I trust your Thanksgiving was heartfelt — apologies for ignoring you this week; Gracie’s 7th birthday, mine, Thanksgiving with extended family of 40 has taken up most of the week. Lovely chaos, not available in the Pea Patch — I’m filling my tank for the long, isolated winter. I’ll be traveling home again, mid-week.
Wyatt and Grace are like a couple of adorable cats in a bag; screams of “He did it,” or “She started it,” fill their waking hours; the Bart Simpson position. Appropriate for grandarlin’s, each with less than a score of years under their belt; ridiculous for one of the oldest cultures on the planet. The US of A has finally gotten a glimpse of its own culpability in planetary mayhem — we’re no longer in denial of our own warts; now China has stepped up to take the Bart Simpson Award. You can call the Dali Lama a lot of things, but Universal Enemy ain’t one of ‘em. I don’t think they can win this one, ultimately — authority and power of the 3D sort is poor armament against the virtue and idea of compassion.
We’re seeing the dregs of darkness in Mumbai — pitiful, the carnage and rash ideology of such a venture. The focus is now on the Taj; a spot that celebrates beauty inspired by love. Why am I not surprised; it’s like the guru who picks his nose … we need these comparisons to shock us awake. We must choose, now, which energy we serve. Keep an eye on the PW blog for updates — they’re doing a fine job of staying on the breaking details, as well as offering thoughtful articles on our becoming. And here’s a link to live-blogging.
We’re also seeing the signature of mindless consumption and “me-first” in the Black Friday death of a WalMart employee, trampled by door-breakers in the wee hours. Another suffered a miscarriage from being trounced around. Hey Long Island — there’s something to be proud of, today! Grrrrrr!
But hey! They’ve got nothing on Palm Desert CA, where a couple of idiots shot it out at Toys R Us. Double Grrrrrr!
Except for global [and local incidents of] violence, politics is pretty quiet … a recent headline mentioned that Obama is running out of things to say. Well, until he can actually DO something … the long days until January … there isn’t much left to say.
Here’s an article or two for the weekend — as the whistle blowers feel more free, we’ll find a lot of folks with their heads down, trying to avoid microphones shoved in their face. Me’thinks this will be a period of the past catching up with them. Aside from these, there isn’t much interesting out there today … an appreciated lull in [ir]relevancies; the struggle in India, Baghdad and Thailand is enough.
Jude
Five more members of Congress being probed in bribery affair
John Byrne, NYT via Raw Story
Friday November 28, 2008
Five other members of Congress are being probed in association with the bribery scandal linked to former California Republican congressman “Duke” Cunningham, according to a little-noticed legal filing discovered Thursday.
The 42-page sentencing memo was published online by Seth Hettena, an author who has published a book on Cunningham. It was made by the attorney for Mitchell Wade, the former defense contractor who pleaded guilty to bribing Cunningham in 2006 who has cooperated with the government in their investigation.
In addition to the five current or former members of Congress, numerous government employees and several private contractors are also under scrutiny.
Of the five congressmembers, two are formally under investigation and three are being examined for their “receipt of straw contributions” — contributions made to members of Congress in an effort to get facilities opened in their districts. Investigators are also looking at a member of Congress for accepting undisclosed gifts, the crime that sunk Alaska Republican Sen. Ted Stevens this year.
According to the filing, the five are being probed for “corruption similar to that of Mr. Cunningham.” Cunningham, 64, was sentenced to 8 years in prison in 2006; Wade faces sentencing Dec. 15. His cooperation with prosecutors has resulted in guilty pleas or conviction for seven other individuals, the sentencing memo said, which seeks to have his sentence reduced to a fine and five years’ probation.
Cunningham expert says Katherine Harris likely among those eyed
Though none of the additional congressmembers are named, Hettena believes they are “no doubt” Republican Reps. Virgil Goode and Katherine Harris. Harris became famous during the Florida recount in 2000, was elected to Congress in 2002, and was defeated in a run for the Senate in 2006. Goode represents Virginia and was narrowly defeated in November.
Harris may be the member of Congress who underreported campaign contributions. Wade took Harris to dinner at the posh French Georgetown restaurant Michel Richard Citronelle the year before her electoral defeat which cost $2,800, according to Harris’ former political strategist Ed Rollins; members of Congress are supposed to report any gifts larger than $50.
Citronelle’s fixed priced menu costs $155 alone. With “wine pairings,” a meal is $230.
