Edward Kennedy pushes Kathleen Sebelius nomination

WASHINGTON - Senator Edward M. Kennedy, citing his own battle with brain cancer, came out forcefully yesterday for Kathleen Sebelius's nomination as health and human services secretary.

"Few debates in Congress touch our lives as profoundly and personally as healthcare. Over the past 10 months, I've seen our healthcare system up close," Kennedy said, his hands shaking slightly.

"I've benefited from the best of medicine," he said, presiding at a hearing for Sebelius, who he said had the "vision, the skill, and the knowledge" to shepherd the healthcare overhaul. "But we have too many uninsured Americans. We have sickness care and not healthcare. . . . Costs are out of control. But today we have an opportunity like never before to reform our healthcare."

Toward the end of the hearing, Kennedy asked Sebelius to affirm support for cancer research. She did.

Sebelius, the Kansas governor and early supporter of President Obama, said she backs his call for giving Americans the option of government-run health insurance as an alternative to private coverage.

The proposal for a public plan that would compete with private insurers has emerged as the most divisive issue as Obama seeks to overhaul the health system to reduce costs and shrink the ranks of 48 million uninsured. Republicans fear that the competing plan would drive some private insurers out of business.

"If the question is, 'Do I support a public option side by side with private insurers?' " Sebelius said, "Yes, I do."

The exchange with Senator John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, was perhaps the most heated in a low-key hearing. Sebelius pledged that if confirmed, "health reform would be my mission."

"Inaction is not an option. The status quo is unacceptable, and unsustainable," said Sebelius, citing high healthcare costs that she said were hurting families and crippling the economy.

Saying she would be a tough enforcer, Sebelius also called for a crackdown on medical fraud as part of any healthcare overhaul. "Having a few strike operations may be the most effective way to send the signal that there's a new sheriff in town, and I intend to take this very, very seriously," she told the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.

While Obama has pushed for healthcare overhaul, lawmakers have questioned how the administration would pay for the plan. Sebelius didn't offer a specific solution, but said the approach must be comprehensive.

Sebelius did cite Kennedy's home state of Massachusetts, where a pioneering 2006 law requires nearly everyone to carry insurance or face fines. Policy makers there decided to extend coverage first, and deal with costs later. Now costs are ballooning. The lesson, Sebelius said, is costs and coverage must be dealt with in concert.

Sebelius is Obama's second pick to head the department. Former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle withdrew from consideration while apologizing for failing to pay $140,000 in taxes and interest.

Sebelius alerted senators in a letter yesterday that she has corrected three years worth of tax returns after finding "unintentional errors" involving charitable contributions, the sale of a home, and business expenses.



In the letter obtained by the Associated Press, she says she and her husband paid a total of $7,040 in back taxes and $878 in interest for 2005 to 2007.

Obama also wanted Daschle to head the White House Office for Health Reform, but when he dropped out, a separate White House health czar was named.

Sebelius's background on healthcare includes blocking an insurance company merger in Kansas while insurance commissioner in 2001. She has faced opposition from conservatives over her support for abortion rights, but senators didn't raise that issue yesterday.

The health committee won't actually vote on sending Sebelius's nomination to the full Senate. That job falls to the Senate Finance Committee, which will hold her confirmation hearing tomorrow.

News Source: latimes.com

Edward Kennedy pushes Kathleen Sebelius nomination

President Obama went to Capitol Hill on Wednesday,Obama touts $3.6 trillion spending outline

President Obama went to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to rally support among skeptical Senate Democrats for his $3.6 trillion spending plan, focusing attention on the core initiatives that unite the party while downplaying the issues that divide it.



Centrist Democrats who have complained that Obama's spending plan would drive the annual budget deficit to unacceptable levels held their tongues during the 45-minute lunchtime meeting. They asked no questions about deficits or about the administration's controversial push to force its signature investments in health care and education through the Senate without Republican votes.

