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Obama Releases Stimulus Plan
T.W. Farnam reports from Washington on the presidential race.Barack Obama’s campaign released details of an economic-stimulus plan Sunday that would focus on tax rebates and one-time Social Security benefits sent out immediately, something it championed as superior to a Clinton proposal announced Friday.The $75 billion plan shows what Obama would do if he were president, first speeding a $250 tax rebate to 150 million workers and a benefit of the same size to retirees through the Social Security system. An additional $250 check could follow if the economy didn’t improve. The plan also includes a $10 billion fund to prevent foreclosures for “responsible” homeowners, $10 billion in relief to state and local governments facing a decline in property-tax revenue and $10 billion for an unemployment-insurance program with an emphasis on retraining.Hillary’s Clinton’s $70 billion package calls for a $30 billion housing-crisis fund for states and cities, $25 billion for home heating, a $5 billion investment in energy efficiency and energy alternatives with a focus on creating jobs and $10 billion to extend and broaden unemployment insurance. Both the Clinton and Obama plans call for additional funds should the economy continue to worsen.“The primary difference between the Obama approach and the Clinton approach is that if you are going to have fiscal stimulus,” said Austan Goolsbee, the Obama campaign’s top economic-policy adviser, 'the absolutely most imperative thing is to get the money into people’s hand immediately so they can use it and prevent the slowdown.” Several pieces of Clinton’s plan, including the home-heating subsidy, wouldn’t reach people for up to a year, Goolsbee said. “Anything like that is not a stimulus.”Neither candidate has much power to enact their plan, but Clinton will propose hers in the Senate while Goolsbee said Obama is simply “putting this forward as the ideal of what America needs.”Read more : 14.01.2008 00:00:00
Clinton Accuses Obama Campaign of Distorting Her Words
Amy Chozick reports from New York on the presidential race:The war of words between Democratic Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama heated up Sunday morning after Clinton accused the Obama campaign of 'deliberately distorting” her remarks. She said on NBC’s 'Meet the Press” that the Obama campaign has been intentionally selling a misinterpretation of her comments about Martin Luther King Jr. last week.Clinton was responding to a question from host Tim Russert about last week’s comments, which some African-American leaders in South Carolina and elsewhere have said diminish Dr. King’s involvement in the Civil Rights movement. The controversy began after Clinton told Fox News on Monday: 'Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do, the president before had not even tried, but it took a president to get it done.” Clinton told Russert Sunday: 'Dr. King didn’t just give speeches. He marched, he organized, he protested, he was gassed, he was beaten, he was jailed. He understood that he had to move the political process and bring in those who were in political power. And he campaigned for political leaders, including [President] Lyndon Johnson, because he wanted somebody in the White House who would act on what he had devoted his life to achieving,” she said. 'I think it’s important to set the record straight. Clearly, we know from media reports that the Obama campaign is deliberately distorting this,” Clinton said. 'I don’t think either of us want to inject race or gender into his campaign. We are running as individuals, we are making our cases to the American people, and it’s imperative that we get the record and the facts straight because people are entitled to have that information.” The Obama campaign immediately fired back. Asked about Clinton’s comments on a conference call with reporters Sunday, Obama called Clinton’s implication that his campaign had twisted her words 'ludicrous.” 'I think what we saw this morning is why the American people are tired of Washington politicians and the games they play,” Obama said. 'Senator Clinton made an unfortunate remark, an ill-advised remark, about King and Lyndon Johnson. I didn’t make the statement.” Clinton appeared live from Columbia, S.C., where the state’s largest newspaper, The State, reported that her criticism of Obama and comments about Dr. King has generated resentment among African-American voters, who make up half of all registered Democrats in South Carolina. Last week former president Bill Clinton came under criticism for calling the Obama campaign 'the biggest fairytale I’ve ever seen” during a speech on his wife’s behalf at Dartmouth College. On 'Meet the Press,” Clinton said her husband’s remark was specifically referring to Obama’s record on Iraq. 'What he was talking about was very directly about the story of Sen. Obama’s campaign, being premised on a speech he gave in 2002″ in which he said he was against the war in Iraq, she said. 'By 2003 that speech was off his Web site. By 2004, he was saying that he didn’t really disagree with the way George Bush was conducting the war. And by 2005, ‘6, and ‘7, he was voting for $300 billion in funding for the war,” she said.Obama quickly responded: 'I have to point out that instead of telling the American people about her positive vision for America, Senator Clinton spent an hour talking about me and my record in a way that was flat-out wrong. She suggested that I didn’t clearly and unambiguously oppose the war in Iraq, when it is absolutely clear and anyone who has followed this knows that I did.”In the days since her surprise win in New Hampshire, Clinton has increased her attacks on the junior Illinois senator’s record on Iraq, health care and other issues, while emphasizing her '35 years of experience.” The approach helped her edge out a win in New Hampshire, where 71% of voters who said experience matters voted for Clinton, according to exit polls. The two candidates will square off again Tuesday in the MSNBC Nevada Democratic Debate in Las Vegas. Nevada holds its Democratic nominating contest on Jan. 19, followed by South Carolina on Jan. 26.Read more : 14.01.2008 00:00:00