“Prosecutors drop tantalizing hints about an even bigger, ongoing investigation,” Hettena notes. “Wade was debriefed in 2006 and provided ‘moderately useful’ background information in another ‘large and important corruption investigation’ that also has not yet resulted in any charges.”
An element of particular interest that remains unresolved is who utilized escorts and limousines another convicted contractor provided and who attended private poker games at the Watergate hotel.
Brent Wilkes, another contractor who went down in the Cunningham affair, used the services of Shirlington Limousine.
“He was a winer and a diner,” the company’s owner told the Hill in 2007. “He liked to take people to eat. If a young lady gets in the car, or he asks us to pick up a young lady, we don’t know who it is. We’re drivers.”
Shirlington sued the Department of Homeland Security after they dropped the firm as a contractor following the revelations.
Clarification: Harris was defeated in a run for the US Senate after she voluntarily gave up her House seat.
Texas DA reveals evidence against Cheney
Hopes media won’t ‘let it die’
Ron Brynaert, Raw Story
Thursday November 27, 2008
Willacy County District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra spoke to two Texas television stations Wednesday night regarding his investigation of injustice within the prison systems which led to the indictment by a Texas grand jury of Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, along with other officials.
Cheney’s stake in the Vanguard Group, which holds interests in the private prison companies that run the detention centers, was cited in the indictment. Cheney is accused of a conflict of interest and “at least misdemeanor assaults” on detainees through his ownership interest.
Gonzales is accused of using his position during his time as Attorney General to block an investigation into abuses at the detention centers, located in south Texas.
Democratic state Senator Eddie Lucio Jr. is also named in the indictment, Willacy County District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra said. Lucio’s attorney, Michael R. Cowen, called Guerra a “one-man circus.” “In the March 2008 Democratic Primary,” he added, “70 percent of the Willacy County voters elected to remove Juan Guerra…Now, with only a few weeks left in his term, Mr. Guerra has again chosen to misuse his position in an attempt to seek revenge on those who he sees as political enemies.”
Guerra told KVEO 23, an NBC affiliate in Texas, that “elected officials were embedded into the prison business and that it goes all the way to the top.”
“Now that these indictments have seen the light of day, Guerra says, it’s important they are not quashed,” the station reported.
“I’m going to try and do what I can do,” Guerra told KVEO. “Impose it to you guys, and educate you guys, so you don’t let it die.”
On ABC affiliate KRGV Newschannel 5, Guerra showed “records that he says could be used to prove Dick Cheney is guilty of criminal activity.”
“Greed will get you discovered and arrested every time, and that’s what happened to Cheney,” Guerra said.
Excerpts from KRGV’s report:
####
Guerra says he went through Cheney’s financial records and the prison companies’ financial records and found the connection. The three top prison companies Guerra researched were Corrections Corporation of America, GEO Group and Cornell. Those three have the Vanguard Group in common, which is an investment company that puts money into all three prison companies.
“We knew Vanguard was the key,” said Guerra.
Guerra showed us the Vice President’s financial disclosure from last year and it shows he owned shares in the Vanguard Group. Guerra estimates Cheney has $85 million invested in Vanguard and in turn, into the prison companies.
“The problem you have is he now has a direct interest,” said Guerra. And according to Guerra, it’s a direct interest in making sure the prison companies stay in business.
[Open link for more] ++
“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
November 28th, 2008
It’s stunning, this ‘tween cycle we’re in — I don’t ever remember there being a period between election and innaugeration when the president was so absent and the elect so powerfully present — with op/ed’s, world-wide, calling for Bush to step down and let Obama in early. The Congress is configuring a bill to go to the floor on the day he takes his oath.
The money loop — economics, finances, and well-being indicators — dances up and down on the head of a pin, nobody knowing exactly how to deal with it. ‘Bama will try to slow up the cascade of destruction by putting together a team, newly announced, to inspire confidence and lay infrastructure to build on. Krugman … all the wiser heads … say we need to avoid the temptation to be timid in spending; that such moves, demanded by conservatives, was what slowed recovery in the Great Depression.
The uber-Lefty’s want money spent on citizens, not bail-out — the uber-Righty’s are suddenly fiscally conservative, after breaking the banks. The effective will likely lie somewhere in the middle.
Meanwhile, take blessing where you find it — like at the gas pump.
