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Obama’s “Mission Accomplished” Moment

Jul 22

Posted by Shawn in Obama

This morning, in an interview with the New York Times, Rahm Emanuel boldly proclaimed that the Administration has “rescued the economy.” Oddly enough, most Americans would probably disagree.  We continue to suffer record unemployment, and we’re stuck asking, “Where are the jobs?”

 

In response to Emanuel, Republicans are claiming Obama had his “Mission Accomplished” moment.  A Republican leadership aide emailed reporters to say this would be a primary talking point in the weeks ahead.

 

“Rahm’s statement could well be the `mission accomplished’ moment for the President’s health care reform effort,” the GOP aide emails. “The moment when the Administration’s arrogance got in the way of its goals. I expect you’ll see Republicans making this point repeatedly going forward.”

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AP Slams Obama On Private Healthcare Deals

Jul 21

Posted by Shawn in Healthcare, Obama

The Associated Press is challenging Obama to fulfill his broken campaign pledge to make policy in the open rather than behind closed doors.  This is especially true on the issue of healthcare, which has seen billion dollar deals made with no public input.

 

In cutting deals with hospitals and drugmakers, President Barack Obama is giving a private inside track to special interests that’s at odds with his promise to make policy in the open.

 

Obama promised Americans he would hold special interests at arm’s length — that it would no longer be business as usual in Washington. He pledged to open government and let the public and press hold his administration accountable.

 

And just over two months before the 2008 election, Obama promised before an audience in Chester, Va., to hash out a health care overhaul in public. “We’ll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies,” he said then.

 

That didn’t happen.

 

Instead, the administration’s multibillion-dollar deals with hospitals and pharmaceutical companies have been made in private, and the results were announced after the fact. Both industries promised Obama cost savings in return for an expanded base of insured patients; beyond that, the public is in the dark about details.

 

The article goes on to compare Obama’s policymaking to that of the Bush Administration.  One must wonder why Democrats aren’t questioning Obama’s shady deals after all their complaints during the Bush years.

 

In some ways, it resembles what his party criticized President George W. Bush for doing with oil and gas companies as Vice President Dick Cheney wrote a national energy plan in the early days of the Bush administration.

 

As the Bush White House did, the Obama White House is refusing to release visitor logs that would let people see everyone going in and out during the thick of discussions over major national policies.

 

Just as environmentalists complained they were shut out as Cheney drafted energy policy, employers now complain that the Obama administration isn’t giving them enough say in health care policy. Like the environmentalists, employers fear a new policy will come at their expense.

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Day 91

Jul 20

Posted by Shawn in Obama

Jonathan Weisman at the Wall Street Journal reminds us that we’re still waiting on those spending cuts.

 

Three months ago, when President Barack Obama announced he was extracting $100 million in spending cuts from his cabinet secretaries, the reviews were not terribly kind, not with a budget well in excess of $3 trillion and a budget deficit shooting toward $1.8 trillion.

 

But the president had a deadline to keep: “As part of his commitment to go line by line through the budget to cut spending and reform government he will challenge his cabinet to cut a collective 100 million dollars in the next 90 days,” the White House fact sheet proclaimed.

 

This is Day 91.  In a budget of $3 trillion, it doesn’t exactly take wizardry to cut $100 million, but there is no word from the White House on when the reductions will be made.

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WaPo Poll: Obama Approval Drops On Healthcare And Deficit Concerns

Jul 20

Posted by Shawn in Healthcare, Obama

Today’s Washington Post poll offers important insights into the public’s weakening confidence in the Obama Administration.  For the first time in his presidency, Obama has dipped below 60% approval.  This is not a good sign for a president who continues pushing a divisive agenda.  In the coming months, it is unlikely his approval will rise.  We see evidence of this in his unpopular domestic policies.

