A Blue View

Stimulus Bill A Window Into White House & Congress Relationship

From the NY Times:

The negotiations over the largest economic rescue plan since the New Deal offered a window into how the relationship between the White House and Congress will take shape over the next four years, with a West Wing filled with more alumni of the House and Senate than any recent administration. Not only are the president and vice president alumni of Congress, but so are their top aides and their top aides’ aides ...

By combining this intimate familiarity with Congress and its personalities with a speed-dial approach to negotiations, administration officials and lawmakers say they have achieved a series of rapid victories, putting them on the verge of winning approval of an economic plan that retains Mr. Obama’s original core principles. The president has already signed into law an expansion of children’s health care and a wage antidiscrimination law and avoided a showdown over bank bailout funds.

“In 21 days, we have gotten two major pieces of legislation and two pretty significant ones,” said Mr. Emanuel, who has been in the Capitol almost as much as when he served in the House.

In the first month of his presidency, Mr. Obama has demonstrated a hands-on approach in guiding the economic stimulus bill through complicated terrain. He met with lawmakers in the Capitol, made dozens of phone calls and held several private meetings with Republicans and Democrats in the Oval Office, the residence of the White House and aboard Air Force One ...

Some lawmakers believe it was a mistake for the administration to cede so much responsibility to House Democrats for putting the initial bill together. It resulted in a measure that came under fire from Republicans and even some Democrats for focusing too heavily on traditional Democratic spending priorities, and it had to be stripped of some initiatives like contraception and restoring the National Mall after critics highlighted the spending ...

But White House officials pointed to several reasons why they did not consider writing their own bill and sending it to Congress for fast-track approval by the Democratic majority.

Mr. Obama, they said, had not even taken office when the House began working on the legislation. Moreover, they said, if the new administration put a full plan on the table, it would inevitably have been picked apart by both parties. And Mr. Obama directed his staff members to set a respectful tone, keeping in mind that Republicans would be needed on future issues like energy and health care reform.

But after the House and the Senate each had worked through the bill, the White House stepped in aggressively this week and took control of the measure. In an Oval Office meeting, the president admonished his team to get the bill finished. Recognizing that they would have to assert more authority if they wanted to get the bill finished rapidly, administration officials carried the outlines of a compromise to Capitol Hill and pushed for its adoption ...

While Democrats are learning, they say that Republicans should be taking note as well, observing that while Mr. Obama is willing to reach out to them, he is also ready to try to put on political pressure as he has through his nationally televised news conference and appearances around the country.

“His hand is open,” Mr. Emanuel said, “but if you shake it, it has a very firm grip.”

Stimulus Battle Highlights The Challenges Obama Will Face Implementing Rest Of Agenda

From the NY Times:

Both the substance of his first big legislative accomplishment and the way he achieved it underscored the scale of the challenges facing the nation and how different a political climate this is from the early stages of recent administrations.

While it hammered home the reality of bigger, more activist government, the economic package was not the culmination of a hard-fought ideological drive, like Lyndon B. Johnson’s civil rights and Great Society programs, or Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts, but rather a necessary and hastily patched-together response to an immediate and increasingly dire situation. On the domestic issues Mr. Obama ran and won on — health care, education, climate change, rebalancing the distribution of wealth — the legislation does little more than promise there will be more to come.

In cobbling together a plan that could get through both the House and the Senate, Mr. Obama prevailed, but not in the way he had hoped. His inability to win over more than a handful of Republicans amounted to a loss of innocence, a reminder that his high-minded calls for change in the practice of governance had been ground up in a matter of weeks by entrenched forces of partisanship and deep, principled differences between left and right.

In the end, Congress did not come together to address what Mr. Obama has regularly suggested is a crisis that could rival the Great Depression. What consensus has been forged so far is likely to be tested in the months to come as he faces scrutiny over the effectiveness of the stimulus package and the likelihood that he will have to ask Congress for substantially more money to heal the fractures in the financial system ...

Mr. Galston said Mr. Obama may not yet have fully absorbed the difficulties he faces in pressing for expensive policy initiatives to make health care more affordable and accessible, address global warming, provide more money for education and promote research into alternative energy sources.

“The president hasn’t done as good a job of preparing the nation for the tradeoffs necessary to reconcile the hope agenda with the fear agenda,” Mr. Galston said. “I’d be surprised if a Congress still reeling from sticker shock in terms of the stimulus and the financial rescue are willing to pony up for a full-bore reform of the health system.”

David Winston, a Republican pollster, said that whatever big goals Mr. Obama and the base of the Democratic Party remain eager to achieve, voters for the most part are going to be focused on one thing: whether the economic measures sponsored by the new administration prove effective in halting and reversing job losses.

“He’s going to have to fit other issues into the larger narrative of the economy,” Mr. Winston said.

Mr. Obama has long since begun trying to do just that. He has been framing rising health care costs not just as a social issue, but as one affecting the viability of American industry. Cleaning up the environment and weaning the economy from its dependence on oil are opportunities to create new, well-compensated jobs. Education is an investment in the economy’s long-term competitiveness.

But those assertions will run up against a variety of countervailing forces: a rapidly rising national debt, a strain of populist anger, a smaller but energized Republican minority and divisions among Democrats about priorities, to name a few. Getting past them promises to be as tricky for Mr. Obama as was this first victory.

Keith Olbermann At 2009 HRC NY Dinner

Keith Olbermann accepting the HRC's "Ally for Equality Award"

Here's a replay of one of his Special Comments, on California’s Proposition 8 and gay marriage rights, that earned him the award:

Faith-Based Program Gets Wider Focus

New details on the Revamping of the Faith-Based Office, from the Wall St Journal:

When President Barack Obama launches his version of the faith-based initiative Thursday, he will expand the mission to include abortion reduction and outreach to the Muslim world. He will also try to avoid the thorniest constitutional issues that beset the program for years under his predecessor ...

Mr. Obama's goal, much like President George W. Bush's, is to harness the power of churches and other religious groups to solve some of the nation's toughest social problems. But almost from the start, the Bush plan was ensnared by constitutional questions about the separation between church and state, most notably whether an organization that received tax dollars can make hiring decisions on the basis of religion.

As a candidate, Mr. Obama came down firmly against such hiring. But on Thursday, he will take a more nuanced position, saying that these issues should be decided on a case-by-case basis, said Joshua DuBois, the 26-year-old former campaign adviser who will be named to head the White House Office for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

... the president will sign an executive order making clear that the director of the new office should seek guidance from the Department of Justice on specific legal issues regarding "how to respect the Constitution" and nondiscrimination laws, Mr. DuBois said.

The same case-by-case approach will govern another tricky question: whether federal funds can pay for secular portions of programs that also include proselytization, he said.

That approach will likely anger some on the left who were hoping for a clean break with the Bush policy ... But the new approach will please people like David Kuo, who was deputy director of the Bush faith-based office, and who says that too much energy was spent on questions that have little impact in the real world. He said that very few charities actually discriminate in their hiring.

"Bush tried to say, 'OK, we're going to open everything up to hiring' and got caught up in this massive Washington fight," Mr. Kuo said. "My fear is Obama will take the opposite view and he'll get embroiled in the same swamp."

In unveiling the office Thursday at a morning prayer breakfast, Mr. Obama will set out a structure that is similar to the Bush program: a White House office supplemented by offices in 11 federal agencies. He will add a new 25-member advisory council made up of a diverse group of religious and some secular leaders.

The office will be given four specific missions, including an administration effort to reduce teen pregnancy and reduce the need for abortion. The goals, Mr. DuBois said, will include ensuring access to health care and support for adoption.

The office also will also be asked to encourage interfaith dialogue "at home and, more pressingly, abroad," he said. He said the president he won't necessarily single out any particular part of the world, clearly outreach to Muslim nations will be part of the mix. In addition, the office will be asked to engage organizations in helping people deal with the economic crisis, and addressing fatherhood issues, a longtime interest of the president.

The Era Of Responsibility Is Here: A President Who Admits Mistakes! That's Change To Believe In.

It took Bush nearly 8 years to admit a mistake (and even then, it wasn't as much a mistake as "something I could have done better") and here's Obama doing it within his first few weeks in office:

"I'm here on television saying 'I screwed up.' And that's part of the era of responsibility is not never making mistakes it's owning up to them and trying to make sure you don't repeat them.  And that's what we intend to do."

The defense he makes for his Stimulus Plan and his discussion of Iraw/Afghanistan are worth watching too:

Must We Repeat Japan’s Stimulus Mistakes? (Answer: No)

From the Wall St Journal:

Rep. Paul Ryan, a young and economically astute Republican leader, has numerous problems with the economic-stimulus package working its way through the U.S. Congress, but essentially they boil down to this: He fears the U.S. is repeating the mistakes Japan made trying to get out of its own economic ditch in the 1990s.

The Ryan critique is important in part because it’s popping up with increasing frequency among congressional Republicans. In fact, you can expect to hear it more this week as the Senate takes up its version of economic stimulus, after the House passed its package last week.

Here’s the critique in a nutshell: Japan in the early 1990s, like the U.S. today, saw a real-estate bubble burst, spawning a banking and credit crisis that drove the whole economy down, hard. The Japanese then tried stimulating the economy with giant doses of government spending, which didn’t pep things up — but did bring on deficits that required tax increases later, dragging out Japan’s problems for years.

So, is the U.S. about to repeat that unhappy Japanese experience? There certainly are similarities between Japan then and the U.S. now. But there also are some key differences. Most important, the stimulus package being shaped now has a different mix of spending than the ones the Japanese tried, and it has a chance of hitting the economy faster.

In any case, the debate over the Japan precedent gets at the key question in the debate over the stimulus package, often oddly lost in the political shouting: Will it actually work? ...

His fear is that the U.S., by spending heavily on stimulus now, will, like the Japanese, make economically chilling tax increases inevitable down the line to balance the books ...Alongside the unsettling parallels between then and now, there are important differences. The biggest one, as Rep. Ryan notes, is that Japan made a fundamental mistake in monetary policy, which the U.S. Federal Reserve decidedly isn’t repeating. At the outset of Japan’s woes, it instituted a tight monetary policy. The Fed is doing the opposite.

In addition, C. Fred Bergsten, a former Treasury official and longtime student of international economics, cites a significant difference between the makeup of stimulus spending the Obama administration is pushing and the version used in Japan. “Virtually the totality of the Japanese programs was what we call roads and bridges,” he says. “The phrase ‘roads to nowhere’ came from that.”