Preview: Romney at the Detroit Economic Club Monday
Elizabeth Holmes reports from Taylor, Mich., on the presidential race.In a speech Monday afternoon at the Detroit Economic Club, Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney is expected to blame Washington for the problems faced by the embattled auto industry. Romney'We need to honestly and directly address and rectify the enormous product-cost and capital-cost disadvantages that currently burden the domestic auto makers,” Romney will say, according to excerpts released by the campaign. 'From legacy costs to health-care costs to [fuel economy] costs, to embedded taxes, Detroit can only thrive if Washington is an engage partner, not a disinterested observer.” Romney, a Michigan-born CEO-turned-governor, has already said essentially that in his remarks on the stump over the weekend. He has attacked Washington and Beltway insiders - including chief rival Arizona Sen. John McCain - for not helping Michigan sooner and will do the same on Monday, the day before the state’s Republican primary. 'A lot of Washington politicians are aware of Michigan’s pain, but they haven’t done anything about it,” Romney will say, according to the excerpts.(As for what he himself has done to help Michigan, Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts whose father was governor of Michigan from 1963 to 1968, has said he hasn’t been in a position to help his home state.) He will also pitch the argument forward, saying Michigan’s travails are a precursor to the economic woes faced by the country as a whole. As for solutions to these problems, the campaign has been mum on what - if anything - Romney will offer up.Read more : 15.01.2008 00:00:00
Candidates Collide at the Detroit Auto Show
Elizabeth Holmes reports on the presidential race.If you’re a presidential candidate in Detroit and you’re looking for a photo op, the Detroit Auto Show is the place to be. WSJ’s Elizabeth Holmes reports from the campaign trail as candidates take a spin through the American International Auto Show in Detroit. Entourages for Republican rivals Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney brushed one another on the showroom floor late today. Washington Wire hears that an aide to Romney, who arrived well before Huckabee, asked the Huckabee campaign to keep their distance as they wrapped up the Romney appearance.The former governor of Arkansas opted not to, coming within a few yards of Romney’s press conference - in front of a Chevy Equinox. As Romney, in response to a reporter’s question, rambled on about the cars in his garage - he drives a Ford Mustang, his wife has a Cadillac SRX and the pair also have a Chevy Silverado pick-up truck - Huckabee cracked jokes about ethanol. Reporters covering both candidates flitted from one to the next, amazed by the close encounter. Auto executives and their underlings looked about anxiously, trying to court both men without offending either one. By the time Romney’s staff hurried its traveling press out to the bus, Sen. John McCain had reportedly just pulled up.Read more : 15.01.2008 00:00:00
Obama, Clinton Continue to Spar Over Abortion Records
Susan Davis reports on the presidential race.Two Democratic presidential candidates with 100% pro-choice voting records should have little to argue about on the issue of abortion rights, but in the increasingly combative nature between the campaigns of Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, no charge is going unanswered. The debate, now more than a week old, was sparked by a New Hampshire mailer sent by the Clinton campaign in the days before the state’s Jan. 8 primary that attacked Obama’s abortion rights record for voting “present” when he was in the Illinois legislature on seven abortion bills. Clinton defeated Obama in the primary 39%-37%. Obama’s campaign responded by blanketing New Hampshire voters with robo-calls defending his record on abortion rights. Today the Obama campaign held a conference call with reporters to further defend his record, even though there have been no further ads on the issue. “We have not seen any mail pieces” in other states, said Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor, but said the “misinformation spread to the people of New Hampshire” was a lesson on how the Obama campaign will “respond forcefully with the truth, and quickly.” Obama did vote “present” on seven abortion-related bills, but he did so at the behest of a legislative strategy devised by Planned Parenthood. Members of Illinois’s Planned Parenthood chapter defended Obama today, even though they have not endorsed him in the race.