Despite the meeting's friendly tone, tensions over those issues continued to simmer as budget leaders in both chambers worked on competing blueprints that would trim Obama's spending request and sharply curtail his plans for tax cuts - all in an effort to lower deficits over the next five years.

While acknowledging the adjustments to Obama's budget request, Democrats cheered the fact that budget leaders in both chambers would permit Obama's most ambitious and costly initiatives on health care, education and climate change to move forward as long as they do not interfere with deficit reduction.

Welcome unity

"There has to be some realism here," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. "We're all unified on four main goals ... and that is not easy to do."

White House Budget Director Peter Orszag also claimed victory on the most significant aspects of the president's agenda.

"We are very pleased that the House and Senate budget committees are taking up resolutions that are fully in line with the president's key priorities," Orszag said. The blueprints under consideration "may not be identical twins to what the president submitted, but they are certainly brothers that look an awful lot alike."

In the House, Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt, D-S.C., unveiled a spending plan that would slice more than $150 billion from Obama's proposal for the fiscal year that begins in October, reducing next year's deficit to $1.22 trillion, compared with $1.38 trillion under Obama's request. The House blueprint would cut the deficit to just under $600 billion by 2014, forcing the government to borrow $3.9 trillion over the next five years - about $500 billion less than Obama's proposal.

Much of the savings for next year would come by jettisoning Obama's plan to spend more on the Treasury Department's financial-sector bailout, a move that would reduce the deficit but would not prevent the president from seeking the cash.

Other trims

Spratt also rejected Obama's proposal to extend a tax break for businesses that lose money. And he trimmed $7 billion from a funding request for other government agencies, with the bulk of the reduction targeting international programs.

The House proposal would make bigger changes in future years, slicing another $60 billion from Obama's request for nondefense programs and rejecting the president's proposal to permanently exempt millions of middle-class families from the expensive alternative minimum tax.

Like the Senate, the House also scrapped Obama's plan to extend an $800 tax cut for working families that was temporarily enacted in the economic stimulus package.

The House and Senate budget committees expect to vote on their budget plans today and send them to their respective chambers for approval next week. Differences between the two chambers would then have to be resolved in a conference committee after the Easter break.

Obama would not have to sign the resulting resolution, which would not have the force of law. But it would set guidelines for lawmakers as they craft spending bills and draft legislation to implement Obama's policies.

Also Wednesday, Obama endorsed a fellow Democrat in a competitive special congressional election and was the main draw at two Democratic National Committee fundraisers.

"Sign up and pitch in to elect Scott Murphy to Congress," the president implored in an early morning e-mail to at least 50,000 people in New York's 20th Congressional District. Tying his agenda to the election's outcome, he added that electing Murphy would "make a big impact on my efforts to bring about a lasting economic recovery."

By evening, Obama headlined two fundraisers in Washington expected to bring in an estimated $3 million.



News Source : sfgate.com

President Obama went to Capitol Hill on Wednesday,Obama touts $3.6 trillion spending outline

Obama pledges economic recovery

Barack Obama has told Americans he sees signs of economic recovery, but urged them to be patient and look beyond their "short-term interests".

The US president said his draft budget would build a stronger economy which would mean America did not face a repeat crisis in 10 or 20 years.

"We will recover from this recession," he told a prime-time news conference in Washington DC.

His $3.6tn (£2.5tn) budget faces its first tests in Congress this week. Mr Obama said his economic strategy, and his new budget which was now being prepared, was based on creating new jobs, rejuvenating the housing market, and creating new liquidity and lending by the banks.

He stressed that immediate action was necessary, and urged both Congress and Americans in general to support his plan. Opposition to the package, which features increased health care coverage, higher education spending and a new "cap-and-trade" system on greenhouse gas emissions, is coming from his own Democratic Party as well as the Republican opposition. In a wide-ranging question-and-answer session that touched on the environment, the drugs trade and stem-cell research, Mr Obama said he expected "steady progress" in resolving disputes with Iran. He said the status quo in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was unsustainable, adding that it was critical for the US to advance a two-state solution.

