Rubio casts Obama as hurting middle class

Sen. Marco Rubio cast President Obama on Tuesday night as a barrier to free enterprise with an "obsession" about raising taxes, as he outlined the Republican vision for helping the middle class.

Rubio, a Florida senator, delivered the official Republican response to Obama's State of the Union in both English and Spanish. The Tea Party favorite spoke in personal terms about the impact of government programs such as Medicare on his life and those of his neighbors.

MORE: Rubio's sip of water lights up Twitter

"Mr. President, I still live in the same working-class neighborhood where I grew up. My neighbors aren't millionaires," Rubio said. "The tax increases and the deficit spending you propose will hurt middle-class families. It will cost them their raises. It will cost them their benefits. It may even cost some of them their jobs."

He chastised Obama for offering proposals that represent big government, such as the nation's health care law. "More government isn't going to help you get ahead. It's going to hold you back," Rubio said, arguing that the Constitution put limits on government for a reason.

Rubio specifically called for a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution and urged both parties to work together to solve the nation's economic woes.

"Despite our differences, I know that both Republicans and Democrats love America," Rubio will say. "If we can get our economic healthy again, our children will be the most prosperous Americans ever. And if we do not, we will forever be known as the generation for responsible for America's decline."

Rubio is the latest in a string of rising Republican stars to give the high-profile rebuttal to Obama on national television. The senator's speech came as Rubio plays a leadership role in bipartisan efforts to revamp the nation's immigration system, including a plan to give the 11 million illegal immigrants a pathway to citzenship.

"We need a responsible, permanent solution to the problem of those who are here illegally," he said. "But first, we must follow through on the broken promises of the past to secure our borders and enforce our laws."

After Rubio's speech, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky delivered a response on behalf of the Tea Party and sounded themes popular with the small-government, anti-tax movement.

"It is time for a new bipartisan consensus," Paul said. "It is time Democrats admit that not every dollar spent on domestic programs is sacred. And it is time Republicans realize that military spending is not immune to waste and fraud."

Former White House speechwriters said before the speeches that Rubio needed to deliver sound bites and speak to GOP goals, without looking as though he was advancing his own political ambitions.

Yet the hype surrounding Rubio — hailed by Time magazine as a "savior" of the Republican Party and labeled by GOP strategist Karl Rove as the party's "best communicator since Ronald Reagan" — posed a challenge.

"Rubio has broadly the instinct for talking about the greatness of this country," said Clark Judge, a former Reagan speechwriter and managing director of the White House Writers Group, a communications firm. "We don't know yet if he has the depth in policy or philosophy."

Few responses to the State of the Union Address live on in history. Senate GOP leader Bob Dole in 1994 was memorable because he used an elaborate flow chart to counter President Clinton's pitch to revamp the nation's health care system. That chart came to symbolize what Republicans saw as the bureaucratic morass that would come from Clinton's health care proposal.

On the flip side, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is remembered in a negative way for his 2009 response to Obama because he was stiff and his prose was described in news reports as "cheesy." It took awhile for Jindal, also heralded as a potential 2016 presidential candidate, to recover from his debut on a national stage.

"The odds are greater that you're going to disappoint people," said Jeff Shesol, who helped write Bill Clinton's 1999 and 2000 State of the Union speeches. "This is a dangerous speech for Rubio to give in terms of his personal political future and because he is seen as the principal Republican rebrander. " 

Source  http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/02/12/rubio-obama-sotu-republican-response/1914071/

3 Lessons From Obama's Cliff Victories for Immigration Push

When President Obama delivers the first State of the Union address of his second term next Tuesday, he will be riding a wave of political victories into the coral lined shores of the United States Congress. A tumble into the rough waters of legislative gridlock in the months ahead could cause major damage to the president's second term legislative agenda. There are several lessons from Obama's political wins on the fiscal cliff that both sides should keep in mind when working on immigration legislation and other legislative initiatives.