The U.S. stimulus package, by contrast, has a considerably more varied makeup; about half is tax cuts and spending on programs such as unemployment insurance, worker retraining and Medicaid benefits to the states, which most analysts on both sides agree largely get injected into the economy quickly. Of the remaining spending, Mr. Bergsten notes, only some is of the traditional roads-and-bridges variety. “So the composition is very different,” he says.

In addition ...

Did The Odds Of Universal Health Care Just Drop?

The very same characteristic that did Tom Daschle in--being the ultimate Washington insider--is exactly the trait that caused Obama to select him to be the guy to get univesal health care through Congress. Here's more on what his withdrawal might mean to health care reform from the NY Times:

The abrupt collapse of Tom Daschle’s cabinet nomination on Tuesday undercut President Obama’s mission to expand health care by depriving him of an unusually well positioned architect for a big legislative campaign and leaving him without a backup plan.

Mr. Daschle’s decision to withdraw his candidacy for secretary of health and human services could slow the president’s drive to reshape the nation’s health care system as the White House searches for a replacement, and it could allow Congress to step into the vacuum during that delay, analysts said.

But the White House insisted that Mr. Daschle’s departure would not stop the effort to cover the uninsured and rein in health costs, a goal that is “bigger than one person,” as the press secretary, Robert Gibbs, put it. “We’re looking for a new nominee,” Mr. Gibbs said, “but the problem has existed for quite some time, and the work toward a solution to make health care more affordable won’t stop or won’t pause while we look for that nominee.”

Since Mr. Daschle was the only person the president seriously considered for the health job, his advisers were left scrambling to find an alternative. Advocates of universal coverage pressed the case for former Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont, a medical doctor, but Mr. Obama just replaced him as chairman of the Democratic National Committee and he might be a provocative choice to Republicans.

Democrats close to the White House said attention was focusing on governors, who by nature of their jobs run state Medicaid programs, particularly Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas. Other possibilities include Govs. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania and Jennifer M. Granholm of Michigan and former Gov. John Kitzhaber of Oregon, all Democrats. Ms. Sebelius was an early supporter of Mr. Obama’s campaign while Mr. Rendell and Ms. Granholm joined after the primaries. Mr. Kitzhaber is a former emergency room physician who pushed through health care changes while in office.

David Axelrod, the president’s senior adviser, said the White House would “quickly put someone in place” but acknowledged it had no stand-in ready for Mr. Daschle, a former Senate majority leader and a co-author of a book on health care. “There was no Plan B,” Mr. Axelrod said. “Our intent was that he would serve. But there’s a wellspring of talent and particularly people who are interested in this issue.”

A Look At Another Small Bank That Received Federal Money

An interesting story by the Wash Post on a local bank's inability to lend the Federal money (here's an earlier post on another small bank that, for different reasons, isnt lending either and here's a broader analysis on why getting banks to lend is so hard):

Consider the case of Bethesda's EagleBank, which received $38.2 million from the Treasury Department in early December.

The company, which focuses on lending to local businesses, was delighted to get the money, executives said. Its nine-member board convened an impromptu conference call during the week of Thanksgiving to approve the deal.

But EagleBank used roughly half the money to digest the acquisition of Fidelity & Trust Bank, a Bethesda rival with financial problems. And it has struggled to use the rest to increase lending.

The government investment boosted EagleBank's capital, a cash reserve that regulators require banks to hold as a cushion against losses. More capital meant EagleBank could make more loans, but the company has not been able to take advantage. Lending also requires deposits, the money that banks give to borrowers, and EagleBank's deposit base shrank over the past three months.

"You look around and everyone is saying, 'Banks are not lending,' " said Ronald Paul, EagleBank's chairman. "Well, we'd like to. I could grow my loan base considerably if I just had the deposits."

EagleBank's struggles are part of a broader national pattern and illustrate the complexity of the government's attempt to prop up the economy. Rather than investing in the banks best equipped to increase lending, the government invested disproportionately in banks that needed money to solve problems. Those banks often were ill-equipped to increase lending because of financial limitations such as a lack of deposits ...

Several recipient banks in the Washington area are digesting acquisitions. Bank of Essex, a subsidiary of Community Bankers Trust of Glen Allen, Va., for example, has bought two failed banks from regulators, including a deal announced Friday for Suburban Federal Savings Bank of Crofton ...

Others are dealing with problems of their own making. Recipients of government investments in Virginia and Maryland -- no District bank has received money -- on average had lower capital levels than banks that have not received money. Community Financial of Staunton, Va., said the government's money restored its status as a "well-capitalized" bank. ...

Senior administration officials have said, though, that they are largely satisfied with the results of the first round of investments. They say the true achievement is something that did not happen: The banking system did not collapse.

Barney Boils Down The GOP's Message: 'Spending On Health Care Isn't Stimulative But Spending On Weapons Is'

I am not happy with the Obama Administration's media plan for the Stimulus Plan this last week: they are allowing the GOP to control the debate and define what the Plan does and how it does it (to wit, 'it's a Democratic wish list full of porky social programs that don't create jobs'). Not Rep. Frank. Watch this brilliant nugget to see what I mean:

Watch the complete video to see Frank make the important point that until American's feel they have a more secure safety net, they will not support free trade.

Equal Pay For Equal Work

The first legislation President Obama signed reresents a major victory for women and families, and a rebuke to the Supreme Court (read the corporate objections and watch the Ledbetter campaign ad):

Faith-Based Office Revamped

From the NY Times:

President Obama plans to name Joshua DuBois, a 26-year-old Pentecostal pastor and political strategist who handled religious outreach for the Obama campaign, to direct a revamped office of faith-based initiatives, according to religious leaders who have been informed about the choice.

The office, created by President George W. Bush by executive order at the start of his first term, is likely to have an even broader mandate in the Obama White House, said the religious leaders, who requested anonymity because the appointment has yet to be announced ...

Renamed the Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, the office will not merely oversee the distribution of grants to religious and community groups, but will also look for other ways to involve those groups in working on pressing social problems ...

On Capitol Hill, Mr. DuBois was part of a Democratic working group focused on building relationships with religious leaders, especially evangelical Christians alienated by the Republican record on economic inequality, foreign policy and environmental matters. Mr. DuBois expanded that outreach during the presidential campaign by convening house parties of religious voters across the country to present Mr. Obama as a man motivated by his faith.

The most contentious issue that Mr. DuBois will have to help resolve is whether Mr. Obama should rescind a Bush administration legal memorandum that allows religious groups that receive government money to hire only those who share their faith.

Mr. Obama said in a campaign speech last June, “If you get a federal grant, you can’t use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can’t discriminate against them — or against the people you hire — on the basis of their religion.”

Mr. DuBois led an effort during the transition to consult with dozens of religious and charity groups about the work of the faith-based office, including what to do about the hiring question, and whether the faith-based centers that Mr. Bush inserted into 12 federal agencies should all be preserved.

"Republicans fuming that the stimulus package is a back door to universal health coverage"

The GOP has finally caught on to what Obama is doing, as predicted last week in Obama Building Momentum For Universal Health Care By Incrementally Increasing Coverage. Hey progressives who can't tell the difference between the marginal and fundamental change, this is what is important, not little changes that Obama makes to get the bill passed. From the NY Times:

The stimulus bill working its way through Congress is not just a package of spending increases and tax cuts intended to jolt the nation out of recession. For Democrats, it is also a tool for rewriting the social contract with the poor, the uninsured and the unemployed, in ways they have long yearned to do.

With little notice and no public hearings, House Democrats would create a temporary new entitlement allowing workers getting unemployment checks to qualify for Medicaid, the health program for low-income people. Spouses and children could also receive benefits, no matter how much money the family had. In addition, the stimulus package would offer a hefty subsidy to help laid-off workers retain the same health plans they had from their former employers.

Altogether, the economic recovery bill would speed $127 billion over the next two and a half years to individuals and states for health care alone, a fact that has Republicans fuming that the stimulus package is a back door to universal health coverage ...

As Congress rushes to inject cash into a listless economy, it is setting aside many of the restraints that have checked new domestic spending for more than a decade. The White House said the changes contemplated by Congress would provide coverage for nearly 8.5 million newly uninsured people who had lost their jobs and would protect Medicaid for many more whose eligibility would otherwise be at risk.

Of the $127 billion cost, the Congressional Budget Office said, $87 billion would be used to increase the federal share of Medicaid, $29 billion would subsidize private insurance and $11 billion would finance Medicaid for unemployed workers who could not otherwise qualify.

Most of the aid is billed as temporary. But Republicans fear that states would get hooked on it, just as they might grow accustomed to a big increase in federal aid to education, also included in the bill ...

After the House Ways and Means Committee approved its piece of the economic recovery legislation last Thursday, Representative Pete Stark, Democrat of California, said, “We accomplished more today than in the last eight years.”

A Whirlwind First Week

From the Wash Post:

President Obama announced a series of new policies yesterday intended to reduce fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, capping a week of widespread changes aimed at reversing the legacy of George W. Bush.

In his first seven days in office, Obama has banned the use of controversial CIA interrogation tactics, ordered the closure of the U.S. military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and begun planning for the drawdown of troops in Iraq. He also imposed stringent limits on lobbyists, unveiled an $825 billion stimulus plan, and ordered a halt to any last-minute rules and regulations put in place by his predecessor.

The moves are part of an effort by Obama to follow through on his campaign promise to forge a new direction in Washington, administration officials said. "What you have seen in the first week is rapid change and a resetting of our global agenda," said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. "The president believes we can't afford to continue what we are doing. We can't afford to slow down."

Yet despite such ambitions, Obama and his aides are also facing a stark reality: Rolling back eight years of the Bush administration is not going to happen overnight ... At the same time, he also has suggested that he has no intention of lowering his sights. "There are some who question the scale of our ambitions, who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans," Obama said during the Jan. 20 speech. "Their memories are short, for they have forgotten what this country has already done, what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose and necessity to courage."

In addition to his early moves on intelligence policy, the environment and the economy, Obama lifted a ban on U.S. funding for international family planning groups that perform abortions, which was first put in place by Ronald Reagan and revived by Bush. The new president also vowed to open more federal records to public scrutiny and named former U.S. senator George J. Mitchell as a special envoy for Middle East peace ...

While many of his supporters may be expecting instant results, they are more likely to see a slow and steady push by Obama, accompanied by pleas for patience, aides said ...

Obama appears to be without peer among modern presidents in terms of the number of broad policy pronouncements made during his first week in office.

Obama Presents New Challenge For Al-Qaeda

From the Wash Post:

Soon after the November election, al-Qaeda's No. 2 leader took stock of America's new president-elect and dismissed him with an insulting epithet. "A house Negro," Ayman al-Zawahiri said.

