Earlier today, I joined with First Lady Michelle Obama at Naval Station Mayport near Jacksonville, Florida as she announced that 2,000 companies had hired or trained an amazing 125,000 veterans and military spouses in the past year through Joining Forces. This effort, combined with policies and legislation put in place by the President have resulted…
Category: The White House
White House Kills $473 Million in Earmarks
President Barack Obama’s administration eliminated $473 million in old transportation earmarks today, telling states to reallocate the money by the end of the year or lose it for good. Old earmarks for projects that have not yet been built, from fiscal years 2003 to 2006, have been effectively nixed. Appropriations bills for those years contained…
When Congress fails
The Obama administration is acting unilaterally to give states more flexibility in designing their welfare programs. This is something Republican and Democratic governors have wanted for some time, and the White House has been clear that they do not intend to permit states to ease up on work requirements — ““no plan that undercuts the…
Under Obama, Taxes Hit A 30-Year Low
To hear conservatives and Tea Partiers tell it, President Obama is a serial tax-raiser who has increased taxes on “millions of Americans.” But according to the latest data from the Congressional Budget Office, tax rates under Obama hit a 30-year low in 2009, in part because of the tax cuts he implemented in response to…
Obama Offers Health Insurance To Seasonal Firefighters
After visiting Colorado Springs, one of the towns most devastated by ongoing wildfires, President Obama instructed officials to offer federal health insurance to seasonal firefighters, the Denver Post reports. Hundreds of seasonal firefighters—a force comprised mostly of young people and college students—have been battling especially severe wildfires in Colorado and other Western states, risking both…
Islamophobia: A Bipartisan Project
When the New York Times ran its story on Obama’s “kill list,” showing the president poring over names of people to potentially assassinate in drone strikes, it sparked a controversy. The content of that controversy was not over this extraordinary revelation about Obama’s use of power but rather over the leaking of state secrets, which…
Obama calls Romney speech a cow pie of distortion
Speaking directly to Iowans, Obama used local lingo to slam Romney: “Governor Romney came to Des Moines last week and warned of a prairie fire of debt,” he said. “But he left out some facts. His speech was more like a cow pie of distortion.” Then he quipped, “I don’t know whose record he twisted…
Obama Campaign Launching ‘Dashboard’ Online, ‘Directly Tied’ To Field Operations
“The immediacy of Dashboard really sets it apart from 2008,” said Obama campaign spokeswoman Katie Hogan. “It provides a good volunteer experience online that is directly tied to our field-operation goals.” As previously reported by the Guardian last week, the goal for Dashboard is to allow volunteers and staffers across different states to immediately work…
Young Voters, Once Buoyed By Obama, Turn Away [audio]
In 2004, then-candidate Barack Obama campaigned on a message of hope and gained overwhelming support from young voters. In an op-ed in the Los Angles Times, Neal Gabler writes that many of those young voters are disappointed with his tenure, and they’ve turned to “DIY politics” instead. SOURCE Young Voters, Once Buoyed By Obama, Turn…
Obama Made A Strong First Impression At Harvard
Harvard Professor Laurence Tribe is a sort of legal rock star, particularly among liberals. First-year law students he has never met don’t just show up at his door saying, “I want to work for you.” At least they didn’t until March 31, 1989. Tribe recently retrieved his daily calendar from that year and pointed to…
House and Senate Unanimously Reject Obama Budgets — Or Do They?
While the Sessions and Mulvaney bills put forward the same topline numbers as those in the president’s budget, neither offered any specifics. The Sessions legislation was 56 pages long; actual budgets are closer to 2,000 pages long. Thus, a White House official said, the Sessions proposal was a “shell that could be filled with a…
Why isn’t Obama getting crushed right now?
Obama is the incumbent. The economy is growing at a moderate pace. There’s no serious third-party challenge. We’re not losing massive numbers of soldiers in a foreign war. And when you look at those fundamentals, the reality is this: Incumbent presidents very, very rarely lose under those conditions. I recently had to study this fairly…
Nearly Two-Thirds Of Private-Sector Jobs Added In Last 50 Years Came Under Democratic Presidents
Republicans have made a show of their supposed job creation efforts over the past three years, decrying “job killing” regulations and taxes on “job creators.” They have a web site — 4jobs.gov — devoted to their job creation agenda and have even named legislation the JOBS Act. They have also slammed President Obama, saying that…
President Obama Makes an Argument for Rebuilding America
Speaking to 3,000 attendees of the Building and Construction Trades Department conference in Washington, DC this morning, President Obama made an argument for investing in rebuilding America. He told the crowd: [As] a share of the economy, Europe invests more than twice what we do in infrastructure; China about four times as much. Are we…
Obama: “As long as I’m president, we’re gonna keep moving forward…You’ve got my signature on it”
Here’s President Obama talking about Lilly Ledbetter, fair pay, and change. He also doesn’t miss the chance to take a quick jab at Mitt Romney.
New Obama Campaign Slogan – “Forward”
The video outlines the challenges America faced as President Obama took office at the height of the worst recession in almost a century and details the progress that has been made reclaiming the security of the middle class and building an economy that’s meant to last, where hard work pays and responsibility is rewarded.
Obama: Some in GOP Forget How America Was Built
Pounding home the theme of his re-election race against Mitt Romney, Obama said he wants to ensure tax fairness for all while Republicans want to “shower the wealthiest Americans” with tax cuts they don’t need. Obama said the public doesn’t like to see tax dollars wasted, but does want to see money spent in areas…
Obama: ‘I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth’
“Somebody gave me an education. I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth. Michelle wasn’t. But somebody gave us a chance,” Obama said in a speech at Lorain County Community College in Elyria, Ohio. “Right now we have two competing visions of our future, and the choice could not be clearer,” said the…
The Buffett Rule: A Basic Principal of Tax Fairness
Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. Meanwhile, over the last 30 years, the tax rates for middle class families have barely budged. That doesn’t reflect our values of fairness as a nation — and that’s why the President has proposed the Buffett Rule. The President believes we should build an economy…
Economy has grown the most when Democrats have been in power
Earlier today, I linked to a Goldman Sachs research note arguing that the most fiscally conservative outcome in the 2012 election would be an Obama victory and Republican control of Congress. But their analysis was limited to deficit reduction. Last week, JPMorgan looked at this question using a broader lens: what happens to the economy…