'Signs of progress'
In an eight-minute address at the start of the hour-long session, Mr Obama said his administration had "put in place a comprehensive strategy designed to attack this crisis on all fronts". "And we are beginning to see signs of progress," he said. "The budget I submitted to Congress will build our economic recovery on a stronger foundation, so that we do not face another crisis like this 10 or 20 years from now." "We have made the tough choices necessary to cut our deficit in half by the end of my first term - even under the most pessimistic estimates," he argued. Mr Obama urged US citizens to be patient.
"It will take time, it will take patience, and it will take an understanding that when we all work together, when each of us looks beyond our own short-term interests to the wider set of obligations we have to each other, that's when we succeed," he said. Asked about the flow of illegal drugs into the US, Mr Obama said his administration would go beyond the $700m plan announced on Tuesday to support Mexico in its fight against the powerful drugs cartels. He also praised his Mexican counterpart, Felipe Calderon, for his efforts against the cartels.

Budget fight

The stage is set at Congress for a tough fight over the budget with Mr Obama, who has been in office for barely two months, correspondents say. On Wednesday, he is due to meet Senate Democrats in a bid to rally support for an increased deficit, reckoned to be $1.4tn for next year. The House budget committee will begin writing its version of the budget plan the same day, and on Thursday the Senate budget committee will begin crafting its budget plan for 2010 and the four subsequent years. Republicans complain that the draft budget expands government and raises taxes on the rich and some small businesses. "There is little or no Republican support for this budget," Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell told Reuters news agency. A Congressional budget office analysis released last Friday estimates that President Obama's budget would generate deficits totalling $9.3tn over the next decade. "If these plans are carried out, we run the risk of looking like a Third World country," Mr McConnell was quoted by the Associated Press as saying. Kent Conrad, the Democratic chairman of the Senate budget committee, is preparing to slash Mr Obama's 11% increase for non-defence appropriations to perhaps 6%. "We cannot have debt pile on top of debt," he said. "In the short term, yes, we have got to have added deficits and debt to give lift to this economy, but longer term, we have got to pivot." Mr Obama is also preparing for a European trip next week that includes the London G20 summit on the global economic crisis.