 

Obama’s approval ratings on other front-burner issues, such as the economy and the federal budget deficit, have also slipped over the summer, as rising concern about spending and continuing worries about the economy combine to challenge his administration. Barely more than half approve of the way he is handling unemployment, which now tops 10 percent in 15 states and the District.

 

The Democratic Congress’ approach to economic stimulus has failed to stop rising unemployment.  Americans are on the hook for $787 billion plan as a result, and they’re now showing their frustrations with the record deficit.

 

More broadly, 55 percent of Americans put a higher priority on holding the deficit in check than on spending to boost the economy, compared with 40 percent who advocate additional outlays even if it means a sharply greater budget shortfall. This is a big shift from January, when a slim majority preferred to emphasize federal spending.

 

Independents, who split 50 percent to 46 percent for more spending in January, now break 56 percent to 41 percent for more fiscal discipline. But a larger shift has been among moderate and conservative Democrats, who prioritized more spending by about 2 to 1 in January and March. Now they are about evenly divided in approach.

 

Possibly the best news for Republicans comes from Obama’s plummeting approval on his handling of healthcare reform.  While typically an issue that polls well for Democrats, fewer than 50% approve of Obama’s healthcare efforts.  Democrats and Republicans are expectedly partisan on the issue, but now independents seem to be turning against Obama.

 

The erosion in Obama’s overall rating on health care is particularly notable among political independents: While positive in their assessments of his handling of health-care reform at the 100-day mark of his presidency (53 percent approved and 30 percent disapproved), independents now are divided at 44 percent positive and 49 percent negative.

 

One surprising finding from the poll that favors Democrats is that a majority of respondents favor the healthcare plan proposed by House Democrats. 

 

On health care, the poll, conducted by telephone Wednesday through Saturday, found that a majority of Americans (54 percent) approve of the outlines of the legislation now heading toward floor action. The measure would institute new individual and employer insurance mandates and create a government-run plan to compete with private insurers. Its costs would be paid in part through new taxes on high-income earners.

 

On this question, I tend to believe the favorable polling is a result of voters not understanding the bill.  This is another reason why, as I suggested earlier, Republicans should seek to delay a vote until after August recess.

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Obama Praises House Healthcare Bill (UPDATED)

Jul 14

Posted by Shawn in Congress, Healthcare, Obama

This afternoon, House Democrats unveiled their version of the healthcare reform bill.  The House legislation includes far more Democratic agenda items that the Senate bill will likely contain.  But, as reported earlier, the Senate bill has stalled.  The House bill will cost at least $1 trillion over the next ten years and be funded by taxing high-income earners.

 

The House bill will include all the hallmarks of a revamped health care system that Democrats have been clamoring for, including a new government-run insurance plan that would compete with private insurers. The goal, of course, is to broadly expand health coverage to the more than 40 million Americans without insurance, while slowing the steep rise in cost of medical care and improving patient outcomes with more effective treatments.

 

The bill will prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions, and will also require all Americans to obtain health insurance. But many of its key provisions, including the public insurance option, will take several years to kick in.

 

While some conservative Democrats have concerns with the bill, Obama issued a statement praising the legislation.

 

“For decades, Washington failed to act as health care costs continued to rise, crushing businesses and families and placing an unsustainable burden on governments.  But today, key committees in the House of Representatives have engaged in unprecedented cooperation to produce a health care reform proposal that will lower costs, provide better care for patients, and ensure fair treatment of consumers by the insurance industry.”

 

Leadership still plans to pass the bill before August recess.

UPDATE:  The RNC has released a research document highlighting the pledges Obama must break to support the House bill.

 

  1. PROPOSAL WILL NOT CONTROL COSTS
  2. PROPOSAL WILL NOT FIX ECONOMY, WILL LEAD TO JOB LOSS
  3. PROPOSAL WILL NOT ALLOW AMERICANS TO KEEP PLANS, DOCTORS
  4. SOME WILL PAY HIGHER TAX RATES THAN THEY WOULD HAVE IN 1990s

 

 

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Say What? Obama Claims Unemployment Will Continue Rising

Jul 14

Posted by Shawn in Obama, Stimulus

As always, President Obama is doing his best to inspire Americans…by telling us unemployment will continue to rise in the coming months.  This breaks sharply with the economic forecasts the Administration offered to get the stimulus bill through Congress earlier this year.

