Sponsored Links
WRAPUP 1-Obama seeks common ground on U.S. deficit, jobs
* Obama calls for both parties to help reduce deficit
* Republicans consider joining deficit commission
By Jeff Mason
WASHINGTON, Feb 9 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama sought common ground with Republicans on Tuesday over his top priorities of job creation and deficit reduction, winning hints of support in both areas but a rebuke on healthcare reform.
Obama, a Democrat, has been forced to work more closely with Republicans since an election in Massachusetts in January deprived his party of its "super majority" in the Senate.
As lawmakers eye November elections that could change the balance of power in the U.S. Congress further, the president sought to engage the opposition on shared priorities, while accusing them of sometimes prioritizing politics over policy.
The president showed evidence of a more focused, retooled strategy after his roughly 90-minute meeting with congressional Republican and Democratic leaders at the White House. [ID:nN09247366]
Rather than calling for sweeping measures to boost jobs -- his top priority in 2010 -- Obama said "incremental steps" may be necessary to get initial job-boosting initiatives passed.
"I think that it's ... realistic for us to get a package moving quickly that may not include all of the things I think need to be done," Obama said during an impromptu press conference at the White House.
"It may be that that first package builds some trust and confidence that Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill can work together," he said.
Republican leaders told reporters after the meeting they saw a basis for support from both parties on trade, nuclear power and offshore drilling. But they called for wide-ranging legislation to reform healthcare to be scrapped.
Obama's first year in office was characterized by sweeping proposals on healthcare, climate change and financial reform that are all still pending in Congress. Meanwhile, the economy -- though improving -- is still a top concern for U.S. voters.
The economy grew by a brisk 5.7 percent year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2009 and unemployment dipped to 9.7 percent in January. But the jobless rate remains historically high and the White House wants additional stimulus on top of a $787 billion emergency spending package Obama signed last year.
JOBS, JOBS, JOBS
Obama said one area where both parties could agree was eliminating capital gains taxes for small businesses. He said he hoped all sides would also support a way to get more capital to community banks lending to small businesses.
The House of Representatives passed a $155 billion jobs bill in December but the Senate has yet to act.
Senate Democratic leaders unveiled a set of job-creating ideas last week and said they would solicit Republican input before moving ahead with legislation.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid hoped to introduce a bill on Monday and pass it by the end of the week, but he has been delayed by a severe snowstorm that has prevented many lawmakers from coming to work.
A jobs bill that could go through the Senate would extend soon-to-expire jobless payments, healthcare subsidies for the unemployed and highway-funding programs, according to the text of the bill obtained by Reuters. [ID:n N09101879]
"Frankly, it is not ready yet," Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell told reporters after the meeting with Obama, referring to a jobs bill. "Most of my members have not seen it yet. We're certainly open to it and ... there is a chance we can move this forward on a bipartisan basis."
In one potential sign of conciliation, House Republican leader John Boehner said the party was mulling appointing members to Obama's proposed bipartisan deficit commission.
Obama plans to issue an executive order to set up the commission to study options on spending and taxes after lawmakers failed to create a congressional panel on the issue.
Republican leaders, however, did not budge on Obama's plans to reform the healthcare industry, calling on Democrats to scrap current versions of the bills and start over. (Additional reporting by Alister Bull, Ross Colvin, Steve Holland, Matt Spetalnick and Andy Sullivan; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
- Tweet this
- Link this
- Share this
- Digg this
- Reprints
– New ‘Anti-EMPIRE’ Clubs/Leagues/Movement to champion Green Party wins in
2010/12 elections:
Today, there is a massive, and intentional, misreading of the angst, anger,
and frustration of the American public.
In this post-2006 Democratic mid-term election victory/mandate and its
failure, post-2008 Obama election mandate and its failure, post-financial
9/15/08 ’shock-doctrine’ and its economic failure, post-Scott Brown election
shock and its coming failure, and post-Tea Party movement and its coming
failure, average Americans are in a state of vast disappointment,
frustration, induced-fear, and serious concern over the direction and very
survival of their country.
According to the latest polls at least 58% believe the country is headed on
the ‘wrong track’, and all the supposed pundits are doing nothing but
reporting that the American public is frustrated, arguing among themselves
about whether the angry independents are really left-center or right-center,
and trying to understand what are the ‘hot issues’.
What no one in the media (including the internet’s supposedly alternative
media) is recognizing is that the American public senses that their country
has been taken over by something beyond their control — and they are
right. It has been taken over by a guileful and disguised EMPIRE, which
none among the pampered elite in the media, and political structure (of
either money corrupted party), want to disclose to the angry public.
