Posted by Tina
With a single party owning the big three, White House, House of Representatives, and Senate, all eyes will be focused on Democrats over the next two years. The new president has yet to be sworn in but already he is being treated as the leader, the man who is to direct the long awaited progressive power surge. So far Obama has managed to surprise, infuriate and disappoint many of his staunch supporters. The rest of us remain in a holding pattern with some, even in fawning foreign countries, ready to draw a little blood, fearing the worst:
President-elect Barack Obama proposes economic suicide for US, by Christopher Booker Telegraph (UK)
** If the holder of the most powerful office in the world proposed a policy guaranteed to inflict untold damage on his own country and many others, on the basis of claims so demonstrably fallacious that they amount to a string of self-deluding lies, we might well be concerned. The relevance of this is not to President Bush, as some might imagine, but to a recent policy statement by President-elect Obama. **
** Tomorrow, delegates from 190 countries will meet in Poznan, Poland, to pave the way for next year’s UN conference in Copenhagen at which the world will agree a successor to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. They will see a video of Mr Obama, in only his second major policy commitment, pledging that America is now about to play the leading role in the fight to “save the planet” from global warming. *** Mr Obama begins by saying that “the science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear”. “Sea levels,” he claims, “are rising, coastlines are shrinking, we’ve seen record drought, spreading famine and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season.”… Each of these four statements is so wildly at odds with the truth that on this score alone we should be seriously worried. *** For a start he plans to introduce a “federal cap and trade system”, a massive “carbon tax”, designed to reduce America’s CO2 emissions “to their 1990 levels by 2020 and reduce them an additional 80 per cent by 2050”. Such a target, which would put America ahead of any other country in the world, could only be achieved by closing down a large part of the US economy. **
Obama criticised for economic team’s link to failed bank chief, by Edward Helmore – Guardian (UK)
** As Barack Obama prepares to announce the appointment of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State this week, the first notes of dissent over the President-elect’s choices are being heard across America. *** The loudest complaints concern his economic team’s ties to Citigroup, the banking behemoth that all but collapsed last weekend. In particular, criticisms are mounting over the role to be played by Robert Rubin, a director at Citigroup and President Clinton’s former treasury secretary. *** Obama, who last week called for a massive stimulus package to prevent the US economy from ‘falling into a deflationary spiral’, has taken several protgs of 70-year-old Rubin as advisers, among them Timothy Geithner as treasury secretary, Lawrence Summers as senior White House economics adviser and Peter Orszag as budget director, even as Rubin himself has been defending his key role in deregulating the financial markets and steering Citigroup towards taking greater trading risks to expand its business and reap higher profits. *** ‘Where’s the diversity on the economic team? It’s not only all from the same small club, but from the club that brought us the deregulation that has a lot to do with the economic collapse,’ said Robert Kuttner, the co-founder of the liberal-leaning American Prospect magazine. *** The growing fury over the bailout of Citigroup largely focuses on Rubin’s role. In a damning post-mortem of Citigroup’s rush to risk, the New York Times labelled Rubin ‘an architect of the bank’s strategy’ and described him as having ‘pushed to bulk up the bank’s high-growth fixed-income trading’. *** Rubin, the paper said, led the bank into a risky gamble on investments, including securities backed by sub-prime mortgages. With a base Citigroup salary of $115m, excluding stock options and bonuses, Rubin’s defence that he had no ‘operating’ responsibilities at the bank is not widely accepted. ‘He still has a fiduciary responsibility as a board member,’ said William Smith, a New York money manager. ‘He has overseen the entire meltdown, yet been compensated as an operating employee, while bragging about having no operating responsibility.’ **
Democrats have been in power in Congress for two years but their ranks have grown and with the new year ahead and Barack Obama in the White House they will have tremendous power. Will they be scrutinized and held accountable by liberal progressive standards? It is up to the average citizen to notice whether the left truly cares about issues or simply retaining power while accumulating wealth and prestige.
It doesnt hurt to start by looking at how they’re doing so far…
** High-ranking members of Congress were flown to a lush Caribbean resort this month for a three-day conference planned and paid for by several of the country’s most powerful corporations – a violation of federal ethics rules, critics say. *** Six members of the Congressional Black Caucus attended the 13th annual Caribbean Multi-National Business Conference in sun-drenched St. Maarten, including embattled Harlem Rep. Charles Rangel and New Jersey Rep. Donald Payne. *** …legislators enjoyed free airfare, meals and hotel rooms covered by the trip’s organizer – and paid for by donations from corporations such as IBM, AT&T, Verizon, Citigroup, Pfizer, Macy’s and American Airlines, a Post investigation discovered. *** Officials with those companies were observed at the conference – sometimes acting as featured speakers at daily seminars and freely mingling among the pols at social events. Citigroup – which just last week received a massive bailout from the federal government – was one of the conference’s biggest sponsors, ponying up $100,000 to help finance the event, according to one of the lobbyists at the gathering. **
** Are congressional Democrats truly committed to dealing with the economic and fiscal policy challenges they face next year? *** The answer will be seen in how they address their increasingly problematic Charlie Rangel (House Waysand Means Committee) situation. *** Last Wednesday, the DC-based National Legal and Policy Center urged the House Ethics Committee to expand its ongoing Rangel probe to include the recent revelation that he took a “homestead” tax deduction meant for year-round DC residents – though he legally resides in New York. *** Tuesday, The New York Times delved into the relationship between Rangel and oil-drilling businessman Eugene Isenberg – who made a $1 million pledge toward building Rangel’s school for public service at City College of New York. Rangel later preserved a controversial offshore tax loophole that saved Isenberg’s company, Nabors, millions. *** Rangel’s previous ethical woes, though troubling, were largely personal: not paying taxes on property in the Caribbean; using one of four rent-stabilized apartments as a campaign office; improperly storing a car in a House parking garage. *** The Isenberg-Nabors deal is, potentially, far more serious: It reeks of a quid pro quo between Rangel’s official duties and fund-raising for his personal project. **
The economy, the ongoing war, health care and the environment will feature prominently in the news in the months ahead as Obama and Democrats try to gain a solid footing. The issues, however, will not automatically translate into left driven policy and law. Controversies and disputes will continue to dominate as will ethical breaches and the need by some to be seen as competent and even heroic. All eyes will turn to Democrats…how will they govern and perhaps more significantly, how will the media and average Americans respond? We at Post Scripts will be watching and adding our after thoughts. Please join us in the conversation.