That was just a warm-up. In the weeks since, the terrorist group has unleashed a stream of verbal tirades against Barack Obama, each more venomous than the last. Obama has been called a "hypocrite," a "killer" of innocents, an "enemy of Muslims." He was even blamed for the Israeli military assault on Gaza, which began and ended before he took office.

"He kills your brothers and sisters in Gaza mercilessly and without affection," an al-Qaeda spokesman declared in a grainy Internet video this month.

The torrent of hateful words is part of what terrorism experts now believe is a deliberate, even desperate, propaganda campaign against a president who appears to have gotten under al-Qaeda's skin. The departure of George W. Bush deprived al-Qaeda of a polarizing American leader who reliably drove recruits and donations to the terrorist group.

With Obama, al-Qaeda faces an entirely new challenge, experts say: a U.S. president who campaigned to end the Iraq war and to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and who polls show is well liked throughout the Muslim world.

Whether the pro-Obama sentiment will last remains to be seen. On Friday, the new administration signaled that it intends to continue at least one of Bush's controversial counterterrorism policies: allowing CIA missile strikes on alleged terrorist hideouts in Pakistan's autonomous tribal region.

But for now, the change in Washington appears to have rattled al-Qaeda's leaders, some of whom are scrambling to convince the faithful that Obama and Bush are essentially the same.

"They're highly uncertain about what they're getting in this new adversary," said Paul Pillar, a former CIA counterterrorism official who lectures on national security at Georgetown University. "For al-Qaeda, as a matter of image and tone, George W. Bush had been a near-perfect foil."

Al-Qaeda's rhetorical swipes at Obama date to the weeks before the election, when commentators on Web sites associated with the group debated which of the two major presidential candidates would be better for the jihadist movement. While opinions differed, a consensus view supported Republican  Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) as the man most likely to continue Bush administration policies and, it was hoped, drive the United States more deeply into a prolonged guerrilla war.

Soon after the vote, the attacks turned personal -- and insulting. In his Nov. 16 video message, Zawahiri denounced Obama as "the direct opposite of honorable black Americans" such as Malcolm X. He then used the term "house Negro," implying that Obama is merely a servant carrying out the orders of powerful whites.

Since then, as Obama has begun moving to reverse controversial Bush administration policies, the verbal attacks have become sharper, more frequent and more clearly aimed at Muslim audiences.

"Fair Pay Act Signals Pro-Labor Shift" - WSJ

According to the Wall St Journal:

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, named for a woman whose attempt to sue Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. for pay discrimination was blocked because she waited too long, is poised to be one of the first bills signed by President Barack Obama. If enacted, it could present a new tool for workers to fight for higher pay, and an array of challenges for businesses.

The bill, which won Senate approval late Thursday after the House approved it earlier this month, is one of the first of a series of pro-labor measures that Democrats hope to push through in the coming months. Its final passage would abrogate the May 2007 Supreme Court decision denying Ms. Ledbetter's right to sue, based on the ruling that she should have filed within 180 days of when the first discriminatory act occurred. In her case, that was a poor performance evaluation that she alleged led to lower pay than her male colleagues.

Under the bill, employees could file discrimination claims within 180 days of their most recent paycheck from the employer, even if the initial discrimination happened much earlier. The new measure would give workers the chance to recover back pay for up to the two years prior to their unfair pay claim ...

Supporters say the bill would increase worker protections -- especially for women paid at a lower rate than male counterparts. Organized labor strongly supports the legislation and views its rapid passage as a sign that the administration will advance other union priorities. "It certainly is a strong signal that President Obama intends to honor his campaign promise to protect workers and ensure that they can fully exercise their rights in the workplace without any obstacles," said Thea Lee, policy director for the AFL-CIO.

Ms. Lee denied opponents' claims that the legislation would lead to frivolous suits. "The cases are brought only in the most egregious circumstances," she said. "People don't do this for fun."

Opponents of the bill and some compensation consultants say it will cause new problems for employers. In addition to a potential spike in worker claims, employers worry about the burden of having to keep compensation records for an indefinite period of time. There also is concern about how courts might broadly interpret certain language in the bill. Wording in the bill stating the law could apply to individuals "affected by" the discrimination could be interpreted to mean a spouse or other family member of a worker could file suit, for example ...

"I think it's really critical for employers to assess the current compensation landscape and do an analysis to determine if there are any pay inequalities in their work force," he said.

Legislation that gets companies to proactively "determine if there are any pay inequalities in their work force" so that they can (presumabley) be corrected before there is a lawsuit is change for the better, don't you think WSJ?  I'm not holding my breathe waiting for their editorial ...

Bye, Bye Gag Rule

From the NY Times:

President Obama repealed rules on Friday that restricted federal money for international organizations that promote or provide abortions overseas, sweeping aside a pillar of the social policy architecture of George W. Bush’s presidency.

The executive order that Mr. Obama signed reverses one of the first measures enacted by Mr. Bush when he took over the White House eight years ago and capped an opening-week flurry of action intended to signal a sharp break from the past in domestic and foreign arenas.

Here's of Nancy Keenan of Naral from an email yesterday:

The global gag rule canceled funding for many overseas health clinics, forcing them to cut their staff, limit services, and sometimes close their doors entirely. In many cases, these health clinics were the only local sources of birth control for women!

This outrageous policy severely limits women's access to family-planning services, which can lead to tragic results—higher rates of unintended and high-risk pregnancy, unsafe abortion, and maternal death.

President Obama's decision to reverse the policy and release the funds for family planning overseas will enable women worldwide to have access to the comprehensive health care they deserve and need, including birth control.

Please join me now in thanking President Obama for giving these women a new hope for the future.

What To Do With Bush's Torture: Truth and Reconciliation Not Prosecution

Keith Olbermann lays out a strong argument in his Special Comment below as to why Obama must not let Bush's approval & use of torture go unremarked into the history books. I agree with Keith's slippery slope view that if we let this "small" use of torture in "extreme" circumstances stand, it'll be all too easy for some future President in some future circumstance to torture again and with fewer constraints.  And then some other President will do even worse and the moral dam against torture that Bush has driven a waterboard through, will have been completely breached.

But I also understand President Obama's (ok, as I write this, this title is a bit premature but it feels so good to write it) desire to "look forward and not back."  And after reading Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln I have much more respect for the need to not alienate, indeed even accommodate, one's rivals during times of crisis. And there can be no doubt that an indictment and trial of high level Bush administration officials, let alone ex-President Bush (boy does that feel great to write!), would instantly destroy the current bipartisan love in (I was amazed watching Newt Gingrich this morning on Fox ... if he was any more insincerely complimentary of Obama I was going to retch) and return us to the partisan depths of Clinton impeachment days.

So what to do? Luckily there is a model out there for how to set the historical record straight without tearing up a society, and they've been used in far more horrendous situations than we find ourselves: Truth and Reconciliation Commissions.  As formally used to address Apartheid crimes in South Africa and informally to staunch the wounds of the Rwandan genocide, these bodies get the truth out, publicly repudiate despicable acts reducing the likelihood they'd occur in the future and help a society reconcile. And one of the most important ways they do all these things is by guaranteeing the guilty that they will not be prosecuted. And by removing fear of prosecution, both sides participate allowing the truth to not only come out, but to do so far, far more quickly.

In our context, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission would also have another very important benefit: it will take away the Republican's main argument against a Bush torture investigation. By getting at the truth without fear of imprisonment, the GOP will not be able to argue that honest policy differences are being criminalized; instead it will be clear that what we're doing is trying to get at the truth in a desire to reestablish core American values.

Previous Inauguration Speeches

To get you in the mood for tomorrow, here are inaugural speeches from FDR, JFK, Reagan, daddy Bush & Clinton (and if you're curious to read an analysis of the task before Obama as he finalizes his speech, check this out) ...

Obama Frees Science

Obama On 'This Week'

Obama had a very interesting interview on This Week With George S yesterday. ABC does not allow its videos to be embedded, so to watch it, click one of the links below:

WATCH: Obama on Economy, 'Grand Bargain'   WATCH: Obama: Everyone Must Sacrifice   WATCH: Mumbai Copycats?   WATCH: The Roundtable: 'Grand Bailout'

'This Week' Transcript: Barack Obama Obama: Gitmo Closing Could Take a While Obama Calls for Economic 'Grand Bargain' WATCH: Obama: Everyone Must Sacrifice Obamas to Search for D.C. Church WATCH: Obama Seeks D.C. Church Will Obama Prosecute Bush Officials? WATCH: Prosecuting Bush Officials? Obama Slams Cheney on Torture WATCH: Obama Vs. Cheney WATCH: Obama Defends Taxcuts WATCH: Obama on Girls' Puppy WATCH: The Green Room: GOP Grief

Another Lincoln Moment for Obama

I just finished, and highly recommend, Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. It's a great book and we're very lucky that the President we have right now, at this moment of crisis, is using Lincoln as his role model. If he in fact does emulate Lincoln, this book is going to be a veritable road map to understanding the Obama Presidency. (Check it out on Amazon.)

From the AP:

President-elect Barack Obama made an unannounced visit Saturday night with his family to see the Lincoln Memorial, paying tribute to a former president he frequently invokes as an inspiration.

It was a day in which Obama played the role of tourist, seeing the most famous monuments in the nation's capital while experiencing the flavor of the city.

After riding in a motorcade from their temporary home at the Hay-Adams Hotel, Obama, his wife, Michelle, and daughters Malia and Sasha entered the grounds around the memorial shortly after 7 p.m. Bundled in coats in the near-40 degree weather, they walked up the dozens of steps in a close pack and into the memorial.

Once inside, Obama and his family had the opportunity to gaze at the nearly 20-foot statue of the 16th president and see the carved inscriptions of Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address and his Gettysburg Address on the walls.

After touring the memorial for about 20 minutes, including the lower part of the memorial that houses some exhibits, the Obamas walked out, facing the reflecting pool and Washington Monument. They waved to some onlookers standing around the memorial's lower steps.

Obama frequently invokes the memory of Lincoln. He announced he was running for president in Springfield, Ill., at the steps of the Old Capitol, where Lincoln was a legislator.

He even plans to use the same Bible at his inauguration that Lincoln used for his swearing in. Obama will be the first president since Lincoln to use that Bible, part of the collection of the Library of Congress.

On Inauguration Day, the luncheon that will be served in Congress's Statuary Hall to Obama, Vice President-elect Joe Biden and their families -- as well as congressional leaders, justices of the Supreme Court and pending members of Obama's Cabinet -- will include foods that Lincoln enjoyed.