 

“My expectation is, is that we will probably continue to see unemployment tick up for several months,” Obama said. “And the challenge for this administration is to make sure that even as we are stabilizing the financial system … are people able to find good jobs that pay good wages?”

 

More than 2 million jobs have been lost since Congress passed Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus package. Without that government intervention, Obama said, states like Michigan would be in even worse shape because they would have had to lay off more teachers, firefighters and other workers.

 

Obama said renewed hiring tends to lag behind other signs of economic recovery. The White House has been criticized for being overly rosy in its projections of the economic rebound, particularly in terms of employment.

 

Time pointed out this morning that the stimulus plan has not even come close to fulfilling the Administration’s promises.  

 

In February, top Administration officials made bold predictions for stimulus success.

 

Back in February, with Congress moving swiftly to approve President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package, White House budget director Peter Orszag said the benefits of the stimulus would be “take weeks to months” to be felt.

 

Larry Summers, director of the National Economic Council, was even more optimistic: “You’ll see the effects begin almost immediately,” Summers told CNN in February. 

 

We’re clearly still waiting for the stimulus to work…

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Poll: Obama Agenda Faces Hurdles

Jul 14

Posted by Shawn in Healthcare, Obama, Stimulus

A new poll from CBS News offers some important indications from Americans that the Obama Administration and Congressional Democrats are losing control over their agenda.  In the past month, Obama has declined six points in approval, and this is a loss that comes primarily from Democratic and independent voters.

 

President Obama’s approval rating has fallen six points in the past month [to 57%], a new CBS News poll finds, amid growing skepticism about his handling of the economy and questions about the impact of the stimulus package.

…

The decline in support is coming not from Republicans - whose support for the president has actually risen - but from Democrats and independents. While 82 percent of Democrats still approve of the job Mr. Obama is doing, this number is down ten points from last month.

 

The president’s support among independents has fallen eight points to 50 percent. Only 30 percent of Republicans back Mr. Obama, though that’s up from 23 percent in June.

 

Congress remains strikingly unpopular.

 

And only 22 percent approve of the job Congress is doing overall, a decrease of six points from last month though an increase over its approval rating last fall.

 

Republicans will need to continue stressing the failure of the stimulus package.  Voters are growing increasingly frustrated with its failure to live up to expectations set out by the Administration.

 

Despite White House efforts to stress the implementation of the stimulus package, just 21 percent say it has had a positive impact on the economy. The majority of those surveyed - 60 percent - say it has had no impact, while 15 percent say the stimulus has made the economy worse.

 

On healthcare, things may be looking slightly better for Obama, but still less than half of those surveyed approve of his reform efforts.  Taxpayers are concerned with the potential costs they will have to pay to fund a massive overhaul.

 

Perceptions of the president’s handling of health care reform have improved five points since last month, and his approval rating on the issue now stands at 49 percent.

 

That same percentage says that America must fix health care because of the bad economy. But nearly as many - 46 percent - say the country cannot now afford to reform health care. Among Republicans that figure is 55 percent.

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Could Deficit Concerns Slow Healthcare And Stimulus II?

Jul 14

Posted by Shawn in Congress, Healthcare, Obama, Stimulus

Yesterday, we learned that President Obama has led us into a $1.1 trillion deficit with 3 months still remaining in the fiscal year.  As taxpayers see our country’s debt grow exponentially from Obama’s pork barrel stimulus projects and other liberal initiatives, they have to wonder whether this is a time we should be passing legislation that will add to our budget shortfalls.  The Wall Street Journal reports today that the new record deficit will likely slow Obama’s agenda. 