Jude
Depression analogies
Paul Krugman, The Conscience of a Liberal blog NYT
November 22, 2008
[open for jim-dandy ... and depressing ... chart]
Daniel Gross pushes back against analogies with the Great Depression:
Instead of workers with 5 o’clock shadows asking, “Brother, can you spare a dime?” we have clean-shaven financial-services executives asking congressmen if they can spare $100 billion.
But I think he misses the point. The reason we’re making analogies with the Great Depression — and the reason I’ve come out with a new edition of The Return of Depression Economics — is the collapse of policy certainties. In particular, the Fed’s sudden impotence — its inability to cut rates any more, because they’re essentially zero — is a very real parallel with the Depression, and necessitates drastic responses.
Now, if all goes well the Obama stimulus plan will head off the worst. But that will be precisely because we understood that the current crisis is, indeed, like the Great Depression in important ways. Only those who learn from history can hope to avoid repeating it. ++
All the Talk of a Depression Is, Um, Depressing
Economy Still Sinking As Obama Announces New Team and Plan
Danny Schechter, CommonDreams
Monday, November 24, 2008
In this Thanksgiving week, a majority, perhaps, of all Americans will give thanks not only for a bountiful table, but for a transition of power in which so much hope is invested.
As the new Administration translates its campaign’s lofty vision of change into a new team and concrete plans, we find that the new change-makers are largely a throw back to the old centrist Clinton Administration that took its marching orders from the corporate interests funding the Democratic Leadership Conference.
Barack Obama is now calling for a major stimulus and job creation effort, but outlining it and getting it done will be quite different and difficult. Creating two and a half million new jobs by 2011 is a good goal, but seems far off in a country where official unemployment now stands at ten million and so many need relief now. Ditto for debt relief, a topic no one is even talking about.
In the interim, as the snows come and the season turns colder, many a family will face an uncomfortable choice: “heat or eat.” This could be the worst shopping season ever. 36 Million families have or are close to maxing out their credit cards.
The Democrats have always sung “happy days are here again,” but it doesn’t seem to be the right song for these hard times. It’s taken a full year for the punditocracy to even accept that we are in a recession.
Last November, the economists at investment banks (that no longer exist in their old form) had proclaimed the recession, “the R word,” was already here. The press held off with constant references to a “possible recession” or the government is trying to “stave off a recession.”
Part of the confusion can be attributed to how recessions are defined. The Oakland Tribune looked into this and concluded:
The truth is, nobody knows. The responsibility for declaring the stages of the business cycle is informally held by that most dreaded of concepts — a committee of economists. The Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research uses several economic indicators, including personal income, unemployment, industrial production and sales and manufacturing volume, to determine the health of the economy. It’s not true that they declare a recession if economic growth is negative for two quarters in a row. If it were that simple, we wouldn’t need a committee.
If you want to know about the state of the economy in real time, you can’t rely on the NBER.
If the NBER did the D.C. weather forecast, here’s how it would work. The bureau would gather precipitation data from every neighborhood, then interview residents to make sure the data are accurate. After much deliberation, it would tell us whether it had rained last month.
Same with recessions: The NBER’s pronouncements historically come long after recessions have begun, a whopping seven months on average. By the time the bureau announced the recession of 1991, it already had ended.
Back then, a year ago, the people who were living the financial crisis, and those that saw it coming, acknowledged the slow down and freeze up of the economic order. They saw the dominos falling, but were still seen as alarmists, not alarm sounders. They called the recession. Today, many of these same seers are using the D word, Depression.
And once again, no one can agree on what that would look like either, writes Michael Panzer, author of Financial Armageddon:
There is, in fact, no agreed-upon definition of what a depression is. Economists are unanimous that the Great Depression was the worst economic downturn the industrial world has ever seen, and that we haven’t had a depression since, but beyond that there is not a consensus.
Recessions have an official definition from the National Bureau of Economic Research, but the bureau pointedly declines to define a depression.
At the same time, economists like Nobel Laureate Joe Stiglitz says the current credit situation may be even worse:
‘This is clearly the most serious problem since the Great Depression and in some ways worse in terms of the financial institutions.’ Stiglitz commented, referring to the fact that lenders are unwilling to take risks to finance each other because they no longer have complete access to their own undertakings let alone those of other institutions.
