At a press conference last Wednesday, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), a key member of Senate Democrats’ leadership, took to the podium to criticize something Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-IN) said in his Republican Address the night before. Gov. Daniels said, “On these evenings, Presidents naturally seek to find the sunny side of our national condition. But when President Obama claims that the state of our union is anything but grave, he must know in his heart that this is not true.” In response, Schumer said, “The Republican speaker last night, Mitch Daniels, talked about Americans must talk about the state of the union as grave. So, we think we are in great shape. We are in good shape.”
Senate Democrats think “we are in great shape”?
Currently, over 13 million Americans are unemployed. There are fewer jobs in America than when President Obama took office in 2009, and the unemployment rate is still more than 8%. And Sen. Schumer thinks “we are in great shape”?
On Thursday, the AP reported, “Fewer people bought new homes in December. The decline made 2011 the worst year for new -homes sales on records dating back nearly half a century. The Commerce Department said Thursday new-home sales fell 2.2 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual pace of 307,000. The pace is less than half the 700,000 that economists say must be sold in a healthy economy. About 302,000 new homes were sold last year. That’s less than the 323,000 sold in 2010, making last year’s sales the worst on records dating back to 1963. And it coincides with a report last week that said 2011 was the weakest year for single-family home construction on record.” In December, Standard & Poor’s announced, “The Fourth Quarter Starts with Broad-based Declines in Home Prices”. And there have been 7.7 million foreclosure filings since President Obama took office. But Sen. Schumer thinks “we are in great shape”?
Today, National Journal writes, “Real Gross Domestic Product rose by just 1.7 percent in 2011, the Commerce Department reported on Friday. That’s not great news for President Obama, who oversaw 3 percent GDP growth in 2010 and cannot use the latest GDP data to support a narrative of economic turnaround.” The AP notes, “The Commerce Department said Friday that the economy grew just 1.7 percent last year, roughly half of the growth in 2010 and the worst since the recession.” And University of Pennsylvania economist Justin Wolfers tells The New York Times, “At this rate, we’ll never reduce unemployment. . . . The recovery has been postponed, again.”But Sen. Schumer says “we are in great shape”?
One thing you can say for sure, Mr. Dooley sure is loyal (to a fault) to his cronies. Instead of firing these cronies from their plum patronage jobs, he’d rather throw hardworking county employees out into the street who actually do meaningful work for the county.
Post Dispatch:
County Executive Charlie A. Dooley said Wednesday that he was laying off 20 full-time employees in the parks department and six in public works. “It’s unfortunate and disappointing but it’s what we had to do with the budget costraints,” Dooley said Wednesday. He said the cuts would save the county about $4 million. Of that amount, $3.6 million comes out of the parks budget.
Council Chairman Mike O’Mara, who played a key role in ending the impasse in December, reacted angrily Wednesday to news of the layoffs. “Charlie and I had an agreement that there would not be any layoffs this year, and he broke it,” O’Mara, D-Florissant, said Wednesday. “His promise was part of my sell (of the budget compromise) to my fellow council members. I don’t know what happened since last month, but now I’ve lost my trust with my council members.” Dooley denied making such a promise. Read more…
We know of at least two positions in county government Mr. Dooley could cut that would save taxpayers $200,000 a year in salary and benefits:
The Democratically controlled United States Senate passed a dubious milestone the other day. Incredibly, 1,000 days has passes since the senate passed a budget. One thousand days folks! That’s almost three years! Can you believe that one of the president’s campaign themes this year will be a “do nothing Congress?” Right there supporting this irresponsibility – along with President Obama – is ‘moderate’ Claire McCaskill. The same Claire McCaskill who was recently named as one of Washington’s worst porkers because of her reckless spending.
According to this CBS news report from last summer, “The latest posting by the Treasury Department shows the national debt has now increased $4 trillion on President Obama’s watch. The debt was $10.626 trillion on the day Mr. Obama took office. The latest calculation from Treasury shows the debt has now hit $14.639 trillion. It’s the most rapid increase in the debt under any U.S. president.”
Here’s what Claire’s buddy said about the deficit when he was a senator:
“Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here.’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.”(Sen. Obama, Congressional Record, S.2237-8, 3/16/06)
The Martin for Congress campaign announced this morning that Mr. Martin is switching gears. Instead of running against former Ambassador Ann Wagner for the second congressional Republican nomination, Martin will set his sights on attorney general Chris Koster. One could say that this race will be contest of one ambitious opportunist against another ambitious opportunist. Koster is deeply flawed and if he didn’t have a lap dog press protecting him, would be very vulnerable to defeat this year in an increasingly red state.