The anger and angst is universal and undifferentiated from far left to far
right, and has taken form in the gut manner of the ‘Tea Party’ predominantly
on the reactionary right. Most of this frustration and activist anger is
reflective of the anger of early American colonialists, for whom the
movement is named, and is similar to the pre-revolutionary anger aimed at
the British Empire’s ‘royal governors’ and laws that taxed tea, stamps, and
other necessities without any representation. Among this modern ‘Tea Party’
mob the populist intensity is great but the understanding of what they are
rebelling against is slim, since they do not understand that the true
oppressor and target of their rage should be the integrated Empire
itself —- something that America’s founders better understood.
The frustration on the left is less intense but based on a far superior
historical and ideological understanding and focus of the impact of Empire,
particularly among the leading academics and intellectuals among both
principled progressives and anti-war libertarians. Currently, the broader
generic left and libertarian right’s attention and focus is divided and
distracted (perhaps intentionally by the Empire) on a plethora of
’symptomatic issues’ like; health care, economic inequality, civil rights,
anti-war, environmentalism, judicial fairness, global warming, Gitmo, whales, clear
cutting, .. ad nauseam, which thus saps the movement from focusing on the
singular and seminal cause of all these symptom ‘issues’, problems, and
’sorrows’ —- which IS Empire itself.
The first truly independent third party which refuses to take money from the
corporate/financial/militarist Empire, which publicly commits itself to
actually confront that Empire, and which secures the support of the growing
Anti-Empire movement in America will easily displace the dying inertia of
both the existing Republican and Democratic wings of the disgraced corporate
Empire’s phony parties, and secure a massive lead in political support from
all average Americans.
The existing corrupt political system of the two arrogant, elitist, and
unresponsive corporate Empire-controlled parties will collapse much more
quickly than the out-of-touch and elite pundits can imagine — just as the
Soviet Empire collapsed faster than the CIA and secret national intelligence
state imagined.
The path toward this collapse is already happening, and will accelerate
greatly as a new ‘Anti-Empire’ movement captures the attention and loyalty
of most average Americans who have been by-passed, disenfranchised, and
deserted by the current corrupt and ruling-elite corporate-financial Empire.
This overt and fast growing ‘Anti-Empire’ movement is springing quickly from
the same empathetic academic, intellectual, and artistic elements that
birthed the ‘Anti-Imperialism’ and ‘populist progressive’ movements of the
late 19th century — when corporate, banking, financial, and ‘trust’
interests first tried to take over control of our American political
democracy.
The ‘Tea Party’ has already tapped into the energy of anger that will swell
the Anti-Empire movement, but the Tea Party movement has not yet recognized
that the basis of their populism is actually Anti-Empire anger. In fact,
the Tea Party still wrongly thinks that their appeal is only
anti-government, and does not realize that, like the American Revolution,
the battle is one of democratic self-government precisely against Empire in
all its indivisible corruption of political, economic, financial, and
military power — of which the economic is the most cancerous element in
the tumor of Empire.
The Green Party, and its more intelligent leaders, already understand the
primacy of the economic/financial core tumor of Empire, and realize that all
the deceits and oppressions of the corrupted political and military sphere
of the current ‘Vichy’ government swell from the economic death-spiral of
the Empire. Thus the Green Party already fore-swears all corporatist
financial bribes, adheres to a consistent platform that aligns with the
majoritarian views of all average Americans, and can best leverage and
benefit from a wide-spread and energetic populist ‘Anti-Empire’ centered
movement.
Naturally, the Green Party can not simply sit back and expect this growing
‘Anti-Empire’ popularity and election winning opportunity of being the
successful third party of 21st century America to fall in its lap. First
the Green Party needs to forcefully grasp the mantle of Anti-Empire
leadership, then expose and educate all average Americans about the real
nature of Empire as the seminal cause of all our separate ‘issues’, ’sorrows’,
and problems (both foreign and domestic), and then clearly define
non-violent programs to un-plug America from its “Empire Illusions” and
regain the path toward the light of America’s peaceful, progressive, and
inclusive journey to sustainable and equitable prosperity for all.
The role of all Americans who already sense and understand the opposing
‘dark path’ of Empire’s inevitable death-spiral is to develop the
educational and motivational ‘Anti-Empire’ clubs, leagues, and movement that
will feed and support the birth of a Green Anti-Empire Party for the
survival of the country that we all love.
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
Follow Reuters