Obama will be back at the Lincoln Memorial soon. He plans to trace the train route that Lincoln took and hold a welcome event at the Lincoln Memorial ahead of his Jan. 20 inauguration.

Obama's Tax Cut Gambit: Shrewder Than You (& I) Think

Noam Schreiber doesn't think Obama is passively trying to walk a political tightrope between tax cuts and infrastructure spending (as I've written here and here). Instead, he intriguingly thinks Obama is being shrewd in actively calling the GOP's bluff by supporting a large percentage of tax cuts so that the nation can debate who gets the tax cuts:

Another thought occurred to me reading this morning's storiesabout Obama's trip to the Hill yesterday. One of the presumed rationales for leaning so heavily on tax cuts is political, the theory being that it helps you attract GOP votes. (Set aside the substantive rationale, which is powerful on its own, and Obama's denial of this motive.) In response to which, people like Paul Krugman argue that:

Republicans are not going to come on board. Make 40% of the package tax cuts, they’ll demand 100%. Then they’ll start the thing about how you can’t cut taxes on people who don’t pay taxes (with only income taxes counting, of course) and demand that the plan focus on the affluent. Then they’ll demand cuts in corporate taxes. And Mitch McConnell is already saying that state and local governments should get loans, not aid--which would undermine that part of the plan, too.

I think that's mostly right as a prediction of the GOP response. But, unlike Krugman, I think that response could be a good thing for Obama and the Democrats, in that it exposes the GOP's true priorities in a way that's politically damaging to them.

By agreeing to channel up to 40 percent of the stimulus through tax cuts, Obama is essentially calling the GOP's bluff. He's saying, "You guys are making a principled argument that tax cuts can be a more efficient way to stimulate the economy. I'm accepting that argument in large part. So rather than spend a lot of money helping low- and middle-income people, I'm going to get that money to them via tax cuts."

At which point he's kind of backed them into a corner. If the GOP accepts, then great. If they turn around and say, "Well, when we said tax cuts, we actually meant tax cuts for wealthy people, not for low- and middle-income people," then it becomes blindingly obvious that they weren't making a principled argument at all. They were trying to shake Obama down on behalf of their rich cronies.

And, indeed, it looks like the GOP, while momentarily torn, can't resist the taking the bait. According to today's Post, Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl is responding by pushing for permanent cuts in corporate and capital gains taxes--neither of which is likely to have much short-term stimulative effect. (See herefor an explanation of the faulty capital gains logic.) Something tells me Obama won't have trouble winning a debate between tax cuts for working people and tax cuts for big business and wealthy investors.

In a sense, this is an early application of the "theory of change" Obama hinted at during the Democratic primaries, which American Prospect editor Mark Schmitt  brilliantly sized up. Back then Schmitt wrote:

As Michael Tomasky describes it in his review of The Audacity of Hope, "The chapters boil down to a pattern: here's what the right believes about subject X, and here's what the left believes; and while I basically side with the left, I think the right has a point or two that we should consider, and the left can sometimes get a little carried away." What I find fascinating about his language about unity and cross-partisanship is that it is not premised on finding Republicans who agree with him, but on taking in good faith the language and positions of actual conservatism -- people who don't agree with him. ...

The reason the conservative power structure has been so dangerous, and is especially dangerous in opposition, is that it can operate almost entirely on bad faith. It thrives on protest, complaint, fear: higher taxes, you won't be able to choose your doctor, liberals coddle terrorists, etc. One way to deal with that kind of bad-faith opposition is to draw the person in, treat them as if they were operating in good faith, and draw them into a conversation about how they actually would solve the problem. If they have nothing, it shows.

Exactly.

"The President is starting to get hit from both sides"

The problem first posted about in Getting The Right Balance Between Spending & Tax Cuts Will Be Tricky reared its head again yesterday -- conservatives want to stimulate by cutting taxes, progressives correctly claim that spending provides more stimulus bang for the buck and should be a much bigger part of the plan:

The NY Times' analysis:

The fresh evidence on Friday of the economy’s downward spiral focused even more attention on two questions: Is the stimulus package being pushed by President-elect Barack Obama big enough? And will the component parts being assembled by Congress provide the most bang for the buck?

With the Federal Reserve having just about reached the limit of how much it can help the economy with cuts in the interest rate, Washington’s ability to end or at least limit the recession depends in large part on the effectiveness of the big package of additional spending and tax cuts that Mr. Obama has made the centerpiece of his agenda.

And with the economy facing what now seems sure to be the sharpest downturn since the 1930s, the financial system balky and the government facing towering budget deficits, economists and policy makers acknowledge that there is no playbook.

“We have very few good examples to guide us,” said William G. Gale, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, the liberal-leaning research organization. “I don’t know of any convincing evidence that what has been proposed is going to be enough.”

In part because Mr. Obama wants and needs bipartisan support, the package is being shaped by political as well as economic imperatives, complicating the process by putting competing ideological approaches into the mix.

It includes $300 billion in temporary tax cuts for individuals and businesses, in part to attract Republican support. It includes a big expansion of safety-net programs like unemployment insurance, which Democrats say makes both economic and social sense. It includes more money for highways, schools and other public infrastructure; more money for “green” energy projects; and more money to help state governments pay for health care and education.

Republicans, as always, are advocating for more and broader tax cuts. But the evidence is ambiguous about whether tax cuts will really spur economic activity at a time when consumers and businesses alike are frozen in fear and reluctant to let go of their money.

The risk is that Mr. Obama and the Congress will weigh down their effort with measures that cost many billions of dollars but may not have much impact on economic activity.

Gallup: Majority of Americans Back Stimulus Package

From the Wash Post:

A narrow majority of Americans favor the Democratic leadership's efforts to put a $775 billion economic stimulus package on President-elect Barack Obama's desk quickly after he takes office. A Gallup poll released yesterday found 53 percent in favor of such a bill, 36 percent opposed.

Broader majorities backed several specific components of Obama's plan -- including tax cuts for individuals, families and businesses and increased spending on infrastructure -- while fewer were in favor of expanded aid to state governments.

Along party lines, Democrats expressed broadest support for the overall plan (67 percent), followed by a slim majority of independents who backed it (54 percent); 34 percent of Republicans said they support the bill. Ideological leanings, however, further divide the GOP. Moderate and liberal Republicans were about evenly split on the plan (46 percent in favor, 44 percent opposed), while conservative GOPers tilted heavily against the package (68 percent opposed it).

Turning to the policies that may make up such a plan, more than seven in 10 told Gallup's pollsters they backed job creation via spending on infrastructure (78 percent favor), tax cuts for businesses to encourage job creation (75 percent) and tax cuts of up to $1,000 for families and $500 for individuals (72 percent).

Majorities across party lines favored each of these proposals, with the widest gap coming on increased spending on infrastructure (89 percent of Democrats favored that component, as did 77 percent of independents and 66 percent of Republicans).

The public was more closely divided on increasing aid to state governments in order to avoid budget shortfalls: 49 percent favored such spending, 42 percent opposed it. Only among Democrats (62 percent in favor) did the plan gain majority support. About half of independents (48 percent) and a third of Republicans (33 percent) supported it.

Getting The Right Balance Between Spending & Tax Cuts Will Be Tricky

President-elect Obama's first major speech details his sweeping economic stimulus plan and the need for urgent action:

The speech was the backdrop for the goings on in Congress on his economic stimulus plan. From the NY Times:

President-elect Barack Obama’s economic recovery plan ran into crossfire from his own party in Congress on Thursday, suggesting that quick passage of spending programs and tax cuts could require more time and negotiation than Democrats once hoped.

Senate Democrats complained that major components of his plan were not bold enough and urged more focus on creating jobs and rebuilding the nation’s energy infrastructure rather than cutting taxes.

Just hours earlier, Mr. Obama called for speedy passage of the stimulus measure, warning that the recession “could linger for years” if Congress did not pass his plan within weeks.

Further complicating the picture, Democratic senators said Thursday that they would try to attach legislation to the package that would allow bankruptcy courts to modify home loans, a move Republicans have opposed ...

While relying on traditionally liberal notions of using government spending to spur growth, he has also tried to adapt it for a new era with investment in clean energy and technology. And he is trying to balance all of that with tax breaks that appeal to Republicans.

But the broad support he has enjoyed so far for the basic concept is now being tested as the specifics become clearer. While conservatives criticize the high spending, and moderate Democrats express concern about the swelling deficit, liberals are pushing for even more money devoted to social programs, alternative-energy development and road, bridge and school construction.

David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, said the president-elect’s team was not concerned by the emerging pockets of criticism of his plan.

“Obviously, it’s a big answer to a big problem and there are a lot of component parts to it,” Mr. Axelrod said in an interview after meeting with balky Senate Democrats. “These folks are not potted plants. They’re elected officials, and they’re doing their jobs.”

He added, “It’s a collective process, and we’re willing to listen to people’s ideas.” Asked if they were willing to adopt people’s ideas, Mr. Axelrod said: “We’ll see. It depends on the idea.”

Mr. Axelrod’s comments came after a spirited meeting at the Capitol where he and two other Obama aides, Lawrence H. Summers, the incoming national economic adviser, and Philip Schiliro, tapped to be the chief White House lobbyist, heard lots of frustration from Democratic senators.

Trillion Dollar Deficits

Even with the prospect of historic deficts, Obama's not backing down from his key Change policies. Though sincere expressions of desire to control the deficit like this story will certainly help him with more fiscally conservative legislators & Wall St. From the NY Times:

President-elect Barack Obama on Tuesday braced Americans for the unparalleled prospect of “trillion-dollar deficits for years to come,” a stark assessment of the budgetary outlook that he said would force his administration to impose tighter fiscal discipline on the government.

Mr. Obama sought to distinguish between the need to run what is likely to be record-setting deficits for several years and the necessity to begin bringing them down markedly in subsequent years. Even as he prepares a stimulus plan that is expected to total nearly $800 billion in new spending and tax cuts over the next two years, he said he would make sure the money was wisely spent, and he pledged to work with Congress to enact spending controls and efficiency measures throughout the federal budget.

“We’re not going to be able to expect the American people to support this critical effort unless we take extraordinary steps to ensure that the investments are made wisely and managed well,” Mr. Obama said, speaking about the dire fiscal outlook after meeting with his economic team for a second straight day.

In his most explicit language on the subject since winning the election, Mr. Obama sought to reassure lawmakers and the financial markets that he was aware of the long-term dangers of running huge deficits and would take steps to limit and eventually reduce them ...