“We feel an obligation to defend Barack’s record,” said Steve Trombley, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood in Chicago. “What’s good about this strategy is it actually worked,” added Pam Sutherland of the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council, noting that very few of the bills abortion rights groups opposed ever became law. The Clinton campaign is tying these seven abortion votes to the larger 129 “present” votes he cast in the state senate. There is a “clear difference on the record on who has taken leadership” said Emily Malcolm of EMILY’s List, who has endorsed Clinton. Gay Bruhn of the Illinois Chapter of the National Organization for Women, which has also endorsed Clinton, offered similar sentiments, adding that NOW did not agree with Planned Parenthood’s legislative strategy. “NOW and other pro-choice groups did want to vote on those bills,” she said, “It was one of the major decisions why Illinois NOW told National NOW not to endorse Sen. Obama.” In comments defending Obama, Jan Nicolay, co-chair of the South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families and a former Republican state legislator, said that the fight involving sparring abortion groups and the candidates is detracting from the over-arching issue of abortion rights. “What I find most disturbing today is seeing pro-choice candidates try to destroy the records of other pro-choice candidates, which isn’t going to help the cause at all,” she said. Bruhn said the two Illinois groups are still allies. “We did differ in that strategy,” she said, “We still like each other, we still do good work together.” The abortion rights group NARAL, gives both Obama and Clinton 100% voting records on abortion issues, as does Planned Parenthood.Read more : 15.01.2008 00:00:00
Culinary Workers Fume Over Casino Caucus Suit
June Kronholz reports from Nevada on the presidential race. Shades of Florida 2000, says the Las Vegas Culinary Workers Union. The union is furious about a lawsuit filed by the state teachers’ union and six individuals against the state Democratic Party over a plan to hold caucuses in nine Strip casino hotels Saturday. The suit came two days after the Culinary Workers endorsed Barack Obama for president over Hillary Clinton, who is the favorite of most party leaders. The union would benefit from the casino caucuses by being able to turn out more members and assert its considerable clout.The union’s secretary-treasurer D. Taylor - he doesn’t use a first name - fumed in an interview that the suit is an attempt to “disenfranchise” workers, and he compared it to 2000 when the Supreme Court ordered a halt to the presidential recount in Florida. “You’d think the Democratic Party elite would disavow” the suit, “but the silence has been deafening,” he said.The casino caucuses are in addition to 1,745 neighborhood caucuses around the state and would allow thousands of shift workers - most of them belonging to the union - to caucus during their working hours. The state party approved the caucus plan last March after campaigns representing all of the candidates agreed to it. The arrangement would allow any workers who have to be on the job during the busy Martin Luther King Jr. weekend to caucus at the nine hotels, including the Bellagio, Caesar’s Palace and Luxor, if they work within 2 ½ miles of the Strip.The suit argues that the arrangement unfairly accommodates the Las Vegas Strip workers, while others who have to be on-duty that day don’t have the same benefit. That includes Nevada State Education Association members who have to open and staff the schools that will be used as caucus sites, although that’s probably fewer than 1,000 workers, a teachers’ representative conceded. The arrangement also doesn’t help shift workers in Reno, who are unionized but not by the powerful Culinary Workers.But the suit also contends that the nine Strip caucus sites could potentially send as many as 10 times more delegates to the county convention than other caucus sites will. The casino sites will gain more delegates as their participation groups under a complicated party formula. Delegates sent to the country convention will election delegates to the state convention, which in turn will elect those to the national convention in Denver.“We want some fairness, having everybody treated equally and everyone’s vote calculated the same way,” says Dan Hart, a Las Vegas lobbyist who represents the teachers. The union hasn’t endorsed any candidate, but some of its members are involved in the Clinton campaign. A US District Court judge is expected this week to hear the teachers’ union’s request for an injunction that would disallow the nine casino caucuses.Read more : 15.01.2008 00:00:00
Thompson Sticks With ‘Consistent Conservative’ Theme
Susan Davis reports on the presidential race.Fred Thompson will go on the air Tuesday in South Carolina with his third statewide ad. The former Tennessee senator and Republican presidential hopeful has been campaigning as the “only consistent conservative” in the Republican field, a theme trumpeted in the ad.“Friends, we’re in a fight for our conservative values,” he says in the ad. “I’m a conservative. Always have been. Always will be.” Thompson ticks off a list of his priorities, including fighting “amnesty” for illegal aliens, lowering taxes, fighting “Islamic radicals” and opposing abortion rights. Thompson, a former senator from Tennessee, also notes his endorsement from the South Carolina Citizens for Life. The generally laid-back Thompson has shown bursts of fire in recent days, most notably in attacking rival Mike Huckabee as a president who would impose “liberal economic policies and liberal foreign policies” at the Fox News debate last Thursday in Myrtle Beach. South Carolina’s Jan. 19 primary will be a major test of Thompson’s viability in the race. He largely avoided competing in the Iowa and New Hampshire contests in favor of focusing on the Palmetto State where his Southern roots have a more intrinsic appeal. Huckabee and Sen. John McCain currently have the polling edge in the state, followed by Mitt Romney and Thompson, who has been consistently polling in fourth place.In the ad, Thompson also uses some Southern charm, signing off with “I’d appreciate your vote Saturday.” Thompson is currently in South Carolina, with campaign stops today in Aiken, Greenwood, and Simpsonville.Read more : 15.01.2008 00:00:00