With this decision to switch races, Martin’s ardent supporters will claim his switcheroo was orchestrated by the ‘party establishment’ to clear the path to Washington for Ambassador Wagner. We posted his trial balloon late last year that he was running for lt. governor and we were castigated by his supporters and accused of ‘being tools of the establishment.’ We’re sure Mr. Martin factored all this in his decision, but what do you do when you get an offer from powerful forces that you can’t refuse?
Here’s a partial list of heavy hitter endorsements from today’s announcement:
David Cole, Chairman of the Missouri Republican Party: “As he has demonstrated throughout his career in public service, including his near-defeat of an entrenchedDemocrat incumbent in 2010, Ed Martin is a respected attorney, a staunch conservative, a tireless campaigner, and he will make an outstanding Attorney General. At a time when the federal government is out-of-control, Chris Koster refuses to aggressively stand up for Missourians. Ed will fight against job-killing federal mandates such as Obamacare, and he will vigorously defend laws passed by the Missouri General Assembly.”
Matt Blunt, former Missouri Governor: “Missourians need an Attorney General who will respect our state’s constitution, ensure that politics never overshadow the rule of law and stand up for our shared Missouri values. Ed Martin will bring these qualities combined with tremendous integrity and an unmatched work ethic to the Attorney General’s office. It is a pleasure to support Ed Martin and to endorse his campaign to be Missouri’s next Attorney General.”
US Senator Roy Blunt: “I’ve had the chance to work with Ed over the course of many years, and during that time, I’ve always been impressed by his unwavering commitment to smaller government and fiscal responsibility. Those values are especially important today, as our state and our nation continue to struggle to jumpstart private sector job creation and rein in out-of-control government spending. I believe Ed Martin represents the kind of fiscally conservative leader who we need in Missouri, and that’s why I’m proud to endorse his candidacy for Attorney General.”
Jim Talent, former US Senator: “Ed Martin will be a superb Attorney General for Missouri. Ed has the integrity, energy and judgment to serve our state well as its chief legal officer. I enthusiastically support Ed Martin’s campaign and am encouraging Missourians to join me in helping elect an Attorney General who will serve their interests, not the political interests.”
Congresswoman Jo Ann Emerson: “Ed Martin will be a great Attorney General for our state. He is smart, energetic and relentless — all great qualities to have in an AG. I wish him all the best of luck as he aspires to serve Missourians.”
Gene McNary, former President of Missouri Prosecutors Association and St. Louis County Prosecutor: “Ed is an excellent lawyer, a hard worker, and knows how to run an office. He would be an excellent Attorney General.”
Bill Hennessy, President of the St. Louis Tea Party “Ed Martin Jr. of St. Louis has redirected his fire to the Attorney General race, and this is great news for everyone except Chris Koster.”
The Wall Street Journal summed up last night’s speech from the president pretty well in an editorial today: “President Obama delivered a State of the Union address Tuesday night that by the account of his own advisers is more campaign document than a plan for governing. He’s running against Republicans in Congress, Reaganomics, wealthy bankers and inequality. Normally a President at the start of his fourth year would be running on his record, accentuating the legislation he’s passed. Mr. Obama can’t do that with any specificity because the economic recovery has been so weak and the legislation he has passed is so unpopular.”
Certainly Americans look with a skeptical eye on claims from President Obama about a recovery. The president said, “In the last 22 months, businesses have created more than three million jobs. Last year, they created the most jobs since 2005. American manufacturers are hiring again, creating jobs for the first time since the late 1990s.” But the fact is that fewer Americans are working today than when President Obama took office in January 2009. Over 13 million Americans are currently unemployed, and the unemployment rate is still over 8%. In addition, long-term unemployment has more than doubled during President Obama’s time in office.
Americans are keenly aware of this reality. According to a new Gallup survey,“Americans’ worries about maintaining their standard of living (51%), or being able to pay medical bills (43%) or losing their job (34%) in the next 12 months are among the highest Gallup has measured in the past 20 years, on par with the levels seen in 1991 and 1992.”