1. Have a simple, effective pitch: After the knock down drag out fight over raising the debt ceiling in 2011, Obama's team realized they needed a more effective message for future fiscal fights. By characterizing the Republican reluctance to raise the debt limit as akin to refusing to pay for goods already placed on the credit card, Obama had a kitchen table explanation for a complex macroeconomic issue. A similar approach to a comprehensive immigration bill, which due to its size and scope will contain something unpalatable for both parties, will be essential to avoid a death by 1,000 cuts.

2. Seek the support of the opposition's traditional allies: Obama shrewdly courted corporate America, holding meetings with executives whose bottom lines would be adversely affected by another debt limit standoff. These traditional Republican supporters were able to convey the urgency of the issue to the GOP better than anyone else. It's always easier to take advice from a friend than a foe. The president should reach out to business leaders -- who would have much to gain from the certainty that an immigration deal could provide -- again to help sell a plan. Republicans should approach the immigration debate with as an opportunity to reach out to Asians and Hispanics that have trended heavily towards supporting Democrats.

3. Exploit unforced errors: Intransigent Republicans in the House derailed Speaker John Boehner's "Plan B" fiscal proposal, which substantially limited the leverage the party had in discussions over a final solution. That meant that the final deal went even further to the left and needed overwhelming Democratic support in the House to prevent an economic disaster. That served to weaken the strong fiscally responsible economic image Republicans had burnished in previous debates. Republicans need a deal, and Obama should try to work with them. While one side exploiting the other's fumble may again be decisive, a keen focus by both sides on minimizing mistakes and misstatements would allow each to bring their best to the effort of passing immigration reform.

Getting a deal on immigration will be tougher than the fiscal cliff (there is not a credit downgrade or economic meltdown at stake and thus less incentive to deal), but it is still possible if both President Obama and the Republicans learn from past successes, do not repeat missteps and seek to truly make this a win-win effort.

Source  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-r-kennedy/three-lessons-from-obamas_b_2617111.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

Republicans Bristle at Obama's New Roster

President Barack Obama's most recent nominations and appointments show that he is assembling a muscular senior team of trusted allies to carry out his second-term plans, without concern for Republican sensitivities, some GOP officials say.

With his second-term appointments largely complete, the president has built a cadre of officials and aides that some say is more for combat than consensus—to execute policies rooted in the Democratic ideals laid out in his inaugural speech last week.

By contrast, midway through his first term the president named William Daley as his chief of staff, choosing someone with ties to the corporate world in an overture to Republicans and business leaders.

On Friday, Mr. Obama announced he was naming someone of a different mold as his top aide: Denis McDonough, a longtime deputy with no independent political base, whose primary purpose will be to put in place the president's policies.

Mr. Obama wants to elevate his current chief of staff, Jack Lew, to Treasury secretary, though Republicans soured on Mr. Lew during the 2011 debt-ceiling negotiations. Some Republicans who worked with Mr. Lew said he spent hours in fruitless attempts to persuade Republicans that their position was the wrong one.

Earlier this month, Mr. Obama nominated as his defense secretary former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, whom critics describe as an ersatz Republican who broke party ranks and endorsed Mr. Obama in the 2008 presidential race. Mr. Hagel will appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday for his confirmation hearing.

Senate Republicans are expected to zero in on Mr. Hagel's vote in opposition to naming the Iranian Revolution Guard Corps as a terrorist organization and to question a comment he once made about the "Jewish lobby."

Appearing Sunday on ABC's "This Week," Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) was asked if, in a private meeting last week, Mr. Hagel had addressed his concerns.

"Not really," Mr. McCain said.

Another battle with Republicans may lie ahead: Mr. Obama will soon name a new head of the Environmental Protection Agency, and he is likely to choose someone in sync with the aggressive approach he hinted at in his inaugural speech. In that address, Mr. Obama gave an unusually prominent warning about the threat of climate change. His best option for rolling back greenhouse-gas emissions rests with the EPA, which won a string of recent court cases upholding its authority to regulate the pollutants.

"You've gone through a lot of legislative achievement in the first term, and execution is everything in a second term," said John Podesta, who has close ties to the White House and who served as chief of staff under Bill Clinton. "So he has a clear strategy. … And what he needs are people who can execute that strategy."

