Archive for March, 2009

Obama Announces Plans for More Funding for Afghan War
President Obama this morning announced a new Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy that will require significantly higher levels of U.S. funding and thousands more military and civilian personnel to reverse what he called an “increasingly perilous” situation.

“I do not ask for this support lightly,” Obama said in a White House speech before regional ambassadors, aid officials and his senior national security team. “These are challenging times, and resources are stretched. But the American people must understand that this is a down payment on our own future.”

Among the resources required, he said, are an additional 4,000 troops, beyond the 17,000 he authorized last month, that will bring total U.S. deployments to more than 60,000. U.S. military expenses for Afghan operations this year, White House aides said, will increase about 60 percent from the current toll of $2 billion a month. The newly announced forces, from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, will serve as trainers and advisers to an Afghan army expected to double to 134,000 by 2011.

Battles Over Reform Plan Lie Ahead
Outlining a far-reaching proposal on Thursday to rebuild the nation’s broken system of financial regulation, the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, fired the opening salvo in what is likely to be a marathon battle.

“Our system failed in fundamental ways,” Mr. Geithner told the House Financial Services Committee. “To address this will require comprehensive reform. Not modest repairs at the margin, but new rules of the game.”

Fuel efficiency standards hiked for 2011
The Obama administration has raised fuel efficiency standards for new cars and trucks in the 2011 model year, according to CNBC — the first increase in passenger carstandards in more than two decades.

An administration official told The Associated Press that automakers will be required to boost fuel economy standards by 2 miles per gallon over current requirements.

New passenger cars will need to meet 30.2 mpg for the 2011 model year and pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles will need to reach 24.1 mpg.

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Geithner Calls for Major Overhaul of Financial Rules
The Obama administration on Thursday detailed its wide-ranging plan to overhaul financial regulation by subjecting hedge funds and traders of exotic financial instruments, now among the biggest and most freewheeling players on Wall Street, to potentially strict new government supervision.

The Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, outlined the plan Thursday before the House Financial Services Committee, where he got a decidedly mixed reception. He said the changes were needed to fix a badly flawed system that was exposed by the current financial crisis. Mr. Geithner, in his opening statement, called for “comprehensive reform. Not modest repairs at the margin, but new rules of the game.”

Obama online: President holds virtual town hall
In an echo of his campaign, President Barack Obama tackled questions on education, jobs, autos — even whether legalizing marijuana could jolt the economy — at a first-of-its-kind Internet-era town hall at the White House on Thursday.

Obama said the precedent-setting online town hall meeting was an “an important step” toward creating a broader avenue for information about his administration. The event allowed him to speak directly to Americans through the Web, bypassing the filter of the news media. 

The first race of 2009
On Tuesday, in upstate New York, Democrat Scott Murphy faces off against Republican Jim Tedisco in the special election to fill the seat in the 20th Congressional District vacated by Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., who was appointed to replace Hillary Clinton in the U.S. Senate.

While political analysts usually caution not to read too much into special elections, this race seems to take up where 2008 left off. It has turned into a battle over President Obama’s economic stimulus. It also has become the first real test for embattled Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele.

Dems turn back GOP call to reduce spending
Democrats on the Senate Budget Committee defeated a Republican attempt Thursday to reduce recommended spending across hundreds of programs over the next five years as they moved toward approval of a blueprint that preserves President Barack Obama’s top priorities.

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In a Volatile Time, Obama Strikes a New Tone
For just under an hour on Tuesday night, Americans saw not the fiery and inspirational speaker who riveted the nation in his address to Congress last month, or the conversational president who warmly engaged Americans in talks across the country, or even the jaunty and jokey president who turned up on Jay Leno.

Instead, in his second prime-time news conference from the White House, it was Barack Obama the lecturer, a familiar character from early in the campaign. Placid and unsmiling, he was the professor in chief, offering familiar arguments in long paragraphs — often introduced with the phrase, “as I said before” — sounding like the teacher speaking in the stillness of a classroom where students are restlessly waiting for the ring of the bell.

Congress’ budget outlines close to Obama plan
Congressional Democrats advanced budget outlines Wednesday that largely mirror President Barack Obama’s spending priorities while imposing marginal changes to tame ballooning deficits.

A version put forward by the House Budget Committee foresees a $598 billion federal deficit after five years. And there would be a $1.2 trillion red ink figure for the 2010 budget year, as opposed to $1.4 billion under Obama’s plan as scored by the Congressional Budget Office.

EU chief: U.S. economic plans ‘a way to hell’
The head of the European Union slammed President Barack Obama’s plan to spend nearly $2 trillion to push the U.S. economy out of recession as “the road to hell” that EU governments must avoid.

The blunt comments by Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek to the European Parliament on Wednesday highlighted simmering European differences with Washington ahead of a key summit next week on fixing the world economy. 

Clinton: U.S. Drug Policies Failed, Fueled Mexico’s Drug War
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton traveled to Mexico on Wednesday with a stark mea culpa, saying that decades of U.S. anti-narcotics policies had been a failure and contributed to the explosion of drug violence south of the border.

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