President Barack Obama continued his push for a grand bargain, an immigration overhaul and the rest of his agenda in a meeting with House Republicans on Wednesday, but GOP leaders immediately shut the door on any compromises that would include new taxes. Obama appealed to Republicans to come to the table on a bipartisan budget…
Category: The White House
With new group, Obama team seeks answer to Karl Rove
On Wednesday, some of President Barack Obama’s most dedicated donors will fly to Washington and pony up $50,000 to attend a fundraiser for Organizing for Action, a progressive new kid on the block trying to counter the likes of Karl Rove and the Koch brothers. Obama will give a speech to the group, an independent…
Dueling Budgets Will Show Partisan Differences On Medicare And Medicaid
At the same time, President Barack Obama appears to be harboring hopes of reaching a big deficit-reduction deal that could include some of the money-saving changes that Republicans favor. The idea worries some congressional Democrats. The Wall Street Journal: Opening Budget Bids Set Parties’ Battle Lines Congress opens a new chapter in the budget…
Sequestration And How The ‘Liberal Media’ Keep Blaming Obama For Republican Behavior
As key observers have noted in recent days, the facts on sequestration are not in dispute: Obama has made repeated offers to meet Republicans in the middle with a proposed deficit reduction plan built around a mix of spending cuts, reform to entitlement programs, and revenue increases. Republicans have countered by saying they will not…
Obama Reaches Out to GOP on Spending
President Barack Obama is following through on his search for a “caucus of common sense” with that rarest of presidential commodities — his own time. The president’s poor relationships with most rank-and-file congressional Republicans are well-known. He rarely calls lawmakers personally — something that was especially true in the past year and a half as…
Obama Job Approval Takes Brief Hit From Budget Sequester
Obama averaged 51% job approval in Gallup Daily tracking from Feb. 26-28 — Gallups three-day average immediately prior to the sequester. The budget sequester went into effect as scheduled on March 1 after Obama and Republican leaders met but did not reach an agreement to delay it. Then, in the first two days of the…
This is why Obama can’t make a deal with Republicans
My column this weekend is about the almost comically poor lines of communication between the White House and the Hill. The opening anecdote was drawn from a background briefing I attended with a respected Republican legislator who thought it would be a gamechanger for President Obama to say he’d be open to chained CPI — a…
Obama, the puppet master
President Barack Obama is a master at limiting, shaping and manipulating media coverage of himself and his White House. Not for the reason that conservatives suspect: namely, that a liberal press willingly and eagerly allows itself to get manipulated. Instead, the mastery mostly flows from a White House that has taken old tricks for shaping…
President’s Weekly Address: A Balanced Approach to Growing the Economy in 2013
In this week’s address, President Obama calls on Congress to work together on a balanced approach to reduce our deficit and promote economic growth and job creation.
Hispanics Approval of Obama 70%, Up 12 Pts. Since August
In January, 70% of Hispanics approved of the job President Barack Obama was doing, down slightly from 75% in December. However, the January measure still represents an increase of 12 percentage points since last August, just prior to the Democratic National Convention. The results are based on Gallup Daily tracking throughout January. During that…
Obama: more tax revenue needed to address deficit
President Barack Obama said on Sunday more tax revenue would be needed to reduce the U.S. deficit and signaled he would push hard to get rid of loopholes such as the “carried interest” tax break enjoyed by private equity and hedge fund managers. Obama, who won re-election in November largely on his promise to raise…
The Second Inauguration of Barack Obama
This morning, at 11:55 AM Eastern Time, President Obama delivered his Second Inaugural Address. The speech was 2,137 words long and took 15 minutes to deliver. “America’s possibilities are limitless,” he said, “for we possess all the qualities that this world without boundaries demands: youth and drive; diversity and openness; an endless capacity for risk…
Americans’ Reaction to Obama Gun Proposals Is Positive
Americans’ immediate reaction to President Barack Obama’s proposals for new laws designed to reduce gun violence is more positive than negative, with 53% saying they would want their representative in Congress to vote for the set of proposed new laws, while 41% say their representative should vote against them. These results are from…
Corporate Profits Have Grown By 171 Percent Under ‘Anti-Business’ Obama
Business executives like to portray the Obama administration as the “most anti-business” in history, creating an “increasingly hostile environment for investment and job creation.” However, the data tells a far different story. According to a Bloomberg News analysis, corporate profits have grown by 171 percent under Obama, the most in the post-war era: U.S. corporations’…
Obama Unveils Gun Control Policies, Including Mental Health Provisions
The plan includes a variety of executive actions which touch the health care system, including clarifications that the health law does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes and that no federal law prohibits health care providers from reporting threats of violence to law-enforcement authorities. Politico: Obama Announces Guns Pan President Barack Obama on Wednesday announced what…
Obama political machine to be fired up, ready to go for second term
Senior Obama campaign aides are currently working on the specifics of how to restructure Obama for America, but are considering several different options such as converting it to a 501c4 or perhaps a super PAC, a source familiar with the campaign said. The new campaign organization will be headed by Jim Messina, Obama’s campaign manager…
Obama’s Budget Is Running Late
The Obama administration’s fiscal 2014 budget is widely expected to arrive late on Capitol Hill, possibly not until sometime in March, primarily as a result of uncertainty created by fiscal cliff negotiations. The White House and Office of Management and Budget have not said when the budget will be released. By law, the spending proposal…
Obama signs bill warding off fiscal cliff
President Barack Obama has signed into law a bill to avert the fiscal cliff, a day after the House and Senate approved the much-debated legislation. Obama, who returned to his family vacation in Hawaii after Tuesday’s House vote, signed the bill via autopen on Wednesday. But new battles over taxes and spending await Washington in…
Michael Moore: An Open Letter to President Obama
Michael Moore put together an excellent list for those of us pushing for the President’s agenda and more. Number 10 may be the most important, and I don’t think it could be said any better. 10. ASK US TO DO SOMETHING. One thing is clear: none of the above is going to happen if you…
Obama Organization to Remain Active Nationwide
This is good news. One of my biggest complaints is that the political fight is much bigger than getting a President elected, and the Obama campaign seems to give up on the grassroots until three months before an election. The 2012 campaign was a bit better than 2010 — but not by much. Even…