Mr. Obama has made the economy virtually the sole public focus of his first full week in Washington since winning the election. He called on Tuesday for the creation of an economic recovery oversight board that would include outside advisers to monitor spending — and find abuses — of the economic stimulus plan. He also said earmarks for lawmakers’ special projects would be banned from the bill ...

While economists almost universally support running large deficits to combat the kind of steep recession the country is grappling with now, they are increasingly expressing alarm at the prospect of sustained fiscal imbalances heading into a period in which the aging of the population will create huge budgetary strains because of the growing costs of the Medicare and Social Security programs.

Still, the deficit now seems likely to be so large that it will inevitably constrain Mr. Obama’s administration to some degree ... Mr. Obama has so far not backed away from any of the big initiatives he ran on, including his plan to expand health insurance. On that issue, as on others, he has begun making a case that the economically prudent course is to invest now in addressing the nation’s big challenges rather than avoiding them in the name of saving money in the short run ...

At $1 trillion, the deficit would not only shatter the largest previous shortfall in dollar terms — $455 billion last year — but it could also exceed the post-World War II-era record by the measure more meaningful in economic terms, the deficit as a percentage of total economic activity.

Diane Rogers, chief economist at the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan organization that supports fiscal discipline, estimated that the deficit this year would hit 7 percent of the gross domestic product. The largest previous record in those terms was in 1983, when it hit 6 percent.

It's Not Direct Spending OR Tax Cuts, It's BOTH

An interesting point, from Jonathan Cohn of TNR:

If the government wants to stimulate the economy, it's generally better off spending that money directly--on infrastructure projects, unrestricted aid to the states, or direct assistance to the financially needy--than it would be cutting taxes. That's led writers like me to question Obama's decision to include as much as $300 billion in tax cuts as part of a stimulus package that will ultimately be worth $675 to $775* total. 

But those doubts are misplaced, according to a senior economic adviser who just spoke with me. The adviser argues thusly:

The spending versus taxes distinction is the wrong way to think about it. The question is at the margin. So one dollar of infrastructure is better than one dollar of tax cuts. But if you already have a hundred dollars of infrastructure then adding one dollar of infrastructure is a lot less effective than adding one dollar of tax cuts.

This adviser also emphasized the plight Obama's team faced in crafting a stimulus, one I had noted (again, echoing the likes of Paul Krugman). Spending more than a few hundred billion dollars of government money actually isn't that easy, assuming you're determined to do it in ways that will quickly stimulate economic activity ...

*Note: In my original item, I said the Obama stimulus proposal would end up somewhere between $600 and $700 billion. The real number, I'm now told, is $675 to $775 billion--which, to be clear, is a lot of money. As I've noted previously, that ambition alone is something for which Obama deserves credit.

Change Comes To The Justice Dept.

From the NY Times:

President-elect Barack Obama reached back to the Clinton administration again Monday to fill four top Justice Department posts with lawyers whose records signal a sharp break from the legal policies of the last eight years.

Mr. Obama said he would nominate David W. Ogden, a Washington lawyer in private practice, as deputy attorney general; Elena Kagan, dean of the Harvard Law School, as solicitor general; Thomas J. Perrelli, a Washington lawyer, as associate attorney general; and Dawn E. Johnsen, an Indiana University law professor, as head of the Office of Legal Counsel. All four held senior legal posts in the Clinton administration.

Many of Mr. Obama’s picks in other cabinet departments have taken on a decidedly centrist bent. But at the Justice Department, where controversial Bush administration policies like interrogation tactics and eavesdropping will come under review, the nomination of Eric H. Holder Jr. as attorney general last month and Monday’s selections of four top aides suggested a strong effort to stake out a new direction.

For instance, Ms. Johnsen, who would provide legal interpretations to the entire Obama administration, did not try to hide her disdain for recent counterterrorism initiatives in a law review article last year titled: “What’s a President to Do: Interpreting the Constitution in the Wake of the Bush Administration’s Abuses.”

She criticized the “unnecessary unilateralism of the Bush years” in programs like the National Security Agency’s program of wiretapping without warrants and the administration’s approval of simulated drowning, or waterboarding, in the questioning of suspected Al Qaeda operatives ...

Mr. Obama, in announcing his four new choices on Monday, said, “I have the fullest confidence that they will ensure that the Department of Justice once again fulfills its highest purpose: to uphold the Constitution and protect the American people.”

More Details Of Obama Stimulus Plan Emerge

It's not going to be only roads and bridges as Obama plans major tax cuts that'll put money directly into people's pockets and increases in unemployment & health care benefits to help the ones most directly impacted by the bad economy.

First the NY Times on Obama's $300 billion worth of tax cuts:

The legislation Mr. Obama is developing with Congressional Democrats will devote about 40 percent of the cost to tax cuts, including his centerpiece campaign promise to provide credits up to $500 for most workers, costing roughly $150 billion. The package will also include more than $100 billion in tax incentives for businesses to create jobs and invest in equipment or factories ...

Mr. Obama during his campaign called the Making Work Pay credit, worth up to $500 for individuals and $1,000 for families. The Obama campaign estimated that about 150 million Americans making less than $200,000 would qualify, including those who make too little to pay federal income taxes but would receive a check that would offset Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes ...

Mr. Obama’s advisers said Sunday that they were searching for a way to get that credit into Americans’ pockets quickly to help stimulate spending, but would not duplicate the rebate checks sent last year as part of an economic package signed by President Bush. Instead, they said, they were discussing making the credit retroactive to the 2008 tax year and adjusting withholding formulas so paychecks would start reflecting that right away ...

To encourage businesses to expand their work forces and operations, Mr. Obama wants a tax credit for each job created. During the campaign, he proposed $3,000 for each job. Advisers said he was now also trying to figure out a way to give incentives to businesses to resist cutting jobs, as so many have been doing.

The economic plan will also include other tax breaks intended to stir capital investment. The stimulus package Mr. Bush signed last year included a provision generally allowing businesses immediate depreciation of half of their spending in 2008 on new equipment, rather than spreading out that depreciation over years, reducing their immediate tax burdens. Mr. Obama’s advisers said they were planning to build on that, either by extending it to investment in 2009 and 2010 or through some other mechanism.

The Obama plan would also allow businesses to apply net operating losses from last year to offset tax liabilities from prior years, enabling them to claim refunds from the government now in hopes of encouraging capital investment, much as was done in a 2002 economic stimulus plan.

Then, the NY Times again, this time on changes to unemployment benefits & other goodies in the plan:

President-elect Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats are considering major expansions of government-assisted health care insurance and unemployment compensation as they begin intensive work this week on a two-year economic recovery package.

One proposal, as described by Democratic advisers, would extend unemployment compensation to part-time workers, an idea that Congressional Republicans have blocked in the past.

Other policy changes would subsidize employers’ expenses for temporarily continuing health insurance coverage to laid-off and retired workers and their dependents, as mandated under a 22-year-old federal law known as Cobra, and allow workers who lose jobs that did not come with insurance benefits to be eligible, for the first time, to apply for Medicaid coverage.

The proposals indicate the sorts of potentially long-range changes that Mr. Obama intends to push in his promised American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan, as he named it in his weekly Saturday address on the radio and YouTube. They will be combined with one-time measures that are more typical of federal stimulus packages to jump-start a weak economy, like spending for roads and other job-creating public works projects ...

In the emerging Obama plan, such items will include $140 billion to $200 billion in relief to states to offset their budget-busting costs for Medicaid and education; extension of unemployment compensation for former full-time workers, which runs out in March; and billions of dollars for construction projects that Mr. Obama has called “shovel ready.”

But Mr. Obama has also said his recovery plan must make down-payments on his campaign promises for permanent changes that will reshape the economy, especially for the good of low-wage and middle-class workers. Such changes could carry permanent costs for new energy, education, health care and tax policies.

For example, Mr. Obama previously indicated that he would seek money to develop a national energy grid to harness and distribute power from wind, water and other local alternative energy sources.

Additional money to subsidize local governments’ education costs in the downturn could become a fixture, increasing the once-small federal role beyond its expansion under President Bush. Besides money for school construction and renovations, Congressional aides said they expected an increase in financing to educate students with disabilities and special needs. Officials also are exploring potential increases for Head Start childhood education programs and Pell Grant scholarships for college students ...

till, officials said the size of the proposed two-year stimulus, equivalent to nearly a year of federal discretionary spending, had tested imaginations both in Congress and the Obama camp. Aides and advisers are struggling to identify enough projects that would meet Mr. Obama’s criteria that they be truly stimulative, create jobs and not be open to being branded as pork.

“This has really forced people to think outside the box,” one aide on the House Appropriations Committee said, “because this is more money than anybody expected to be spending.”

The Good & The Bad Of Inspiring Hope

Because of inspiring moments like these during the campaign:

Obama now has to deal with this:

 

Divergent Views Within Obama Camp On Climate Change

From the NY Times:

As Mr. Obama seeks to find the right balance between his environmental goals and his plans to revive the economy, he may have to resolve conflicting views among some of his top advisers ...

According to a transition official familiar with Mr. Summers’s thinking [Summer leads the incoming economic team], he is wary of moving very quickly on a carbon cap, because doing so could raise energy costs, kill jobs and deepen the current recession. He foresees a phase-in of several years for any carbon restraint regime, particularly if the economy continues to be sluggish, a slower timetable than many lawmakers and environmentalists are pressing.

Mr. Summers and Peter R. Orszag, the economist whom Mr. Obama has designated director of the White House budget office, have both argued that a tax on carbon emissions from burning gasoline, coal and other fuels might be a more economically efficient means of regulating pollutants than a cap-and-trade system, under which an absolute ceiling on emissions is set and polluters are allowed to buy and sell permits to meet it.

But Mr. Obama and Ms. Browner [who has been designated the White House coordinator of energy and climate policy] have ruled out a straight carbon tax ... Mr. Obama was asked in a television interview last month whether he would consider imposing a stiff tax on gasoline, whose price has now fallen to below $2 a gallon after cresting above $4 a gallon last summer.

He replied that while American families were getting some relief at the pump, they were hurting in other ways, through rising unemployment and falling home values. “So putting additional burdens on American families right now, I think, is a mistake,” he said.

At least for the present, then, the idea of a carbon tax has been shelved, and Mr. Obama’s economic and environmental advisers are working, along with Congress, to devise a cap-and-trade system.

But difficult debates lie ahead within the White House, between the White House and Congress, and within the Democratic Party, whose deep divisions on climate change break down along ideological and geographical lines.

Marijuana Is Decriminalized In Massachusetts As Of Today

From the Boston Globe:

It's no longer a crime to have one ounce or less of pot. The state's new marijuana decriminalization law, approved by voters in a November referendum, goes into effect today.

