Exclusive – Oval Office Watch – Monday, April 26
by OVAL OFFICE WATCH
April 26, 2010
President Obama’s weekly address HERE
President: GM News "Encouraging" but Financial Regulatory Reform Still Needed - CLICK HERE.
How Big a Government Do We Want? - GO HERE.
Harry Reid moves forward with reform vote - HERE.
The national debt and Washington's deficit of will
Joel Achenbach, Washington Post.com
Bill Gross is used to buying bonds in multibillion-dollar batches. But when it comes to U.S. Treasury bills, he's getting nervous. Gross, a founder of the investment giant Pimco, is so concerned about America's national debt that he has started unloading some of his holdings of U.S. government bonds in favor of bonds from such countries as Germany, Canada and France.
Gross is a bottom-line kind of guy; he doesn't seem to care if the debt is the fault of Republicans or Democrats, the Bush tax cuts or the Obama stimulus. He's simply worried that Washington's habit of spending today the money it hopes to collect tomorrow is getting worse and worse. It even has elements of a Ponzi scheme, Gross told me.
"In order to pay the interest and the bill when it comes due, we'll simply have to issue more IOUs. That, to me, is Ponzi-like," Gross said. "It's a game that can never be finished."
The national debt -- which totaled $8,370,635,856,604.98 as of a few days ago, not even counting the trillions owed by the government to Social Security and other pilfered trust funds -- is rapidly becoming a dominant political issue in Washington and across the country, and not just among the "tea party" crowd. The president is feeling the pressure, and on Tuesday he will open the first session of a high-level bipartisan commission that will look for ways to reduce deficits and put the country on a sustainable fiscal path.
It's a tough task. The short term looks awful, and the long term looks hideous.
Read article.
White House, Wall Street, and lobbyists
Editorial, CS Monitor.com
President Obama’s call for Wall Street lobbyists to stop fighting the financial-reform bills points to the industry’s heavy hand in Washington, especially the hand that throws money around.
In his Thursday speech at Cooper Union College, just a few blocks from Wall Street, the president cited “battalions of financial industry lobbyists descending on Capitol Hill, firms spending millions to influence the outcome of this debate.”
Special interest lobbying and campaign money that come pouring down on Congress in advance of significant legislation should concern Americans.
At the least, it gives the appearance of undue influence on lawmakers and the law. That shakes public confidence in the integrity of Congress and what it does – as if that trust could be shaken much further. (The public holds unfavorable views of both Wall Street and Congress, but it thinks worse of Congress.)
Read article.
How Deep Has Washington Reached into Your Pockets?
Thomas D. Segel, NMJ.us
As is the case with most retired military personnel, I have taken care of my future and made sure my family is financially protected. I continued to work after my military career and I have saved for that rainy day. I am certainly not in any category that could be considered wealthy. With that being said, that rainy day I saved for seems to be here.
Still, I was interested in how all of these government-spending actions would personally impact my pocketbook. I went to the Fox News website and looked up the “Its All Your Money” national debt calculation program. Boy did I get a shock.
First of all, I discovered that I was in that elite group that managed to pay more than 46% of the taxes that Washington miscreants mange to squander every year. I hadn’t thought much about it at that point, but as last week saw another Tax Day come and go, it brought me a taste of reality. It was no longer the “billions” and “trillions” that meant little to me. We were now starting to talk real money…the kind that fits in your wallet.
I started looking up the individual programs and projects and viewing what my personal share of the debt totaled.
Read article.
Administration already laying groundwork for VAT.
Mark Hemenway, Washington Examiner.com
According to the New York Times, the Obama administration’s economic team is already running the numbers to prepare for the possibility of instituting a national value added tax:
A more aggressive approach would seek quick action on Social Security. Alice M. Rivlin, a former Clinton administration budget director and a member of the deficit-reduction panel, said that would represent a “confidence builder.”
But since any Social Security plan would probably preserve benefits for those nearing retirement, it would not help the administration achieve its goal of reducing the deficit to 3 percent of gross domestic product, from 10 percent, within a decade.
One way to reach that 3 percent goal, by the calculations of Mr. Obama’s economic team: a 5 percent value-added tax, which would generate enough revenue to simultaneously permit the reduction in corporate tax rates Republicans favor.
Come again? I don’t know whether the Times is just spitballing here or what, but the idea that administration could horse trade a tax on all Americans in exchange for cutting a corporations a break is insane — especially given heady Tea Party/anti-bailout sentiment on the right.
Read article.
Why Military Tribunals Are Consistent with the Geneva Conventions
Ethiopian Review.com
At last week’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, after Attorney General Eric Holder again refused to rule out a civilian trial for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) shot back: “We know the administration is not going to hold the trial in New York. They should just say it already.” But the Obama administration will fight reality on this issue for as long as politically possible because the far left and Attorney General Holder still believe military tribunals for KSM and other terrorists are inconsistent with the Geneva Convention. Holder, et al. are wrong. Retired U.S. Naval officer and military commission judge Keith Allred explains why:
Unlawful combatants are entitled to be tried in a forum that meets the standards of the Geneva Conventions Common Article 3: a “regularly constituted court that afford[s] all the judicial guarantees . . . recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.” A military commission meets this standard, and trying unlawful combatants in a military commission advances important national interests in encouraging compliance with the laws of armed conflict.
Much has been said to impugn the military commissions as unfair, inadequate forums for the trials of these and other unlawful combatants. But the Geneva Conventions expressly contemplate tribunals for unlawful combatants that are less protective of their rights than the forum guaranteed to lawful combatants.
Read article.
Taking down Tehran: America should exploit the ayatollahs' growing vulnerability
Editorial, Washington Times.com
A counterrevolution in Iran may be the last, best chance for peace in the region, but it can only happen with American help.
J. Michael Waller of the Institute of World Politics argues that the best way for the United States to promote change in Iran is not via sanctions or military action but by helping the Iranian people overthrow the Islamic regime. After the proper preparation, "revolution could happen in a matter of days," he said at a briefing yesterday at the institute's Washington headquarters.
Iran is poised for radical change. The ruling mullahs are widely viewed as illegitimate and corrupt. The people are disaffected and increasingly willing to stand up to the government. The student movement has shown a degree of fearlessness in confronting the regime. And, perhaps sensing change in the air, the Revolutionary Guard Corps has begun to show cracks in its once-fierce loyalty to the Islamic state.
Mr. Waller says he thinks the United States could facilitate an uprising in Tehran with comparatively little effort. Washington could help the opposition communicate with inexpensive prepaid cell phones and proxy Internet servers and supply Flip video cameras and other means of recording and publicizing the course of the rebellion. Voice of America's Persian News Network could focus reports on regime misdeeds and spread inspirational accounts of insiders turning against the power structure in hopes that others might join them.
Read article.
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