McCain Hedges on National Sales Tax
Alex Frangos reports from Holland, Mich., on the presidential race.Sen. John McCain weighed in on Mike Huckabee’s so-called fair-tax plan that would replace the federal income tax with a national sales tax.McCainIn answering a question at a town hall meeting here, the Arizona senator and Republican presidential hopeful said he’d sign a fair-tax bill if it “came across my desk.” A national sales tax would be “better than the current tax system,” he said, but added that he has “significant problems with it” and “can not support it in its present form.” Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, has adopted the 'fair tax” as the spine of his economic agenda.McCain didn’t mention his rival for the Republican nomination, but said his main beefs are over whether the 'fair tax” plan’s 23% rate is high enough to create sufficient revenue. He also would want a national sales tax law accompanied by the repeal of the Constitution’s 16th Amendment, giving the federal government the power to collect incomes taxes. “What’s your confidence that we enact a fair tax - basically a sales tax - and then the Congress needs money, and we put the income tax back on againÂ…I’ve seen too many things in too many years,” the 24-year congressional veteran said.GreenspanHis preferred tax solution is to let former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan figure it out. “We need a fairer, flatter tax,” McCain said. To that end, he would create a tax reform commission headed by Greenspan similar to the commission that oversaw military base decommissioning. Then McCain, 71 years old, poked fun at Greenspan, 81. He called the former Fed chief “probably the most respected economist in America, whether he were alive or dead. If he were dead, we’d put dark glasses on him, the way we did in Weekend at Bernie’s,” he said, referring to the 1989 movie about two men who drag a dead man around pretending he is alive.Read more : 15.01.2008 00:00:00
Romney’s Q&A
The following is the transcript from Republican candidate Mitt Romney’s address to the Detroit Economic Club.Q: Governor Romney, given how the subprime issue has destabilized many banks and threatens the national economy, this gentleman or lady has three questions. One, how did we miss this? Two, what should be done? And three were we wrong to replace Mr. Stengle? Who is that?A: Well, I think we’re talking about bringing in the new head of the Federal Reserve, would be my guess, Mr. Bernanke, Ben Bernanke. I’m not sure, I don’t think Charlie Stengle had much to do with this problem, do you? (Laughter) Let’s go back to the subprime mortgage crisis. How did it happen? And I know it’s being analyzed by a number of people. I think a number of factors came together. You know there is a federal agency known as OFHEO, or that’s the acronym. OFHEO that is responsible to make sure that mortgage products sent out to the public don’t represent an undue risk to the public or to the lending institutions.Read more : 15.01.2008 00:00:00
Economic Club Hears Romney’s Expanded Stump Speech
Elizabeth Holmes reports from Detroit on the presidential race.Mitt Romney’s address to the Detroit Economic Club today about the beleaguered auto industry was little more than an expansion of his stump speech the past four days. He blamed Washington for the problems and said he would, in the first 100 days of his presidency, put together a team to pull the state out of its recession.RomneyThe more interesting part of the luncheon came during the question and answer session, when Romney riffed on the subprime mortgage crisis. In response to a question (“One, how did we miss this? Two, what should be done?”), Romney placed blame on the mortgage companies as well as the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight. Rather than Congress holding hearings with the government agency, Romney said the members of OFHEO should be fired - drawing loud applause from the 500-member crowd.Romney also took a shot at rating agencies, pointing a finger at them for the extent of the problem. “They said, ‘Well, if you put a lot of risky things together from all over the country it’s impossible that the whole country will have trouble and therefore this is a pretty safe investment.’” Romney said. “So they gave it very high ratings and people all over the world bought up this product and of course that stimulated more and more lending with very, very risky loans.”Romney called for a “very aggressive effort” by both sides to help mortgagees keep their homes. He put a premium on helping mortgage holders who are able to make initial monthly payments “so that we don’t have homes being dumped in the market, causing foreclosures and bringing down the market even further,” he said.He foreshadowed an economic-stimulus plan he’ll unveil to jumpstart the lagging economy - though no word yet on when or what that will be. Romney instead returned to his savings plan, mentioned in nearly every appearance, which eliminated taxes on earnings from savings for all Americans earning $200,000 a year or less.While some praised Romney’s answers, other attendees were more critical. “I think he glossed over the problem,” said Woodruff Adams, the chairman of Adams Capital Management from Troy, Mich., who attended the luncheon. “He is a part of the Wall Street crowd and that’s who created the subprime problem.”Read more : 15.01.2008 00:00:00
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