Ken Duberstein, who served as chief of staff in Ronald Reagan's second term, said Mr. Obama might rethink his approach and find ways to compromise. "He has to do it if he is to accomplish his broad agenda," he said. "You can't just do it by sticking your finger in people's eyes."

Mr. Obama has four more years in office. But in practical terms, he needs to move quickly to advance his domestic agenda. A re-elected president has finite political capital and a compressed period to act before Congress is diverted by the midterm elections and then the next presidential election.

Were Mr. Obama inclined to reach out to Republicans, he might not have renominated former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In making the Cordray announcement last week, the president renewed a fight with Senate Republicans who have said they want changes in the bureau's structure as the price of confirming a nominee.

Mr. Obama seems unmoved by that argument, which has angered Republicans.

Sen. Mike Johanns (R., Neb.), a member of the Senate committee that will conduct Mr. Cordray's confirmation hearing, called the renomination "a troublesome situation."

"We just wanted the opportunity to try to bring some common sense remedies to what we saw as a very flawed system," Mr. Johanns added. "I have misgivings about that nomination. It's very possible I won't be able to support him."

More insight into the president's second-term approach may come when he nominates an EPA administrator. Both environmentalists and oil-and-coal industry lobbyists have said they would approve of an internal choice, such as Bob Perciasepe, currently the No. 2 EPA official. Mr. Perciasepe helped negotiate vehicle fuel-economy rules during Mr. Obama's first term and is viewed by both sides as a person who seeks common ground.

But the president could make a more assertive statement by choosing an official who has waged climate battles, such as former Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire, who signed an emissions-cutting law.

Source  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323644904578268232471085850.html

Obama Defense Pick Faces Rough Going in Senate

 President Barack Obama's pick of Chuck Hagel to helm the Pentagon faces rough going in the Senate as a handful of Republicans quickly announced their opposition to a former GOP colleague, and several skeptical Democrats reserved judgment until the nominee explains his views on Israel and Iran.

The concerns about Hagel complicate his path to Senate confirmation but are not necessarily calamitous as the White House pushes for the first Vietnam War veteran to oversee a military emerging from two wars and staring at deep budget cuts.

Obama also tapped White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan to head the CIA. Brennan, a 25-year CIA veteran, faces no major obstacles, but he is expected to be hit with questions about torture and administration leaks of secret information.

Moments after Obama announced his selection of Hagel and called him "the leader that our troops deserve," some Senate Republicans voiced opposition to the former Nebraska lawmaker who spent 12 years in the Senate.

"Given Chuck Hagel's statements and actions on a nuclear Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah, I think his confirmation would send exactly the wrong message to our allies and enemies alike," Sen. David Vitter, R-La., said in a statement. "Israel, our strongest ally in the region, is dealing with a lot of threat and uncertainty right now; Hagel would make that even worse."

 Other Senate Republicans, including the No. 2 GOP lawmaker, John Cornyn of Texas, new member Ted Cruz of Texas and Mississippi's Roger Wicker, signaled they would vote against the nomination.

Hagel has upset some Israel backers with his comment about the "Jewish lobby," his votes against unilateral sanctions against Iran while backing international penalties on the regime in Tehran and his criticism of talk of a military strike by either the U.S. or Israel against Iran.

He also upset gay rights groups over past comments, including his opposition in 1998 to President Bill Clinton's choice of James Hormel as ambassador to Luxembourg. He referred to Hormel as "openly, aggressively gay." Hagel recently apologized, saying his comments were "insensitive."

Those remarks and actions have created fierce opposition from some pro-Israel groups, criticism from some Republicans and unease among some congressional Democrats.

The Log Cabin Republicans took out a full-page ad in The Washington Post highlighting their opposition to Hagel, and Gregory T. Angelo, interim executive director of the gay rights group, said the gay and lesbian grassroots organization is considering other steps in a campaign against Hagel's nomination.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., who does not have a vote on the nomination, called Hagel the "wrong man" for the job and complained that "his inflammatory statements about Israel are well outside the mainstream."