Those who are caught with an ounce or less would get a ticket similar to a building code citation. They could appeal the civil infraction in court within 21 days or pay a $100 fine set in the law. Juvenile violators would have to pay the fine and attend a drug abuse counseling course, or have the fine increased to $1,000.

The state Executive Office of Public Safety and Security released guidelines Monday in response to questions about the law. The state noted that the new statute applied to all substances that contain THC, which includes hashish and hash oil. THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, is the active ingredient in marijuana that gives users a high.

The state also asked communities to consider passing local ordinances criminalizing the use of marijuana in public, which today is only a civil offense if the smoker possesses an ounce or less.

Obama's Plans

This CNN report focuses on the economic crisis:

This MSNBC report starts with a broader view of all the challenges, and opportunities, Obama faces and then seques into the family's move to DC:

More Good Transition News For Progressives: Conservatives Are Mad

This report from the Wash Post elaborates on yesterday's Warren-was-symbolic-but-actual-appointments-and-policies-are-what-count theme:

Some well-known Democratic activists are advising Obama on how to steer federal agencies, including a few whom conservative Republicans fought hard to keep out of power in the Clinton administration. They include Roberta Achtenberg, a gay activist whose confirmation as an assistant housing secretary was famously held up by then-Sen.  Jesse Helms (N.C.), and Bill Lann Lee, who was hotly opposed by foes of affirmative action and temporarily blocked from the government's top civil rights job.

Conservatives fear that some of these Obama transition advisers are too far left on the political spectrum and are a sign of radical policies to come.

"It is disturbing," said Roger Clegg, a conservative opponent of Lee's appointment who is now watching the Obama advisers at the Justice Department. "The transition team as described to me was made up of nothing but people on the far left. Though Obama is more moderate, that makes you wonder what kind of advice the president is given, and what range of choices he'll be given when it comes time to make appointments."

But some government experts argue that in this particular transition, a wider-than-usual ideological gap separates the outgoing Bush administration and the incoming Obama team and that both sides are likely to view the other as extreme.

"The incoming Bush people were all about stopping regulation. The Obama people will do their best to accelerate regulation that they think protects the environment, workers, airline safety, et cetera," said Paul Light, a New York University professor of government who has served as a consultant on the transition to The Washington Post. "That's not barbarians at the gate. It's a difference of philosophy." ...

Lani Guinier, a Harvard law professor who was blocked for the same job before Lee's nomination, said she thinks the complaints of an ultra-left takeover by Obama advisers and nominees are manufactured hyperbole.

"The Bush administration people were often fighting against the very mission of the agencies they were supposed to be running," she said. "And their advocates were masters at name-calling and finger-pointing. No one involved in this work really thinks Bill Lee is on the radical fringe."

Besides Achtenberg and Lee, other transition advisers' past positions are sending off flares in the ultra-conservative wing of the Republican Party. None of them responded to requests for comment.

William V. Corr, a vocal tobacco-control activist at the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, publicly attacked the Bush administration in 2006 for weakening the government's prosecution of tobacco companies and its chances for regulating tobacco. Now he is making recommendations for strengthening the Food and Drug Administration's regulation of millions of other grocery and drugstore products, though he has recused himself from discussing tobacco.

John Leshy, a longtime solicitor in Clinton's Interior Department, angered mining company executives in the 1990s with his push for more regulations of mining operations and strict interpretations of mining law. He is now on the transition team advising Obama on Interior.

Symbolism Vs. Substance: A Gay Secretary of the Navy?

Since the Rich Warren brouhaha, progressives have been faced with the challenge of weighing the importance of symbolic vs. concrete acts.  On the one hand, there's the appropriate condemnation of Obama for his symbolic act of choosing Warren to give 1 of the 2 inaugural prayers (Rick, btw, continues to cause trouble). On the other hand, as I argued in Being Pragmatic In The Face Of Evil, while symbolism counts, what's going to ultimately impact people's lives are the concrete policies he puts in place and people he selects to administer them. So it's good to hear that Obama is seriously considering putting an openly gay man in charge of the Navy. From Newsweek:

As gay activists protest the selection of evangelical megapastor Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation, they could have reason to cheer a future Obama announcement. Sources tell NEWSWEEK that the president-elect is considering the appointment of the first openly gay chief of a military branch.

Bill White, president of the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museumin New York, is being backed by congressional and former military leaders to be the next secretary of the Navy. Among White's vocal supporters are retired Gen. Hugh Shelton, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat whose district includes the newly renovated Intrepid museum which sits on an aircraft carrier in the Hudson River. Nadler says members of Obama's transition team have reached out to him about White. "They're clearly vetting him," he tells NEWSWEEK.

Because the Navy secretary is a civilian job, White's appointment wouldn't directly conflict with the military ban on gays. But it would certainly bring new attention to the Pentagon's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy as Obama gets ready to take office. Getting rid of that law--under which more than 12,000 members of the military have been discharged--was an Obama campaign promise, though the president-elect has since acknowledged its repeal might take some time. If nominated, White, 42, will likely face questions about his take on that policy, implemented by President Clinton in 1993 ...

In a statement released by the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay advocacy group, President Joe Solmonese said White's nomination would be a "concrete demostration" that the Obama administration sees "no place" for employment discrimination in government. "President-elect Obama has said both during his time in the Senate and on the campaign trail that overturning 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' was a priority for him, but he's also been straightforward and realistic that this is a measure that's going to require a great deal of strategy," Solmonese tells NEWSWEEK. "The consideration of this appointment certainly bodes well for keeping with Obama's commitment to address this issue."

Goodbye Faith-Based Presidency, Hello Science & Rational Thought

Here's the official spin from Change.gov:

In the latest weekly address, President-elect Barack Obama took a bold stand for making decisions based on science and facts rather than ideology as he introduced leading members of his science and technology team.

“The truth is that promoting science isn’t just about providing resources—it’s about protecting free and open inquiry,” President-elect Obama said. “It’s about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology. It’s about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it’s inconvenient—especially when it’s inconvenient. Because the highest purpose of science is the search for knowledge, truth and a greater understanding of the world around us. That will be my goal as President of the United States—and I could not have a better team to guide me in this work.”

The Wash Post's take:

President-elect  Barack Obama's selection Saturday of a Harvard physicist and a marine biologist for science posts is a sign he plans a more aggressive response to global warming than did the Bush administration.

John Holdren and Jane Lubchenco are leading experts on climate change who have advocated forceful government action. Holdren will become Obama's science adviser as director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Lubchenco will lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees ocean and atmospheric studies and does much of the government's research on global warming.

Holdren also will direct the president's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology. Joining him as co-chairs will be Nobel Prize-winning scientist Harold Varmus, a former director of the National Institutes of Health, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Eric Lander, a specialist in human genome research ...

President-elect  Barack Obama's selection Saturday of a Harvard physicist and a marine biologist for science posts is a sign he plans a more aggressive response to global warming than did the Bush administration.

John Holdren and Jane Lubchenco are leading experts on climate change who have advocated forceful government action. Holdren will become Obama's science adviser as director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Lubchenco will lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees ocean and atmospheric studies and does much of the government's research on global warming.

Holdren also will direct the president's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology. Joining him as co-chairs will be Nobel Prize-winning scientist Harold Varmus, a former director of the National Institutes of Health, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Eric Lander, a specialist in human genome research.

Poll: Strong Support For Obama's Progressive Policies

From the Wash Post:

Most Americans are optimistic about the policies that Barack Obama will pursue when he becomes the country's 44th president next month, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, and there is a widespread public desire that he quickly expand his focus beyond the economy, the dominant issue facing the country.

Majorities think Obama should help make major changes to the health-care system, enact new energy policies and institute a moratorium on home foreclosures. Majorities expect him to end U.S. involvement in Iraq, improve health care and turn around America's image abroad. But there is little consensus about where he should focus his efforts first, and partisan fault lines abound, setting up a potentially contentious period of initial lawmaking.

Obama and the Democratic leadership in Congress have indicated that the first legislation offered in the new year will focus on the nation's flagging economy, an issue on which two-thirds of those polled said the new president and Congress should concentrate. A similar proportion, 65 percent, support a large stimulus package along the lines sketched out in recent days by the Obama transition team.

Large majorities want Obama to pursue a wide range of issues besides the economy, including 84 percent who want him to drive an effort to require electricity companies to increase the use of renewable sources of energy. A majority, 55 percent, want him to tackle the issue right after taking office in January.

Being Pragmatic In The Face Of Evil

After strongly encouraging comments in Inviting Warren: Canary In The Coal Mine Or More Political Savvy? I have only received one (so far), but it is a thoughtful, helpful comment from Syphax:

Marriage equality advocates have every right to be upset, given this invitation in the context of the November election results. But beyond being a kick in the gut for many, this whole thing doesn't matter.

Lincoln, on a personal level, felt slavery was a "monstrous injustice" (as he said in the Lincoln-Douglass debates in 1858). Yet, as President, Lincoln's actions with regard to slavery were wholly pragmatic, as evidenced in his letter to Horace Greeley. He didn't sign the Emancipation Proclamation ASAP upon taking office; he did it at a tactically prudent time (late 1862). And it didn't even abolish slavery in the Union!

My point is this: I believe Obama when he says he's an advocate of LGBT issues, and he may even be "fierce" on a personal level. But it's very clear that Obama is a very, very pragmatic person, who is not going to do the right thing if it's strategically wrong. As Lincoln showed, that is a good thing.

I am going to judge Obama by what he's accomplished by 2011-2012. It's awfully early to bail on the guy because of Rick Warren.

John Harwood, starting at about the 3:30 mark, argues that you don't have to wait 3 or 4 years to judge Obama because when it comes to what ultimately matters, when it comes to "policy, he has not tacked toward the center." The selection of Warren is just a "case of symbolism" and could pay political benefits if it helps get Obama's progressive agenda enacted.

This got me thinking about symbolism, pragmatism and the effective use of political capital. How would have modern progressives reacted to Lincoln's pragmatism in the face of slavery's monstrous evil?  Would they have cut Lincoln some slack or been all over him for his slow (but ultimately successful) approach?  How would history, and history's judgement of Lincoln, been different?

What do you think? More of my thoughts soon.

Why Obama Gets An "A" For Choosing Duncan

At least according to Seyward Darby of The New Republic:

Arne Duncan wasn't Mayor Richard Daley's first choice to lead Chicago's public schools in 2001. But when Daley's top pick declined the offer, he turned to Duncan, who at the time was young and relatively unknown to the public, despite having served as deputy chief of staff to outgoing CEO Paul Vallas. Now, seven years later, Duncan has been tapped as Obama's secretary of education--and many Chicago education leaders I spoke to said they're sad to see him go.