As economists debate the likelihood of a depression, most of our media highlights sunnier forecasts, perhaps to boost confidence and the sales pitches of their advertisers. They rarely offer the insights of third world analysts like Samir Amin:
Behind it, a crisis of real economy is standing out, since the financial drift was continuously asphyxiating the growth of the production basis. Solutions brought to the financial crisis can just lead to a crisis of the real economy, i.e. a relative stagnation of the production with its side effects: regression of wages, growth of unemployment, growing precariousness and aggravation of poverty in the Southern countries. We must speak now about depression and no more about recession.
And some are suggesting, not to scare us, that a depression is already here, depressing as that might sound, and hitting some parts of the country hard.
Here are twenty indicators that could lead us ever downward, from Paul Ferrell who called the dot com crash that so many experts did not see coming:
1. America’s credit rating may soon be downgraded below AAA
2. Fed refusal to disclose $2 trillion loans, now the new “shadow banking system”
3. Congress has no oversight of $700 billion, and Paulson’s Wall Street Trojan Horse
4. Henry Paulson flip-flops on plan to buy toxic bank assets, confusing markets
5. Goldman, Morgan lost tens of billions, but planning over $13 billion in bonuses this year
6. AIG bails big banks out of $150 billion in credit swaps, protects shareholders before taxpayers
7. American Express joins Goldman, Morgan as bank holding firms, looking for Fed money
8. Treasury sneaks corporate tax credits into bailout giveaway, shifts costs to states
9. State revenues down, taxes and debt up; hiring, spending, borrowing add even more debt
10. State, municipal, corporate pensions lost hundreds of billions on derivative swaps
11. Hedge funds: 610 in 1990, almost 10,000 now. Returns down 15%, liquidations up
12. Consumer debt way up, now at $2.5 trillion; next area for credit meltdowns
13. Fed also plans to provide billions to $3.6 trillion money-market fund industry
14. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are bleeding cash, want to tap taxpayer dollars
15. Washington manipulating data: War not $600 billion but estimates actually $3 trillion
16. Hidden costs of $700 billion bailout are likely $5 trillion; plus $1 trillion Street write-offs
17. Commodities down, resource exporters and currencies dropping, triggering a global meltdown
18. Big three automakers near bankruptcy; unions, workers, retirees will suffer
19. Corporate bond market, both junk and top-rated, slumps more than 25%
20. Retailers bankrupt: Circuit City, Sharper Image, Mervyns; mall sales in free fall
When you review these 20 developments — and there are far more — you have to ask yourself, realistically, what can an Obama Administration do about this multi-faceted disaster? Can token reforms by government stem the tide and solve systemic problems?
Are we expecting too much from our politicians?
Just thinking about all this leads to another kind of depression — a personal bummer at a time when so many want to feel good about the change that is said to be coming to America. At the same time, we know that joyous events can be followed by awful letdowns — after childbirth some women go through post-partum depression, for example, because of hormonal changes. In their case, joy turns to sadness.
The first step to avoid being disillusioned is to abandon illusions and recognize that this is a “system problem.” Am I wrong? ++
Obama’s economic fix mixes boldness, practicality
USA Today editorial
As President-elect Barack Obama started wading into the nation’s deepening economic mess this weekend, two themes seemed to be emerging: Think pragmatically, but think big.
His economic team, headed by Timothy Geithner as Treasury secretary, is a young but seasoned group that won’t need on-the-job training. Geithner, in fact, is already a key player in dealing with the crisis as the Federal Reserve’s point man in New York.
But Obama’s first shot at containing the crisis is hardly business as usual.
He says he hopes to add 2.5 million jobs. The proposal is appealing in its sweep. Though details remain sketchy, it would involve tax cuts and new spending on infrastructure, alternative energy and other areas touted in his campaign. It is a dual approach: stimulate the economy now while investing in programs that help build the nation’s future.
Under normal circumstances, borrowing what congressional Democrats say could be several hundred billions of dollars would not be a good idea. But these aren’t normal circumstances. Each week seems to bring more grim news about an economy in worse shape than previously thought. As this one opens, two icons of U.S. capitalism, Citigroup and GM, are teetering. Unemployment is rising at a startling pace, consumers are cutting back, and banks are hoarding capital. With an unpopular, lame-duck president in the White House, Obama has little choice but to start taking ownership of the crisis.
Given a choice between doing too little or too much, the new administration appears to be erring on the side of boldness, as it should. The potential price of timidity - a depression - is just too dangerous. Fortunately, at the moment, the government can borrow at virtually no interest. The goal should be to spend the money wisely now, while signaling that the Treasury does not take its good credit for granted over the long term.