In an interview with the Lincoln (Neb.) Journal Star, Hagel said his statements have been distorted and there is "not one shred of evidence that I'm anti-Israeli, not one (Senate) vote that matters that hurt Israel."

In a critical sign of support for Hagel's prospects, the 66-year-old moderate Republican attracted words of praise from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who heads the Intelligence panel.

Source  http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/obama-nominate-chuck-hagel-defense-secretary-18147879#.UOvwa_IrdqQ

On the Left, Seeing Obama Giving Away Too Much, Again

For President Obama, the fiscal deal passed by Congress on Tuesday finally ends four years of debate with Republicans about raising tax rates on the wealthy. But it seemed to reopen a debate within his party about the nature of his leadership and his skills as a negotiator. 

While Mr. Obama got most of what he sought in the agreement, he found himself under withering criticism from some in his liberal base who accused him of caving in to Republicans by not taxing the rich more. Just as Speaker John A. Boehner has been under pressure from his right, Mr. Obama faces a virtual Tea Party of the left that sees his compromise as capitulation. 

The main difference is that in the Obama era, the Democratic establishment has been less influenced, or intimidated, by the left than the Republican establishment has been by the right. Liberals have not mounted sustained primary challenges to take out wayward incumbents the way conservatives have. All but three Democrats voting in the Senate and 16 in the House supported the compromise on Tuesday, even as most House Republicans balked, giving Mr. Obama more room to operate than Mr. Boehner. 

But the wave of grievance from liberal activists, labor leaders and economists suggested that the uneasy truce between Mr. Obama and his base that held through the campaign season had expired now that there was no longer a threat of a Mitt Romney victory. It also offered a harbinger of the president’s next four years. 

The criticism has irritated the White House, which argued that Mr. Obama held true to principle by forcing Republicans to raise income tax rates on the wealthy and extend unemployment benefits and targeted tax credits. Mr. Obama also quashed Republican demands to trim the growth of entitlement benefits. Aides dismissed armchair criticism from those who have never had to negotiate with intractable opposition. 

“There’s some frustration that over time you would think everybody would have a better understanding of the parameters of this,” said Robert Gibbs, a longtime adviser to Mr. Obama who once called such critics “the professional left.” “But he understands now probably better than at any other point in his presidency what it means to be a leader, what it means to have to do things that are good not just for one party but good for the country.” 

The criticism from the left mirrors past complaints when Mr. Obama included tax cuts in his stimulus package, gave up on a government-run option in health care negotiations and temporarily extended Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy two years ago. Liberals said Mr. Obama should have capitalized on his re-election victory and the expiration on New Year’s Day of all of the Bush tax cuts to force Republicans to accept his terms. 

“The president remains clueless about how to use leverage in a negotiation,” said Adam Green, a co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a liberal advocacy organization. “Republicans publicly admitted they lost the tax debate and would be forced to cave, yet the president just kept giving stuff away.”

Robert B. Reich, the former labor secretary, said that Mr. Obama “has stiffened his tactical resolve” but that “he’s still the same President Obama who wants a deal above all else and seems willing to compromise on even the most basic principle.” 

Richard L. Trumka, the president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., said in a Twitter message on Monday that the agreement was “not a good fiscal cliff deal if it gives more tax cuts to 2 percent.” Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, said on the floor on Monday that “this looks like a very bad deal.” 

Still, most Democratic lawmakers accepted it, however reluctantly, concluding that voting against it could cause greater economic disruption. Many liberals grew more comfortable once they learned more about the deal, and the revolt on Tuesday by House Republicans seemed to rally them behind the plan and against a common adversary. Mr. Trumka released a new statement hailing elements of the deal, while blaming “Republican hostage taking” for its flaws. 

Mr. Obama succeeded in forcing Senate Republicans to raise the top income tax rate to 39.6 percent from 35 percent despite their adamant opposition, although he agreed to apply that to household income above $450,000, instead of $250,000. He also won an increase in taxes on wealthy estates to 40 percent from 35 percent, though it was not as high as liberals wanted. 