And yet, the overwhelming impression of the State of the Union address was that it was more about President Obama’s job than jobs for Americans.The New York Times headlined a story by John Harwood, “State of the Union? More Like State of the Campaign.” Harwood writes, “Mr. Obama has shifted into full-bore campaigning.” He told MSNBC’s Chuck Todd this morning, “[The president] didn’t just dip into campaign speech; he was swimming in it the whole night. Look, that was a campaign speech.” NBC’s David Gregory agreed last night, saying, “This was his pitch for re-election.” ABC’s Rick Klein tweeted, “Very clearly this was a political blueprint . . . .” The Washington Post pointed out, “Adding to the notion that the State of the Union address was, in effect, a campaign speech, Obama departs Wednesday morning on a three-day swing to five competitive states . . . .” The Hill observed, “The address has been dubbed as the president’s first major stump speech of the year . . . .” And even liberal columnist E.J. Dionne wrote, “Much will be made, and properly so, of President Obama’s State of the Union address as a campaign message . . .”
Tomorrow night, President Obama will deliver his State of the Union address to Congress. But Politico writes today that it’s likely to be much more of a campaign speech than a serious attempt to move the country forward.
Politicowrites, “The most important 2012 campaign event so far — and almost certainly the most important until the parties’ national conventions this summer — will take place Tuesday night under the guise of a governing ritual. . . . Obama will appear on Capitol Hill as a president who is virtually wiping out the space, never wide to begin with, between politicking and governing in the West Wing as Election Day nears.
“If there are deals to be cut, by this logic, they will come only if Obama wins a second term and greets a chastened opposition in 2013. In the meantime, nearly every aspect of daily life in his West Wing is influenced by a campaign mentality — never mind press secretary Jay Carney’s regular scolding of White House reporters to stop viewing everything the president does ‘through the prism of politics.’”
Further, Politico points out, “The president gave the first detailed look at Tuesday’s address in a video message Saturday dispatched through his campaign, not the White House, which is usually the origin for previews. Immediately after the speech, he will barnstorm five states that figure prominently in the campaign’s playbook for reaching 270 electoral votes: Iowa, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Michigan.”
With the president’s focus apparently on campaigning, it seems unlikely he’ll address the fact that tomorrow will mark 1,000 since his fellow Democrats in the Senate have produced a budget. Noting this unfortunate milestone, ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee Jeff Sessions and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan write today, “Tomorrow will mark a sad milestone in the history of the United States Senate: the 1,000th day since Senate Democrats last offered a budget plan to the American people. Senate Democrats abandoned their official duty to prioritize Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars and tackle our nation’s most pressing economic challenges — dealing a painful blow to fiscal progress that may be felt for some time. . . . The president and his party’s leaders have yet to detail a credible budget plan to prevent the fiscal crisis that awaits us should we continue down the current path to debt, doubt, and decline. Such a crisis would threaten the economic security, health security, and retirement security of every American. If the president wishes to begin a genuine dialogue with the American people in tomorrow’s State of the Union address, then he must hold his own party accountable for its dogged refusal to produce a plan to prevent this crisis and lift this cloud of uncertainty from the economy. The president must also deliver what he has so far refused: serious reforms to change our debt course and prevent fiscal disaster.”
So will President Obama make tomorrow’s speech mostly a campaign event like politico suggests, or will he attempt to tackle some serious problems like the lack of “a credible budget plan,” as Sen. Sessions and Chairman Ryan point out?
Trying to find any sense in President Obama’s stunning rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline and the 20,000 jobs it would have created, columnist Robert Samuelson writes today, “It isn’t often that a president makes a decision that has no redeeming virtues and — beyond the symbolism — won’t even advance the goals of the groups that demanded it. All it tells us is that Obama is so obsessed with his re-election that, through some sort of political calculus, he believes that placating his environmental supporters will improve his chances.”
Indeed, many other observers have criticized President Obama for his placement of electoral politics of American jobs and energy security with this decision. The Houston Chronicle editorialized yesterday, “President Barack Obama has made a shockingly shortsighted decision by rejecting a go-ahead for construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline. By doing so, Obama has openly proclaimed the primacy of his own re-election over the nation’s long-term energy and economic security. . . . The truth is, [Keystone] offends a key Obama constituency, green voters. And so the president has done their bidding rather than allow Keystone to do its important work of strengthening our economy and national security by providing energy from our reliable friend and neighbor Canada in amounts that could replace half of that provided by the tinderbox known as the Mideast.”