That comes as no surprise, considering all that Duncan's done to improve the Windy City's schools. He's pushed for aggressive reforms that have at times placed him at odds with the city's education establishment. But he's also managed to appeal to that establishment, averting teachers' strikes like those that plagued the city in previous decades. "Duncan always took a pass on the education fad of the day, choosing instead to invest in long-term approaches supported by solid research," the Chicago Sun-Times said in an editorial this morning.

Indeed, Duncan's proven that he's the right pick for the Cabinet job. He's been a leader in the education reform movement, which supports tough policies on teacher accountability, merit pay, high-stakes testing, and fixing failing schools. And yet, he's also been keenly diplomatic with traditional forces like teachers' unions--more so than the likes of Michelle Rhee in D.C. and Joel Klein in New York. It's this blend of innovation and savvy that Obama's betting will serve Duncan well in Washington.  <Continue reading.>

Obama Stirs Hope For Early Education

From the NY Times:

After years of what they call backhanded treatment by the Bush administration, whose focus has been on the testing of older children, many [early childhood education] advocates are atremble with anticipation over Mr. Obama’s espousal of early childhood education.

In the presidential debates, he twice described it as among his highest priorities, and his choice for secretary of education, Arne Duncan, the Chicago schools superintendent, is a strong advocate for it.

And the $10 billion Mr. Obama has pledged for early childhood education would amount to the largest new federal initiative for young children since Head Start began in 1965. Now, Head Start is a $7 billion federal program serving about 900,000 preschoolers.

“People are absolutely ecstatic,” said Cornelia Grumman, executive director of the First Five Years Fund, an advocacy group. “Some people seem to think the Great Society is upon us again.”

Despite the recession, Mr. Obama has emphasized his interest in making strategic investments in early childhood education. Asked if the financial troubles might force him to scale back, Jen Psaki, a spokeswoman for the transition, said, “We simply cannot afford to sideline key priorities like education.” ...

Driving the movement is research by a Nobel Prize-winning economist, James J. Heckman, and others showing that each dollar devoted to the nurturing of young children can eliminate the need for far greater government spending on remedial education, teenage pregnancy and prisons.

Now that new initiatives seem likely, experts are debating how best to improve America’s early childhood system, which they call fantastically fragmented, unconscionably underfinanced and bureaucratically bewildering. Some hesitate to use the word “system” at all.

“It’s a patchwork quilt, a tossed salad, a nonsystem,” said Libby Doggett, executive director of Pre-K Now, a group that presses for universal, publicly financed prekindergarten.

There are federal and state, public and private, for-profit and nonprofit programs. Some unfold in public school classrooms, others in storefront day care centers, churches or Y.M.C.A.’s, and still others in tiny centers run out of private homes.

“California has 22 different funding streams for child care and preschool, and that mirrors the crazy labyrinth of funding sources coming out of Washington,” said Bruce Fuller, an education professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who is the author of “Standardized Childhood: The Political and Cultural Struggle Over Early Education.”

Debates cut many ways. Some advocates want the nation to start by expanding services to all 4-year-olds. Others say improving care for infants and toddlers cannot wait. Some insist that middle-class and wealthy children must have access to public preschool. Others say the priority should remain with the poor.

Mr. Obama’s platform, which Mr. Duncan helped write, emphasizes extending care to infants and toddlers as well, and it makes helping poor children a priority. It would also provide new federal financing for states rolling out programs to serve young children of all incomes.

Raise The Gas Tax & Cut FICA

Do you agree with Michael Kinsely's intriguing idea?

The only good economic news lately has been the collapse of oil prices. At the beginning of July, just five months ago, the price of a barrel of was more than $140. By the beginning of December, it was down to about $45. That's a drop of more than two-thirds. In the U.S., we consume about 15 million bbl. of crude a day. The saving of $95 per bbl. adds up to more than $500 billion a year. That's big — enough to bail out the auto industry 15 times.

Of course, we've been through this before. The price of oil shoots up; we start using less; reduced demand sends the price down; we start using more; pretty soon it's shooting up again. This time, though, it does feel different. It seems as if Americans have made a real and fundamental commitment to consuming less energy. That is not so much out of idealism as it is the good side, for a change, of our short attention span. When the price of gasoline shot past $4 per gal., it was both shocking and reassuring. Economists had long wondered what price it would take to get our attention. This, at last, was it. Yet $4 gas turned out not to be the end of the world. Although it was devastating for some people — and it surely accelerated our plunge into recession, which is affecting all of us — we adjusted more easily than one would have thought possible. And we kept on adjusting, even as the price of oil plummeted.

Will this change in behavior last? Or will we return to our wastrel ways as we climb out of recession and the reality again sinks in that gas is cheap? The one sure way to prevent this second scenario from happening is not to let gas get cheap again. Yes, this is yet another plea for that hoary notion: a big energy tax. Just five months ago, we were essentially paying a tax of $95 per bbl. That's the difference between what oil cost then and what it costs now. This was a "tax" whereby the revenue went into the pockets of oil producers — about two-thirds of them foreign countries and one-third fellow Americans. Isn't there something better to do with the money?

Universal Health Care Now

An editorial from The New Republic that I wholeheartedly agree with (though they missed one argument, made by Linda Hirshman, that traditional infrastructure projects won't help female workers but health care projects would):

... On the contrary, the economic downturn actually makes the case for universal health insurance even stronger than it was before.

Start with the present economic crisis. By now, even the most hard-core fiscal conservatives are discovering their inner Keynesians, calling for new government spending to stimulate the economy. But spending on what exactly? Infrastructure is the most obvious target, because infrastructure spending creates jobs. But recent reports suggest that the number of projects that are ready to go--that is, those that could start up as soon as money is available--would account for only tens of billions in new spending, which is just a fraction of the stimulus many economists say we need in the very near future. There's also the possibility of tax rebates. But recent experience suggests that all but the poorest tend to save the money rather than spend it--which basically defeats the purpose.

On the other hand, most proposals for universal coverage start with a federally financed expansion of Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program. That means more poor people would get health insurance right away. And, as economist Jonathan Gruber argued recently in The New York Times, expanding those programs provides a superb economic stimulus. When poor people get health insurance, they purchase medical goods and services. More important, they start spending money on other things, since they no longer have to put aside money to pay for medical emergencies. That funnels cash back into the economy, promoting growth. "Health care reform," Gruber concluded, "is good for our economy."

Obama's Changed The Tone In Washington ... All The Better To Get His Agenda Passed

So far, Obama is doing what he said during the campaign about changing the tone in Washington. Which is, as the NY Times reports, even more amazing since he has not given in on his progressive agenda.  This changed tone helps defang the right and will certainly help get his proposals enacted into law. Crazy like a fox this guy is.

Six weeks before taking office, President-elect Barack Obama can already boast one striking accomplishment: persuading partisan, ideological adversaries to see him in a less partisan, less ideological light.

The reappraisal runs deeper than Mr. Obama’s photo-op pleasantries with Senator John McCain. Derided during the campaign as a purveyor of “socialism” who was guilty of “palling around with terrorists,” he has since won praise from conservatives for retaining Robert Gates as defense secretary, for naming Gen. James L. Jones as his national security adviser and for selecting the moderate Timothy F. Geithner, who helped draw up the Bush administration’s Wall Street bailout plan, as his Treasury secretary.

Karl Rove has called Mr. Obama’s economic team “reassuring,” and other Bush alumni agree. “Obama is doing something marvelously right,” Michael Gerson, President Bush’s onetime senior speechwriter, wrote in The Washington Post. “He is disappointing the ideologues.”

More remarkably, Mr. Obama has reaped those plaudits without seeming to abandon his commitment to the same policies that conservatives routinely attacked during the campaign — his pledge to expand health care coverage, to withdraw troops from Iraq and to increase government spending on infrastructure and alternative energy projects. On the contrary, Mr. Obama has indicated that he will follow his belief in activist government with an economic stimulus package much larger than what he proposed in the campaign. And there has been, so far, very little grumbling from conservatives.

All this raises the question: can Mr. Obama indeed be forging the new style of politics he invoked so often during the election — one that transcends the partisan divisions that have marked recent administrations? If so, what will he replace it with, a bipartisan style of governance that splits the differences between competing ideological camps, or a “post-partisan” politics that narrows gaps between red and blue or even renders them irrelevant?

Actually, insiders in Mr. Obama’s emerging team foresee a third option: a series of left-leaning programs that draw on Americans’ desire for action and also on Mr. Obama’s moderate, even conservative, temperament, to hurdle the ideological obstacles that have lately paralyzed Washington ...

Last month’s exit polls showed Mr. Obama winning the votes of just one in 10 Republicans and one in 5 conservatives. Some hot-button issues that Mr. Obama has yet to touch during the transition — abortion policy and judicial appointments, for example — could still inflame the culture wars.

But the tone of political discussion in recent weeks suggests several reasons to expect something new.

Obama's Judicial Appointments Are Expected To Reshape Legal Landscape

From the Wash Post:

The federal judiciary is on the verge of a major shift when President-elect Barack Obama's nominees take control of several of the nation's most important appellate courts, legal scholars and political activists say. With the Supreme Court's conservative direction unlikely to change anytime soon, it is the lower courts -- which dispense almost all federal justice -- where Obama can assert his greatest influence.

The change will be most striking on the Richmond-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, long a conservative bastion and an influential voice on national security cases, where four vacancies will lead to a clear Democratic majority. Democrats are expected to soon gain a narrower plurality on the New York-based 2nd Circuit, vital for business and terrorism cases, a more even split on the influential D.C. appeals court and control of the 3rd Circuit, which covers Pennsylvania and New Jersey. 

Although Republican control will probably persist on a majority of appellate courts for at least several years, some experts say that by the end of Obama's term, he and the Democratic Congress will flip the 56 percent majority Republican nominees now exert over those highly influential bodies.

"Obama has a huge opportunity," said Arthur Hellman, a University of Pittsburgh law professor who is an authority on federal courts. "In a very short time, significant segments of the appellate courts, which are the final authority in all but a tiny handful of cases, will be dominated by Democratic nominees."

The new judges might gradually reshape what many see as a conservative drift in the courts under the Bush administration and issue more moderate-to-liberal rulings in the ideologically charged cases that have fueled the struggle for control of the judiciary. Many judges are independent, and party affiliation is not a perfect predictor of their behavior. Still, studies have shown that Democratic and Republican nominees vote differently on such cultural issues as abortion and gay rights, along with civil rights, environmental law and capital punishment.

