruption: In 2007, the private lending industry was assailed for overcharging the government and offering colleges incentives to steer students to their loans.
Although subsidized lending has faltered in the sour economy, the industry has fought eliminating the program, led by Reston-based SLM Corp., better known as Sallie Mae.
In a final push, the loan industry accused Democrats of taking money from students in the dual-purpose bill, which diverts $9 billion in college aid funding toward overall deficit-reduction savings. Democrats said that money was offset by education investments authorized under health-care reform.
The higher-education industry has generally supported student lending reform. Any boost to the Pell program translates to more tuition dollars. The Washington Post Co. is a player in that industry as owner of Kaplan Inc., a for-profit higher-education provider.
In its first iteration in the summer, the student aid bill was a standalone measure that delivered a substantially larger savings -- $87 billion -- for Pell and other Democratic education initiatives.
The figure dropped to $61 billion, chiefly because colleges have begun switching to direct government lending, anticipating that the law will change. Some private loan companies have retreated from the program as well, both because of harsher lending conditions and the looming changes. The volume of subsidized loans shrank from $61 billion in fiscal 2009 to $50 billion in fiscal 2010, according to a preliminary industry estimate. But direct government lending rose from $21 billion to $30 billion. Some of the savings promised in the bill are, in effect, already realized.
Ambitions are diminished in the revised legislation, released last week.
The amount directed at Pell grants would drop from $40 billion to $36 billion, and a portion of the smaller amount would go toward closing an unexpected shortfall in the grant program, oversubscribed because of the recession. The annual Pell grant would rise to $5,975 by 2017 from the current $5,550, and for the first time, it would be linked to the consumer price index. In the original House bill, the Pell target was $6,900.
Community colleges would get $2 billion, down from $10 billion in the original bill. More than $20 billion in initiatives for early education, K-12 school modernization and student loan interest-rate reduction would be eliminated. But a $2.6 billion investment in historically black colleges would survive. The new bill also includes a $1.5 billion initiative that would cap a borrower's monthly loan payments at 10 percent of income, down from 15 percent.
Student loan and health-care retooling were combined in one bill after Democrats lost their filibuster-proof supermajority in the Senate. Democrats then steered both measures into the budget reconciliation process, which requires only a simple majority. Congressional rules allow only one reconciliation bill.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
What is wrong with you folks? You act as if Obama has some magic wand in his pocket and he can just wave it and all is ok. He said repeatedly I can’t do it all by myself I need your help, and if you tend to forget he signs into law he dose not make it, that’s the job of the house and senate but you know that. For those of you who say you will not vote for him or any democrat you probably didn’t vote for him any way and for those who keep yelling third party get real there is no viable one as of yet. So if you want change make it if you want things to go back to the way they were sit on your collective butts.
The 79 promises kept, as fact-checked and reported by PolitiFact.com, the Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking service of the St. Petersburg Times, are as follows:
No. 6: Create an Advanced Manufacturing Fund to invest in peer-reviewed manufacturing processes
No. 15: Create a foreclosure prevention fund for homeowners
No. 16: Increase minority access to capital
No. 33: Establish a credit card bill of rights
No. 36: Expand loan programs for small businesses
No. 40: Extend and index the 2007 Alternative Minimum Tax patch
No. 50: Expand the Senior Corps volunteer program
No. 58: Expand eligibility for State Children's Health Insurance Fund (SCHIP)
No. 76: Expand funding to train primary care providers and public health practitioners
No. 77: Increase funding to expand community based prevention programs
No. 88: Sign the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
No. 110: Assure that the Veterans Administration budget is prepared as 'must-pass' legislation
No. 119: Appoint a special adviser to the president on violence against women
No. 125: Direct military leaders to end war in Iraq
No. 132: No permanent bases in Iraq
No. 134: Send two additional brigades to Afghanistan
No. 154: Strengthen and expand military exchange programs with other countries
No. 167: Make U.S. military aid to Pakistan conditional on anti-terror efforts
No. 174: Give a speech at a major Islamic forum in the first 100 days of his administration
No. 182: Allocate Homeland Security funding according to risk
No. 184: Create a real National Infrastructure Protection Plan
No. 200: Appoint a White House Coordinator for Nuclear Security
No. 208: Improve relations with Turkey, and its relations with Iraqi Kurds
No. 212: Launch an international Add Value to Agriculture Initiative (AVTA)
No. 215: Create a rapid response fund for emerging democracies
No. 222: Grant Americans unrestricted rights to visit family and send money to Cuba
No. 224: Restore funding for the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant (Byrne/JAG) program
No. 225: Establish an Energy Partnership for the Americas
No. 239: Release presidential records
No. 241: Require new hires to sign a form affirming their hiring was not due to political affiliation or contributions.
No. 247: Recruit math and science degree graduates to the teaching profession
No. 266: Encourage water-conservation efforts in the West
No. 269: Increase funding for national parks and forests
No. 270: Increase funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund
No. 272: Encourage farmers to use more renewable energy and be more energy efficient
No. 277: Pursue a wildfire prevention and management plan
No. 278: Remove more brush, small trees and vegetation that fuel wildfires
No. 284: Expand access to places to hunt and fish
No. 290: Push for enactment of Matthew Shepard Act, which expands hate crime law to include sexual orientation and other factors
No. 300: Reform mandatory minimum sentences
No. 307: Create a White House Office on Urban Policy
No. 325: Create an artist corps for schools
No. 326: Champion the importance of arts education
No. 327: Support increased funding for the NEA
No. 332: Add another Space Shuttle flight
No. 334: Use the private sector to improve spaceflight
No. 336: Partner to enhance the potential of the International Space Station
No. 337: Use the International Space Station for fundamental biological and physical research
No. 338: Explore whether International Space Station can operate after 2016
No. 342: Work toward deploying a global climate change research and monitoring system
No. 345: Enhance earth mapping
No. 346: Appoint an assistant to the president for science and technology policy
No. 356: Establish special crime programs for the New Orleans area
No. 359: Rebuild schools in New Orleans
No. 371: Fund a major expansion of AmeriCorps
No. 380: Bolster the military's ability to speak different languages
No. 391: Appoint the nation's first Chief Technology Officer
No. 394: Provide grants to early-career researchers
No. 411: Work to overturn Ledbetter vs. Goodyear
No. 420: Create a national declassification center
No. 421: Appoint an American Indian policy adviser
No. 427: Ban lobbyist gifts to executive employees
No. 435: Create new criminal penalties for mortgage fraud
No. 452: Weatherize 1 million homes per year
No. 458: Invest in all types of alternative energy
No. 459: Enact tax credit for consumers for plug-in hybrid cars
No. 460: Ask people and businesses to conserve electricity
No. 475: Require states to provide incentives for utilities to reduce energy consumption
No. 480: Unprecedented expansion of funding for regional high-speed rail
No. 483: Invest in public transportation
No. 484: Equalize tax breaks for driving and public transit
No. 494: Share enviromental technology with other countries
No. 498: Provide grants to encourage energy-efficient building codes
No. 500: Increase funding for the Environmental Protection Agency
No. 502: Get his daughters a puppy
No. 503: Appoint at least one Republican to the cabinet
No. 506: Raise the small business investment expensing limit to $250,000 through the end of 2009
No. 507: Extend unemployment insurance benefits and temporarily suspend taxes on these benefits
No. 513: Reverse restrictions on stem cell research
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Rachel Maddow- Beyond spin_ Obamas productive year
Rachel Maddow- Beyond spin_ Obamas productive year