News Source : news.bbc.co.uk

Obama pledges economic recovery

Obama claims gains in fight against economic woes

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama claimed early progress Tuesday night in his aggressive campaign to lead the nation out of economic chaos and declared that despite obstacles ahead, "we're moving in the right direction." At the second prime-time news conference of his presidency, Obama also toned down his criticism of bonuses to executives at bailed-out AIG, and shot back at Republican critics of his budget. In office for 64 tumultuous days, Obama cast his budget — now under review in Congress — as essential if the economy is to recover. The tax and spending plan "is inseparable from this recovery because it is what lays the foundation for a secure and lasting prosperity," he said. The president also defended the U.S. dollar in the wake of China's suggestion for a universal currency, saying: "The dollar is extraordinarily strong right now," and "I don't believe that there is a need for a global currency." The news conference, lasting 55 minutes, came at a pivotal, early moment in Obama's young presidency. Democrats in Congress are readying budget proposals that will largely determine how much of his first-term agenda will be passed, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is churning out near-daily proposals to solve the nation's economic crisis and the administration is struggling with public and congressional outrage over bonuses paid to executives of bailed-out AIG. Additionally, Obama departs next week for his first European trip as commander in chief, with the global economy a major focus. Flexible on some points, Obama was unyielding on others. Pressed on why he seemed to delay before condemning the AIG bonuses, Obama said, "It took us a couple of days because I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak." The news conference was dominated by questions about the economy. Obama defended the steps his administration has taken to counter the recession and an unprecedented credit crisis. He said teachers and others have jobs today because of the economic stimulus measure that Congress passed, and the nation is "beginning to see signs of increased sales and stabilized housing prices for the first time in a long time." He said full-fledged recovery is months away, and he added, "It will take patience." At the same time, he said, "we're in a better place because of the decisions that we made." Obama put in a plug for the request Geithner made to Congress earlier in the day for extraordinary authority to take over failing companies like American International Group Inc., much as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. now does for banks. "It is precisely because of the lack of this authority" that AIG's problems threatened to bring down the entire U.S. economy, he said. Top Democrats in Congress reacted positively to the proposal, although it is not clear when legislation might be considered. Obama has been vocal in his unhappiness over the $165 million in retention bonuses paid to executives at AIG, although his favorable reference to business men and women seeking profits was a new twist. "Bankers and executives on Wall Street need to realize that enriching themselves on the taxpayers' dime is inexcusable, that the days of outsized rewards and reckless speculation that puts us all at risk have to be over," he said. "At the same time, the rest of us can't afford to demonize every investor or entrepreneur who seeks to make a profit. That drive is what has always fueled our prosperity, and it is what will ultimately get these banks lending and our economy moving once more," he said. On other issues, Obama: • Said the American people are assessing his ability as chief executive based on his skills and work, not the color of his skin. He said there was justifiable pride in January, when he was inaugurated as the first black president. • Strongly defended his proposal to raise taxes on the wealthy by reducing the value of the deductions they may take for items such as home mortgages or charitable donations. It's a "realistic way for us to raise some revenue from people who benefited enormously over the last several years. Its not going to cripple them. They will still be well-to-do," he said. • Called his decision to expand federal support of embryonic stem cell research the "right thing to do and the ethical thing to do." He said he wrestled with the ethics of the decision but is hopeful that the science will lead to help for people with debilitating diseases. • Said the recent elections in Israel would not make it easier to create a stable environment with side-by-side Israeli and Palestinian states. The president opened the news conference with a prepared statement read from a screen, turning the event's opening moments into a brief speech delivered to a nationwide TV audience in addition to the roomful of reporters. He said his administration was taking steps to make sure banks have money to lend "even if the economy gets worse." Obama said he did not feel the government should call on Americans to make sacrifices beyond those imposed by the recession and credit crisis. "Folks are sacrificing left and right ... across the board, people are making adjustments large and small," he said. Obama was quick with a retort when asked about Republican criticism of his budget, with its huge projected deficits. "First of all," he said he inherited a deficit of over $1 trillion from his predecessor. And secondly, he said the Republicans have yet to offer an alternative to his own tax and spending plan. Obama has emphasized a desire to cut projected deficits in half by the end of his current term, although recent estimates make it appear almost impossible barring an extraordinary series of events. Given concern in Congress over the red ink, Senate Democrats are drafting a separate budget plan that assumes Obama's proposed middle class tax cut expires after two years — the sort of sleight of hand that other administrations of both parties have used in the past. While Congress' budget does not go to the White House for a president's signature, the White House traditionally seeks to influence its provisions. Obama restated his objectives Tuesday night — health care overhaul, a new energy policy and more money for education and deficit control. Obama stepped to the microphone one day after his administration unveiled a plan to melt the credit freeze by helping banks shed bad loans. Under the proposal, the government will finance the purchase by private investors of as much as $1 trillion of the $2 trillion in bad assets still held by the nation's banks, in the hopes of freeing banks to begin lending more freely and churn up economic activity. On Wednesday, Obama is heading to Capitol Hill to lobby Senate Democrats. Before Obama's speech, Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell emphasized Republican criticism of the president's proposed budget as an over-spending, over-taxing disaster. A Congressional Budget Office analysis released last Friday estimates Obama's budget would generate deficits totaling $9.3 trillion over the next decade "If these plans are carried out, we run the risk of looking like a Third World country," said McConnell, R-Ky. Obama's job approval rating is 63 percent, according to Gallup polling. That number has been relatively stable recently, down from the 68 percent when the president took office mostly on a loss of support among Republicans.

News Sources news.yahoo.com

Obama claims gains in fight against economic woes