The pace of change will depend not only on how long Democrats keep control of the presidency but also on the ideology of Obama's nominees. Although his Cabinet choices have won praise from Republicans as centrist, Obama's past statements indicate a generally liberal judicial philosophy, one that favors Supreme Court justices and other judges who back abortion rights.

"What I do want is a judge who is sympathetic enough to those who are on the outside, those who are vulnerable, those who are powerless, those who can't have access to political power and as a consequence can't protect themselves from being . . . dealt with sometimes unfairly," Obama, a former constitutional law professor, said in a May interview with CNN ...

Change Comes To The Pentagon

While Defense Secretary Gates is staying, his key deputies are being replaced by members of the Obama team. Very good news from the Wash Post:

Although President-elect Barack Obama's decision to keep Robert M. Gates at the helm of the Pentagon will provide a measure of continuity for a military fighting two wars, many of Gates's top deputies are expected to depart their jobs, according to senior defense and transition officials.

Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, Gates's right-hand man in running the Pentagon day to day, is widely expected to leave his post, said the officials, one of whom noted that England's speechwriter is reportedly taking another job.

Leading candidates to replace England include Obama campaign adviser Richard J. Danzig, who could eventually replace Gates; Pentagon transition review team co-leader Michèle A. Flournoy; and possibly former Pentagon comptroller William J. Lynn, said Obama transition officials and sources close to the transition.

The anticipated turnover of many key positions suggests that although Gates will help provide some continuity, the status quo will not necessarily endure at the Pentagon.

Continuity is likely to come in the form of Gates and military commanders leading the war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan, while a new deputy and team of undersecretaries would manage the Pentagon and focus on longer-range issues such as "the budget, the Quadrennial Defense Review, missile defense, relations with allies and preparation for the next crisis," said Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Center Right, Center Left ... What Are We Now & In The Future?

Because the Conservatives are running around arguing that the US is a center right nation I have occasionally responded that we're now a center left country (for instance, here).  This Wash Post article has made me realize this is way too simplistic because the labels are too vague (one person's conservative policy might be considered liberal by someone else) and the country isn't unidimensional ("We are center-left on social issues and environment, and center-right on fiscal issues."). 

Over time, however, if Obama is successful, the article makes clear that we will become a center left nation:

The National Election Pool exit poll of 17,836 randomly selected voters, conducted by Edison-Mitofsky, shows how shaky the jargon of political analysis can be. Twenty-two percent of those polled identified themselves as "liberal," 34 percent as "conservative," 44 percent as "moderate." Such numbers are cited by proponents of the "center-right country" argument. But one in five of the self-styled conservatives voted for Barack Obama, and one in 10 liberals voted for John McCain. The moderates were overwhelmingly for Obama, by 60 percent to 39 percent. Those self-identifications obviously meant different things to different people.

"There's a lot of contradictions in what people tell you," observed Neil Newhouse, a Republican pollster. Added Samuel Popkin, a political scientist at the University of California at San Diego, voters' definitions of political terms are not rigid: "The Beltway notion and the people's notion is very different."

Whatever the appropriate label, substantial majorities of the voters of 2008 want the war in Iraq to end as soon as possible. Large majorities favor affordable health insurance for everyone, a fairer distribution of wealth and income, and higher taxes on the rich. They want to preserve traditional Social Security. They want more effective government regulation of the financial sector. On social issues, the country that elected Obama is tolerant of homosexuality and legal recognition of same-sex partnerships, less so of same-sex marriage. A post-election survey by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, a Democratic polling firm, showed that 51 percent said "the government should do more to solve problems." ...

Such flashes of native caution or conservatism are common. The same poll offered another choice: "I'm more worried that we will fail to make the investments we need to create jobs and strengthen the economy" or "I'm more worried that we will go too far in increasing government spending and will end up raising taxes to pay for it." Voters split 48 percent to 48 percent.

Popkin has a formulation that resolves the inconsistency: "We are center-left on social issues and environment, and center-right on fiscal issues." ...

Kohut, who is president of the Pew Research Center, argued that the real ideological significance of this election remains to be established: "Everything will depend on the success Obama has. If the new administration takes us left and it works, then people will be won over." If not, Kohut predicts, the pendulum will swing back to the right ...

In one respect the future is already coming into view -- in the attitudes of the Millennial Generation, voters younger than 30. This group was completely out of step with its elders. They voted overwhelmingly for Obama, by 66 percent to 32 percent. They are much more likely to call themselves Democrats (45 percent do) than does the population as a whole (39 percent). Only among the young do self-identified liberals outnumber conservatives (32 percent to 26 percent). By contrast, among voters 65 and older, conservatives outnumber liberals 40 percent to 17 percent.

"The young people bolted in majorities that we have never seen in past elections -- coast to coast, rural and urban, border to border, educated and uneducated, wealthy and poor, evangelical and nonbelievers," said Peter D. Hart, a Democratic pollster who helped conduct the NBC-Wall Street Journal polls this year. "To have one group of voters in that kind of majority is amazing."

In fact, the outpouring of support for Obama and the Democrats from young voters was consistent with long-standing trends in public opinion. They could be found in the annual survey by the University of California at Los Angeles graduate school of education, a poll of more than 270,000 first-year students.

In the 2007 survey, three-fourths of the students said the United States needs "a national health care plan . . . to cover everybody's medical costs." Nearly 57 percent favored legalized abortion. Six in 10 said they thought "wealthy people should pay a larger share of taxes than they do now." Two-thirds said they believed "same-sex couples should have the right to legal marital status." Eighty percent said "the federal government is not doing enough to control environmental pollution."

These students may be more liberal than their contemporaries who are not in college, but findings such as these suggest that the Nov. 4 results are part of a broader phenomenon. Hart said that "this was a transformational election. Whatever used to be true is not going to be true for the future. We are headed towards a potential center-left nation of tomorrow. From every element of this election, we learn that these young people are very, very different."

The difference goes beyond attitudes. Sixty-two percent of voters age 18 to 29 identify themselves as white, while 18 percent are black and 14 percent Hispanic. Eight years ago, in 2000, 74 percent of young voters were white.

Judis of the New Republic and Ruy Teixeira of the Center for American Progress have been arguing for years that the changing attitudes of young voters and Hispanics, coupled with increasingly Democratic voting patterns among highly educated and wealthier professionals, was producing an "emerging Democratic majority." Judis noted in his post-election analysis that the stage is set for a meaningful realignment of American politics that could last for many years.

With Obama's Win, Gun Sales Go Way Up

Did The Voters Give Obama A Mandate?

TNR's Jonathan Cohn thinks so:

While Cohn makes some good points, he leaves out an obvious one: a Democrat who said he was going to raise taxes and was called a socialist nonetheless won.  If that doesn't say voters want his policies no matter what, I don't know what could.

Marvin, What Do We Do Now?

Be careful what you ask for Barack! Would you want this guy's job now? I wonder if this line from The Candidate has crossed his mind recently?

Poll Of Economists: "Obama has the superior economic plan"

From the Economist magazine:

A survey of academic economists by The Economist finds the majority—at times by overwhelming margins—believe Mr Obama has the superior economic plan, a firmer grasp of economics and will appoint better economic advisers.

Our survey is not, by any means, a scientific poll of all economists. We e-mailed a questionnaire to 683 research associates, all we could track down, of the National Bureau of Economic Research, America’s premier association of applied academic economists, though the NBER itself played no role in the survey. A total of 142 responded, of whom 46% identified themselves as Democrats, 10% as Republicans and 44% as neither. This skewed party breakdown may reflect academia’s Democratic tilt, or possibly Democrats’ greater propensity to respond. Still, even if we exclude respondents with a party identification, Mr Obama retains a strong edge ...

Yet economists’ opinions should count for something because irrespective of any party affiliation, most of them approach policy decisions with the same basic tool kit. Their assessment of the candidates’ economic credentials and plans represents an informed judgment on how well they will handle difficult trade-offs between efficiency, equity, growth and consensus-building.

Regardless of party affiliation, our respondents generally agree the economy is in bad shape, that the election is important to the course of economic policy and that the housing and financial crisis is the most critical economic issue facing America.

The detailed responses are bad news for Mr McCain (the full data are available here). Eighty per cent of respondents and no fewer than 71% of those who do not cleave to either main party say Mr Obama has a better grasp of economics. Even among Republicans Mr Obama has the edge: 46% versus 23% say Mr Obama has the better grasp of the subject ...

A candidate’s economic expertise may matter rather less if he surrounds himself with clever advisers. Unfortunately for Mr McCain, 81% of all respondents reckon Mr Obama is more likely to do that; among unaffiliated respondents, 71% say so ...

On our one-to-five scale, economists on average give Mr Obama’s economic programme a 3.3 and Mr McCain’s a 2.2. Mr Obama, says Jonathan Parker, a non-aligned professor at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, “is a pragmatist not an ideologue. I expect Clintonian economic policies.” If, that is, crushing federal debt does not derail his taxing and spending plans.

On his plans to fix the financial crisis, Mr Obama averages 3.1, a point higher than Mr McCain. Still, some said they didn’t quite know what they were rating—reasonably enough, since neither candidate has produced clear plans of his own.

Where the candidates’ positions are more clearly articulated, Mr Obama scores better on nearly every issue: promoting fiscal discipline, energy policy, reducing the number of people without health insurance, controlling health-care costs, reforming financial regulation and boosting long-run economic growth. Twice as many economists think Mr McCain’s plan would be bad or very bad for long-run growth as Mr Obama’s. Given how much focus Mr McCain has put on his plan’s benefits for growth, this last is quite a repudiation.

Mr McCain gets his highest mark, an average of 3.5 and a clear advantage over Mr Obama, for his position on free trade and globalisation. If Mr Obama “would wake up on free trade”, one respondent says, “I could get behind the plans much more.” Perhaps surprisingly, the economists rated trade low in priority compared with the other issues listed. Only 53% say it is important or very important. Neither candidate scored at all well on dealing with the burgeoning cost of entitlements such as Medicare and Social Security.

The economists also prefer Mr Obama’s tax plans. Republicans and respondents who do not identify with either political party see Mr McCain’s tax policies as more efficient but less equitable. But the former prefer Mr McCain’s plans—43% of Republicans say they are good or very good—and the latter Mr Obama’s. Of non-affiliated respondents, 31% say Mr Obama’s are good or very good.

Either way, according to the economists, it would be difficult to do much worse than George Bush. The respondents give Mr Bush a dismal average of 1.7 on our five-point scale for his economic management. Eighty-two per cent thought Mr Bush’s record was bad or very bad; only 1% thought it was very good.