 

The deficit will be a talking point that the GOP can hammer for weeks and months to come.  After the deficit news was reported yesterday, House Minority Leader John Boehner released a statement:

 

“This trillion-dollar deficit makes clear that our nation’s fiscal situation is dire, yet Washington Democrats keep borrowing and spending money we don’t have and forcing our children and grandchildren to foot the bill.”

 

Moderate Democrats in Congress will struggle to overcome public pressure to slow down spending.  This could halt any efforts to pass a second stimulus package, and it could seriously complicate healthcare reform.

 

Surging deficits could also tie the administration’s hands in responding to the economy’s problems, by eroding support among voters and making Congress leery of adopting policies — such as an overhaul of the health-care system — that the administration believes are necessary for sustainable growth.

 

It could be hard to win congressional approval for another round of fiscal stimulus, if that was seen as necessary, even as the economy continues to lag and the unemployment rate continues to rise, hitting 9.5% in June.

 

Healthcare costs are estimated to top $1 trillion over the next ten years. Vulnerable members of Congress will be hesitant to add to the national debt.  Democrats often make the claim that a healthcare overhaul will cut the deficit, but in order to accomplish that, the potential plans are likely to contain significant tax increases.  Estimates for savings are also currently based on fuzzy math.

 

President Barack Obama on Monday stressed the importance of enacting health-care legislation as a way to bring down long-term deficits. A spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget, Kenneth Baer, termed health-care reform “the key to our fiscal future.”

 

But some budget watchdogs worry that Congress eventually could pass health-care legislation that relies on uncertain long-term savings, while substantially increasing short-term government expenditures.

 

Also released today is a USA Today/Gallup poll showing that Americans want healthcare reform but are not enthusiastic about the proposed methods of paying for it.  Democrats will struggle in the coming weeks to fight off challenges to their reckless spending.  One thing possibly working in their favor is that the country’s top newspapers largely ignored the deficit news today.

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Amplifico Asks Obama To Vacation In Michigan

Jul 9

Posted by Shawn in Obama

From today’s Detroit News:

 

Facebook Group Wants Obama To Vacation In Mich.

 

DETROIT NEWS

Thursday, July 9, 2009

 

President Barack Obama is coming to Warren on Tuesday, but there’s a group on Facebook that wishes he would spend more time here.

 

Marc Ross , who was born in Detroit but lives in California, has started a Facebook group called “Mr. President! Come to Michigan for Your Summer Vacation.”

 

It’s a “fun project,” Ross told Political Insider, that began in April and has attracted 400 supporters, many of whom have posted suggested destinations for the first family to visit, from Frankenmuth to Traverse City.

 

Ross, 39, plans to have group members hand out fliers at Obama’s town hall meeting to draw supporters and possibly get his attention.

 

The owner of Amplifico, a communications company that works for candidates and non-profits, said there has been no reaction from the White House.

 

Learn more about Amplifico here.

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The Republican Resurgence

Jul 9

Posted by Shawn in Congressional Races, Obama, Senate Races

As the economy worsens, the Obama Administration’s electoral prospects drop.  We are a full year and a half from the next election, but Democrats have a tough road ahead unless the economy begins to pick up.  The news this morning featured several articles asking what Democrats can do to recover.  Republicans are ready to go on the attack.  It will be difficult for liberals to defend their weak position as the dominant force in government.

 

Mark Penn discussed this morning how rising unemployment could halt the Democratic agenda and offer Republicans endless talking points:

 

If and when the country crosses that line [10% unemployment], it will be the No. 1 news story for days, recent stock market gains could recede, and consumer confidence will fall. And whether or not the economic crisis is coming to an end, such a high unemployment level has the potential to undermine the hard-won confidence enjoyed by the Obama administration. The Republicans will quickly claim all we have is more debt and fewer jobs.

