What You Need to Know: 03.30.09

Obama Says Automakers Not Moving ‘Fast Enough’
President Obama announced today that his administration will withhold additional federal aid to General Motors and Chrysler unless the ailing U.S. automakers submit acceptable restructuring plans, but he vowed that the American auto industry will not be allowed to “simply vanish.”

In a speech at the White House, Obama blamed the industry’s woes on “a failure of leadership — from Washington to Detroit,” and he said problems have been papered over and tough decisions avoided for decades as foreign competitors outpaced U.S. car companies. 

Obama Heads Back to Europe, Challenges in Tow
Last year, as a candidate, Mr. Obama traveled to Europe by choice. He profited from well-choreographed visits with allied leaders that depicted him to American voters as a plausible commander in chief. But the cheering throngs that greeted him also handed his Republican opponent in the presidential campaign, Senator John McCain of Arizona, an opening to paint him as a celebrity-politician.

Mr. Obama returns to Europe this week as president, against a backdrop of crisis. He has no alternative but to try coaxing partners in the Group of 20 industrial and emerging market nations to help stimulate the global economy and to assure them he is shoring up an American financial system that shoulders substantial blame for the damage. 

Obama team debuts at U.N. climate talks
Once booed at international climate talks, the United States won sustained applause Sunday when President Barack Obama’s envoy pledged to “make up for lost time” in reaching a global agreement on climate change.

Todd Stern also praised efforts by countries like China to reign in their carbon emissions, but said global warming “requires a global response” and that rapidly developing economies like China “must join together” with the industrial world to solve the problem.

The debut of Obama’s climate change team was widely anticipated after eight years of obdurate participation in U.N. climate talks by the previous Bush administration. 

Momentum grows for relaxing Cuba policy
Roughly a year after Fidel Castro stepped aside and handed much of the responsibility for leading Cuba to his brother Raul, there is new momentum in Washington for eliminating the ban on most U.S. travel to the island nation and for reexamining the severe limitations on U.S.-Cuban economic exchanges.

At a Capitol Hill news conference scheduled for tomorrow, a wide array of senators and interest groups — including Senate Democratic Policy Committee Chairman Byron L. Dorgan (N.D.); Banking Committee Chairman Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.); Richard G. Lugar (Ind.), the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; and Human Rights Watch — will rally around a potentially historic bill to lift the travel ban.

President Obama called repeatedly during the campaign last year for a “new strategy” toward Cuba, and this month he lifted severe Bush-era restrictions on travel and remittances to the island by Cuban Americans with relatives there, after the 2009 spending measure banned using taxpayer money to enforce them. The Treasury Department also said it would ease licensing requirements for trade-related travel by U.S. citizens.

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Rock the Vote Bio: Rock the Vote was founded in 1990 to organize artists and fight against censorship of musicians. Since then we've evolved to focus on empowering young people to get involved in the political process. We use pop culture, peer-to-peer organizing, and the latest technology to raise visibility of politics and demystify the process of registering to vote. @rockthevote Email the author at: blog(at)rockthevote.com

This entry was posted on Monday, March 30th, 2009 at 2:18 pm and is filed under what you need to know. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.