The bill will extend unemployment benefits for two million Americans; renew tax credits for child care, college tuition and renewable energy production; raise capital gains taxes; and phase out deductions for the wealthy. Mr. Obama also insisted that a two-month postponement of automatic spending cuts be financed by $1 in tax revenue for every $1 in spending reductions. 

“When the dust settles, there will be a lot of important elements in this for progressives,” Mr. Gibbs said. The deal can be evaluated only in combination with the result of the next fiscal talks, to be concluded by the end of February, he said, adding, “We won’t know the final score on that until you look at both of those negotiations together.” 

Defenders of the White House said it was ludicrous to expect that the president would not have to compromise, given that Republicans control the House and have enough votes in the Senate to filibuster a bill. Without an agreement, economists warned that the country would have been pushed back into recession. 

Representative Elijah E. Cummings, Democrat of Maryland, said Mr. Obama had secured important victories like the one on unemployment benefits and stood firm against paring entitlement benefits. “The president was strong there,” he told CNN. “And I think he’ll continue to be strong. I think, you know, I notice a different president since he won this election.” 

Jared Bernstein, a former economics adviser to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., said Mr. Obama had done what he thought he had to, but he expressed concern that the president might have squandered leverage unless he holds firm in the debate over the debt ceiling. Republicans want to use a vote to raise the ceiling to force Mr. Obama to accept deeper spending cuts, but the president has vowed not to negotiate over the borrowing limit. 

“While some appear to think his team folded in the cliff debate, I don’t see it that way,” Mr. Bernstein said. “They saw a plausible path forward, and they took it. My point is it’s only plausible if they really don’t get derailed on the debt ceiling debate.” 

Source  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/02/us/politics/some-liberals-say-obama-squandered-his-tax-leverage.html?_r=0

Obama attends Inouye memorial in Hawaii

President Obama came to a veterans cemetery here on Sunday to honor the late Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, less as the nation’s top politician and more as a native son of Hawaii paying tribute to his roots.

 

The president had already formally memorialized Inouye (D-Hawaii), who died last week at age 88 after 50 years in the Senate, on Friday at the National Cathedral in Washington.

But on Sunday, sitting between first lady Michelle Obama and Inouye’s wife, Irene, Obama did not speak. He had no formal role at the ceremony at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific — nicknamed “Punchbowl” for the terrestrial imprint left by volcanic eruptions thousands of years ago.

Yet the moment at the cemetery had enormous emotional resonance for the president, who spent many formative years living with his grandparents in Hawaii. In the space of 90 minutes, he would attend the memorial service of a man who from afar had shaped his political thinking and remember another man who directly shaped his life choices.

Moments after the ceremony honoring Inouye ended, Obama traveled a half-mile southeast within the same cemetery, to Site 44, Row 400, of Columbarium No. 1 — the grave site of his maternal grandfather, Stanley A. Dunham.

Like Inouye, Dunham was a World War II veteran. Obama has said that Dunham and his wife, Madelyn, taught him the “idea of America.” He has recounted how his grandfather, “Gramps,” gave him dog tags “from his time in Patton’s Army,” and the future president came to understand that “his defense of this country marked one of his greatest sources of pride.”

Dunham died 20 years ago. The ashes of his wife and daughter, Stanley Anne, Obama’s mother, were scattered over the Pacific Ocean in Hawaii.

And while Obama has said that his grandparents influenced how he lived his life, Inouye had a profound effect on his politics. Last week, Obama said Inouye was “perhaps my earliest political inspiration.”

As part of the Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team in World War II, Inouye lost his right arm protecting his unit from a grenade. In the memorial last week, Obama said he remembered watching Inouye ask questions during the Watergate hearings in the 1970s.

“The person who fascinated me most was this man of Japanese descent with one arm, speaking in this courtly baritone, full of dignity and grace,” Obama said. “This was a man who, as a teenager, stepped up to serve his country even after his fellow Japanese Americans were declared enemy aliens; a man who believed in America even when its government didn’t necessarily believe in him. That meant something to me. It gave me a powerful sense — one that I couldn’t put into words — a powerful sense of hope.”