The Wall Street Journal pointed out, “Keystone XL has been planned for years and only became a political issue after the well-to-do environmental lobby decided to make it a station of the green cross.” And the Chicago Tribune added, “Blocking construction of the Keystone pipeline became the No. 1 objective of the green lobby, which raised concerns that construction and operation would pollute aquifers and destroy wildlife habitats. There just isn’t much evidence for those threats, though.”
The USA Today editors were particularly blunt: “What’s really going on here, of course, is the most craven sort of election-year politics. The Obama administration seemed to be on its way to approving Keystone when environmental groups made the pipeline a key test of their support for the president, who suddenly decided the administration couldn’t possibly make a decision until sometime after the election.”
Samuelson emphasizes, “By law, Obama’s decision was supposed to reflect ‘the national interest.’ His standard was his political interest.” As Politico’s Morning Energy reported on Thursday, “Environmentalists were thrilled with the decision, calling it the work of the man they went to the mat for in 2008 and predicted the president’s decision will pay dividends in 2012. ‘I think it shores up his base definitely,’ says Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club.”
The WSJ editors pointed out, “Environmentalists seem to think they can prevent the development of Canada’s oil-rich tar sands, and that their rallies against Keystone XL will keep that carbon in the ground. They can’t, and it won’t. America’s largest trading partner will simply build a pipeline to the Pacific coast from Alberta and sell its petroleum products to Asia instead, China in particular.” They wrote, “Such green delusions are sad, and Mr. Obama’s pandering is sadder, though everything the country stands to lose is saddest.”
Former Missouri Governor Bob Holden, moderator of the panel discussion “How Missouri Engages the World,” spoke about the importance of international education to help prepare students to live and work in a global society as part of the International Education Summit held on January 9.
After his decision to deny a permit to allow the Keystone XL pipeline to be built, President Obama is under fire from newspaper editorials across the country, a number of Democrats in Congress, and even unions.
The Wall Street Journal editors write, “The central conflict of the Obama Presidency has been between the jobs and growth crisis he inherited and the President’s hell-for-leather pursuit of his larger social-policy ambitions. The tragedy is that the economic recovery has been so lackluster because the second impulse keeps winning. Yesterday came proof positive with the White House’s repudiation of the Keystone XL pipeline, TransCanada’s $7 billion shovel-ready project that would support tens of thousands of jobs if only it could get the requisite U.S. permits. Those jobs, apparently, can wait.”
The president’s hometown Chicago Tribune writes, “The problem is, Keystone should be approved. This is a good project. It will give us energy and give us jobs. You want stimulus? This is a $7 billion deal to be done with private-sector funding. . . . Obama made a decision that will cost the U.S. good jobs. He seems to think those jobs will still be there when he gets around to making a decision on the pipeline. But they may well be gone for good.”
And USA Today editorializes, “What’s really going on here, of course, is the most craven sort of election-year politics. The Obama administration seemed to be on its way to approving Keystone when environmental groups made the pipeline a key test of their support for the president, who suddenly decided the administration couldn’t possibly make a decision until sometime after the election. . . . The biggest loser in this game of political football is the national interest.”
Meanwhile, a number of Democrats weren’t much happier.Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) said, “President Obama’s decision on the Keystone XL pipeline is a major setback for the American economy, American workers and America’s energy independence.” Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) said, “I am disappointed in the president’s decision.” Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK) called the decision “disappointing and frustrating” and Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) tweeted, “I strongly disagree with President Obama’s decision to postpone the Keystone pipeline project, which will sustain and create jobs.” And even Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) said, “There is absolutely no reason we cannot start putting Montanans to work on the Keystone XL pipeline right away.”
Unions expressed their displeasure with President Obama as well. In a press release, the Laborers’ International Union of North America declared, “The score is Job-Killers, two; American workers, zero. We are completely and totally disappointed… Blue collar construction workers across the U.S. will not forget this.” And the AFl-CIO’s Mark Ayers counted himself “disappointed by an Administration unwilling to take its own words to heart and approve this vital project.”
Republican candidates and party committees raised over $480,000 from senior Bain executives during that time period. Recipients include Democratic senators facing tough reelection races this year, such as Jon Tester (Mont.), Claire McCaskill (Mo.), Sherrod Brown (Ohio) and Bill Nelson (Fla.)….McCaskill received $2,500 from Beckenstein in March and $5,000 from Jonathan Lavine, a Bain Capital investor, in June. Read more…