Smart expenditures might include a program to repair and upgrade crumbling roads and bridges, actions that would create jobs and need to be taken in any event. Tax relief should help those living closest to the edge.
At the same time, though, Obama should be preparing the public for what inevitably must follow once the economy is stabilized: a concerted effort to address the long-term debt issues posed by surging health care costs and the Baby Boomers’ retirement. This would signal that the huge borrowing is temporary.
Obama’s economic team appears notable for its practicality and experience.
In addition to Geithner, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers is said to be coming to the White House as a key adviser, and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, appears in line to be Commerce secretary.
This is - as Obama frequently said in his campaign speeches - a defining moment. A bold vision implemented by people who know what they’re doing is what the nation and the economy desperately need. ++
Obama And Senate Dems Prepping For Quick, Massive Stimulus Package
Huffington Post
November 24, 2008
A high-ranking official in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s office has confirmed that Democratic leadership is looking to have a stimulus package ready for Barack Obama to sign shortly upon taking office.Jim Manley, a spokesman for Reid, backed up reports from Sunday and early Monday that Congress would work on a massive stimulus package to be prepared for a presidential signature on January 21st. The hope — as Obama himself noted during a press conference announcing his economic team on Monday — is to hit the ground running once he takes office, in efforts to repair the teetering economy.
“I want to see [a stimulus package] enacted right away. It is going to be of a size and scope that is needed to get this economy back on track,” he said.
“We have a consensus, which is pretty rare, between conservative economists and liberal economists that we need a big stimulus package that will jolt the economy back into shape and that it is focused on … delivering the 2.5 million jobs I am talking about.”
Obama would not get into the details of what, exactly, the stimulus would look like. “I don’t want to get into numbers right now,” he said.
Another plugged in Democratic aide, however, said economic advisers for the president-elect, in particular Jason Furman, have been in touch with the relevant members of Congress to begin shaping legislation. The group is looking at a package that could be as high as five percent of the GDP (which is where the $700 billion figure has come from) but would likely end up in the $100 billion to $500 billion range. Included in the language, it was predicted, would be spending on infrastructure, aide to states, money for health care programs and transportation projects, middle class tax relief or tax-incentives for job creation, and direct assistance to certain industries (see, potentially: auto).
The package, or course, is a work in progress, complicated by the fact that the Obama team has to defer for the time being to the current president. But as the president-elect begins to fill out his economic team, starting with the staffing announcements on Monday, things should roll move at a more accelerated pace.
“Part of the task of this economic team behind me is to help shape the details of that plan,” said Obama.
Added the aide: “You can see even before his inauguration, Congress rolling out the skeleton of what the stimulus could be… That could happen in the next few weeks… then we will have to sit down and hammer out the details. And you can envision that by the first weeks of January, Congress could push this thing forward.”
Should there be GOP quibbles over the size or language of the bill, Obama could, the aide noted, simply introduce his own version through a member of Congress and call for an up or down vote.
There are a few minor obstacles in the way of a wildly expeditious passage of the stimulus package — though, there should be no doubt, the bill will almost certainly be passed. For starters, the Senate is not in session (save for a meeting in early December to discuss a loan to the Big Three automakers) until January 6th.
Members will be around from then through the inauguration, but that might not be enough time for the contours of a package to be hammered out. They will want their “say in the process,” noted one Senate aide. ++
Obama Introduces His Economic Team
BETH FOUHY, Huffington Post
November 24, 2008
CHICAGO - With the economy in crisis, President-elect Barack Obama urged the new Congress to pass a quick economic stimulus bill, pledged help for the troubled auto industry and blessed the Bush administration’s bailout of the financial industry.
Even so, he conceded, “The economy is likely to get worse before it gets better,” a downbeat forecast, delivered 57 days before he takes the oath of office and as Americans headed into the year-end holiday season.
Barring swift action, “most experts now believe that we could lose millions of jobs next year,” he said, urging the newly elected Congress to act quickly on his plans after opening its session on Jan. 6.
At a news conference, Obama was critical of the Big Three automakers, saying he was surprised they did not have a better-thought-out plan for their future before asking Congress to approve $25 billion in emergency loans.
He said once he sees a plan, he expects “we’re going to be able to shape a rescue.”
Obama declined to say how large a stimulus package he wants from Congress.