On Sunday, surviving members of the 442nd Regiment and their families surrounded the ceremony. The formal eulogies were left to Inouye’s colleagues and staffers.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said Inouye would only talk about the war in private, never in public. Reid had had an hour-long conversation with him just before Inouye, who was experiencing respiratory problems, went to the hospital, a little more than a week before he died.

“We talked as though there would be many tomorrows, but there wouldn’t be any,” Reid said.

In remarks by Reid and others, it was hard not to miss the nostalgia for an era of bipartisanship that Inouye reflected and one that seems to be disappearing with his generation.

Reid recalled how he had received a call last week from former Senate majority leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), expressing his desire to pay his respects to Inouye in the Capitol Rotunda. Dole, who normally uses a wheelchair, insisted on walking and viewing Inouye’s casket directly.

“As a result of that war, both had lost the use of their right arms,” Reid recalled, and could work together despite their political differences.

Inouye “was a Democrat who would never hesitate to cooperate with a Republican for the good of the country,” Reid said. “Danny was the best senator among us all,” he said.

Inouye’s family has not decided on an exact burial spot. One option is Section D, near the center of the cemetery, where many of his comrades from the 442nd Combat Team are buried. His first wife, Margaret Shinobu Awamura, who died in 1996, is also buried there.

Near the end of the ceremony, Sen. Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii) said he was saying goodbye to a brother who had paved the way for future generations.

“He made it possible for minorities like me, and later on, President Obama, to serve at the highest levels,” he said.

Then Inouye received full military honors — including a four-jet flyover — and a military officer delivered folded American flags that had been draped over Inouye’s casket to his wife and son Ken.
As the officer presented the flags, Obama remained attentive and silent.

Source  http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-attends-inouye-memorial-in-hawaii/2012/12/23/73d4ab40-4d4f-11e2-950a-7863a013264b_story.html

President Obama’s enough-is-enough Newtown speech

President Obama’s speech Sunday night at a memorial service for the victims — mostly children — of a mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut was a forceful assertion that the politics surrounding guns (and gun control) must change.

“We can’t tolerate this anymore,” Obama said. “We are not doing enough and we will have to change.” (Full transcript of speech here.)

Obama noted that this was the fourth time in his presidency that he has had to grieve with a community after an incident of mass murder with a gun. But, his speech in Connecticut Sunday was a significant departure from the other addresses he had given to communities torn apart by shooting sprees.

Speaking in Aurora, Colorado just days after a gunman opened fire in a movie theater this summer, Obama was somber, subdued — and decidedly apolitical. The closest Obama got to making a statement (of any sort) came in the speech’s last line in which he said: “I hope that over the next several days, next several weeks, and next several months, we all reflect on how we can do something about some of the senseless violence that ends up marring this country, but also reflect on all the wonderful people who make this the greatest country on Earth.”

It was a very different Obama who took the stage at the Newtown memorial Sunday, a president not just saddened by the tragedy but fed up with the lack of forward movement in hopes of preventing the next one.

One sentence in Obama’s speech sums up his state of mind. “I’ll use whatever power this office holds…in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this,” he said — a line the incumbent never came close to uttering in Aurora or, before that, in Tucson in 2011. 

What Obama’s speech seemed to signal is that, at least in his mind, a tipping point has been reached — that the slaughter of 20 first graders should not be soon forgotten, that it should mean something. 

His critics will note that he offered no specifics as to where he would hope to change laws on guns and that his speech in Newtown, unlike the address in Aurora, came after his second term was assured and he knew he would never need to stand for election again.

Both facts are true. But neither subtract from the fact that Obama could have very easily delivered a speech heavy on empathy and light on anything in the way of a call to action. That he chose to go in a very different direction is a telling indication of his commitment to try to make something happen on gun laws.

Obama’s speech Sunday night could be summed up in three words: Enough is enough. Now, can he lead a divided nation to see things his way?

Source  http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2012/12/16/president-obamas-enough-is-enough-newtown-speech/