…

Especially given the administration’s earlier commitment to keep unemployment below 8 percent, further grim job numbers will make it more difficult for the administration to push for health care reform and cap-and-trade energy policy. If the tripwire is hit, many will question whether the president is spending adequate time on the deteriorating job and economic front versus longer-term problems. (Politico)

 

This argument is already taking shape.

 

“In the midst of this recession, Republicans’ No. 1 priority is the same as the American people’s: jobs,” [House Minority Leader John] Boehner said in a statement to POLITICO. “Yet, again and again, rather than working together to enact policies that will actually help middle-class families and small businesses, Democrats have pushed policies — on energy and health care, for example — that will cost even more American jobs.” (Politico)

 

Democrats told Americans they would be able to fix the economy.  They continue to make the argument that it was George Bush who got us into this mess, but at some point, voters are going to start asking why Obama’s policies are still not working.

 

Administration officials had predicted that the stimulus program would save or create 600,000 jobs by summer. But the economy has lost more than two million jobs since Mr. Obama took office, and officials now estimate that the program has saved only about 150,000 jobs.

 

Republicans say that Mr. Obama’s recovery plan is failing and proves that government spending is an inefficient way to help the economy. Some Democrats fret that the program may be either too small or too slow. (New York Times)

 

It is clear voters are growing frustrated.  They have seen the Administration inject taxpayer dollars into the economy but to no avail.  Republicans are again starting to look like the party of fiscal responsibility and sound economic policy.  Polls in Virginia and Ohio have shown Obama dropping below 50% approval in the two swing states.  And a Rasmussen generic ballot shows Republicans with a lead in hypothetical congressional races.

 

Much of this drop in polling numbers comes from independents turning on Obama.

 

“This is a huge sea change that is playing itself out in American politics,” said Democratic pollster Doug Schoen. “Independents who had become effectively operational Democrats in 2006 and 2008 are now up for grabs and are trending Republican.

 

“They’re saying, ‘Costing too much, no results, see the downside, not sure of the upside,’” he said. (Politico)

 

This could have implications for next year’s congressional races.  Voters are beginning to say that they want a counterweight to liberal policies.  While Obama is personally popular, his issue stances are not.  Democrats in Congress have worked hard to push through legislation that is bringing a loss in public opinion.

 

Still, Republican analysts said they see the beginnings of an opportunity to use White House policies — if not Obama himself — against Democratic candidates this year and next.

 

“What’s happening now is that as these issues get debated more and more and as their fiscal implications become more and more clear, independents are starting to side more with Republicans than Democrats,” said pollster Whit Ayres.

 

Another Republican pollster, John McLaughlin, pointed to his own surveys in January and May asking whether voters would prefer their members of Congress to “help Barack Obama pass his agenda” or to be a “check and balance to Barack Obama.”

 

The May survey found a majority favoring the check and balance, marking a 17-point shift from January, a shift the pollster said was driven in large part by independents. (Politico)

 

All this has given Republicans a sense of hope.  The GOP now has a phenomenally successful recruitment effort for the midterms next year.  This would have been unthinkable a few months ago.  Meanwhile, Democrats are struggling.  Preferred candidates are choosing not to run and liberals are lining up to challenge Democratic incumbents.

 

Cook Political Report analyst Jennifer Duffy said the GOP had a “really good couple of weeks and probably its first good couple weeks in four years.”

 

“The policy choices that are being made, whether it’s the stimulus working or various approaches to healthcare, give Republicans an opening,” she said. “And I think generally, a lot of [Republicans] got a big wake-up call. They woke up one day and they had nothing.” (The Hill)

 

The 2010 midterms are looking like an opportunity for Republicans to win back many of the seats they lost.  It was already unlikely for Democrats to make any pickups because of how district lines are drawn, but now Republicans should be able to regain the swing and right-leaning districts they lost the past two cycles.  Republican fundraising should increase rapidly now that electoral prospects are improving.  Next year could deliver a complete electoral shift that seemed impossible after the GOP barely survived the Bush years.

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