Democratic lawmakers speculated over the weekend that the price tag could reach $700 billion over two years as the nation struggles to emerge from a recession compounded by a credit crunch. “It’s going to be costly,” the president-elect said.
The stock market had been climbing before Obama spoke but then slipped during his news conference, reducing its gain from 300 points to 200. It rose higher again later. Analysts said investors were looking for more specifics of an economic stimulus plan, and also wanted Obama to state that he would set aside a plan to raise taxes on the richest Americans.
Obama made his comments as he unveiled the top members of his economic team, beginning with New York Federal Reserve President Timothy Geithner to be his treasury secretary. Geithner, 47, is a veteran of financial crises at home and overseas and has worked closely with the Bush administration in recent months.
Obama chose Lawrence Summers as director of his National Economic Council. Summers was treasury secretary under former President Bill Clinton.
Obama said his newly minted economic team offered “sound judgment and fresh thinking” at a time of economic peril.
He expressed confidence the nation would weather the crisis “because we’ve done it before.”
Obama also announced two other members of his economic team in the making.
He named Christina Romer as chair of his Council of Economic Advisers, and
Melody Barnes as director of his White House Domestic Policy Council.
Obama’s principal theme was urgency.
“We do not have a minute to waste,” he said, citing the turmoil in the financial markets as well as the deterioration of the broader economy.
He also said he would “honor the commitments made by the current administration” to deal with the problems, signaling approval of the Bush administration’s latest effort to rescue Citigroup as well as the broader $700 billion bailout designed to shore up the financial markets.
Bush said earlier in the day that the government’s dramatic rescue of Citigroup was necessary to “safeguard the financial system” and help the economy recover, and he said there could be more such moves if other institutions need help.
“We have made these kind of decisions in the past. We made one last night. And if need be we will make these kind of decisions to safeguard our financial system in the future,” Bush said.
As a candidate, Obama was a supporter of the $700 billion bailout measure.
Any stimulus plan would greatly exceed the $175 billion price tag Obama had suggested as a candidate.
At the news conference, he said he wanted to create 2.5 million jobs by the end of 2010. He also said he wants the legislation to incorporate his campaign ideas for new jobs in environmentally friendly technologies - the “green economy.” He added that deficit concerns would have to take a back seat to the goal of reinvigorating the economy.
As a candidate, Obama called for cutting taxes for the middle class and said he wanted to eliminate Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy. In his news conference, he reaffirmed support for reducing the burden on the middle class but was equivocal on how quickly he would act on taxes affecting those who are better off. Many economists caution that raising taxes can make a recession worse, and the president-elect said he would await a recommendation from his advisers on whether to follow through on his earlier pledge.
His call for quick congressional action was welcomed by Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. “With the cooperation of our Republican colleagues, we intend to send a plan to the White House as soon as possible following President-elect Obama’s inauguration,” Reid said.
Obama spoke one day after a senior adviser, David Axelrod said, “We want to hit the ground running on Jan. 20.”
Echoing that, the second-ranking House Democrat, Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, said, “We expect to have during the first couple of weeks of January a package for the president’s consideration when he takes office.”
While Obama and his team are focused on the work of the new Congress, they also weighed in on work pending before the current one.
Axelrod warned automakers seeking billions in government help to devise a plan to retool and restructure that they can present to Congress next month. Otherwise, he said, “there is very little taxpayers can do to help them.”
The emphasis on the economy began Saturday when Obama outlined the framework to save or create 2.5 million jobs by the end of 2010.
But there were no plans to balance the tax cuts with an immediate tax increase on the wealthy. During the campaign, Obama said he would pay for increased tax relief by raising taxes on people making more than $250,000.
“There won’t be any tax increases in the January package,” said one Obama aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the details of the Obama package have not been fleshed out.
Obama could delay any tax increase to 2011, when current Bush administration tax cuts expire.
House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio urged Obama to make that explicit. “Why wouldn’t we have the president-elect say, `I am not going to raise taxes on any American in my first two years in office?’”
Some economists have endorsed spending up to $600 billion to revive the economy. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and former labor Secretary Robert Reich, a member of Obama’s economic advisory board, both suggested $500 billion to $700 billion.
Axelrod and Schumer appeared on ABC’s “This Week”; Hoyer and Boehner appeared on “Fox News Sunday,” and Reich appeared on CNN’s “Late Edition.” ++
Associated Press writer Jim Kuhnhenn contributed to this story from Washington.
“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.” ~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
November 24th, 2008