Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) had a stern message for his Republican colleagues today regarding the new 60 seat Democratic majority. He tweeted from Sen. Al Franken's (D-Minn.) news conference today:
Just welcomed Al Franken to Senate. That doesn't abdicate Republicans' responsibility to work w/us, address challenges facing our country.
The top Senate Democrat seemed to warn Republicans that the supermajority is not an excuse for Republicans to double down on partisan opposition to Democratic legislation.
Reid's comments were also intended to cover his bases because it is not guaranteed that the Democratic majority will stay intact on every vote.
The Nevada Senator may need Republicans support to push through controversial measures on healthcare reform, climate change, and a second stimulus if the Senate votes on these pieces of legislation.
Franken is set to be sworn into the Senate tomorrow after being declared the winner of the election versus former Sen. Norm Coleman last week
President Obama is beginning to own the current economic crisis but most Americans still blame President George W. Bush for the country's economic standing, according to a poll released Monday.
The Rasmussen Reports survey found that a majority - 54 percent - still say that Obama inherited the recession from his predecessor. That's down eight points from early June, though.
Thirty-nine percent now say the current crisis is caused by Obama's policies, a 12 point jump from a similar poll a month ago.
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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) likened Democratic healthcare proposals to President Obama's stimulus package on Saturday, calling both detrimental to the economy.
McConnell, delivering the weekly Republican radio address, credited Democrats for trying to tackle healthcare reform. But he said Democrats' plans are too expensive.
"Throughout this debate, the administration's central argument has been that America needs health care reform for the sake of the economy," he said. "Yet according to independent estimates, every health care proposal Democrats on Capitol Hill have offered would only hurt the economy."
Earlier this week the Congressional Budget Office found that two leading Democratic healthcare proposals cost more than $1 trillion over ten years.
That led Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) to announce that he plans to cut $600 billion from his healthcare legislation, which topped $1.6 trillion in the CBO report.
McConnell said the bills will likely cost more.
"The total cost would be much higher, burying us in deeper and deeper debt," the senator said. "And yet Democrats still want to rush the process. When it comes to healthcare reform, the Democratic motto is clear: rush and spend, rush and spend."
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Saying that he's ready for a fight but "not spoiling for one," President Obama used his weekly radio address to defend and push the financial regulation reforms his administration unveiled this week.
Specifically, the president spoke of the great value to Americans his proposed consumer financial protection agency can bring to the table to help prevent another financial crisis like the world currently faces.
"It's charged with just one job: looking out for the interests of ordinary Americans in the financial system," Obama said. "This is essential, for this crisis may have started on Wall Street. But its impacts have been felt by ordinary Americans who rely on credit cards, home loans, and other financial instruments."
Both Republicans and Democrats expressed concern about some of Obama's proposals, specifically questioning his plan to transfer more and unprecedented authority to the Federal Reserve.
But Obama has hailed his populist new agency as the crown jewel of the regulations.
"Some argue that these changes, and the many others we've called for, go too far," Obama said. "And I welcome a debate about how we can make sure our regulations work for businesses and consumers. But what I will not accept - what I will vigorously oppose - are those who do not argue in good faith. Those who would defend the status quo at any cost."
The president noted that he has "already begun to see special interests mobilizing against change."
"That's not surprising. That's Washington," Obama said.
In his push to rewrite the regulatory rules, the president has argued that they are the only way to prevent another financial crisis of the magnitude the country is facing now.
"As we continue to recover from an historic economic crisis, it is clear to everyone that one of its major causes was a breakdown in oversight that led to widespread abuses in the financial system," he said. "An epidemic of irresponsibility took hold from Wall Street to Washington to Main Street."
Democratic congressional leaders said this week that they will have legislation for Obama to sign this year.
The Pew Reserach Center released some new polling numbers that appear to reinforce the results of the NBC/Wall Street Journal polled released Wednesday.
The Pew survey found that Obama continues to ride high personal favorability numbers but that his economic policies and handling of General Motors and Chrysler get significantly lower marks.
Obama has a 61 percent job approval rating in the Pew poll, just up from the 56 percent in the NBC/WSJ poll. And similarly, 53 percent in the Pew survey approve of his handling of the economy, that's down from 60 percent in April.
In the NBC/WSJ poll, 51 percent approved of Obama on the economy, down from 55 percent in April.
The good news for Obama is that respondents in the Pew survey continue to say his policies will right the economy. Sixty-five percent believe they will improve the economic crisis and 55 percent say he will reduce the budget deficit in the long term.
Also, more than half said Obama's economic policies have not had an effect so far or it is too early to tell if they have.
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Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele criticized President Obama's financial reforms on Wednesday as another move by the president to interfere with the free market.
Steele was said Obama's plan "is too predictable," in a statement that hit inboxes immediately after Obama finished his remarks on Wednesday.
Steele said the reforms are another instance of Obama stepping into the private sector.
"As we have seen with the auto companies, banks, mortgage companies and our health care system, President Obama's solution is to give the federal government more power to micromanage America's economy," Steele said. "President Obama and Congressional Democrats continue to expand the role of government with no exit plan at all."
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In introducing his plan to reform the country's financial regulatory system, President Obama just touted the plan as as "sweeping overhaul" not seen since the changes implemented following the Great Depression.
Obama attributed the current economic crisis, in part, to the current regulatory system implemented following the Depression. That system was designed for the 20th century and couldn't respond fast enough to 21st century challenges, Obama said.
The entire system failed, Obama said. Regulators lacked the authority to take action, he said, and there was no accountability on regulators for inaction.
Stay tuned, we'll have more on reaction to Obama's plan throughout the day.
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The Obama administration has decided against providing bailout funds to California, which has the eighth largest economy in the world and is on the verge of economic collapse, the Washington Post reports.
The Post labels California's current crisis "one of the biggest remaining threats to the economy" and reports that the Obama administration decided against doling out funds because it could lead to requests from other states.
California's deficit is believed to be $24 billion for the next fiscal year. The Golden State, led by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), is seeking to save money by making massive budget cuts.
From the Post:
After a series of meetings, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, top White House economists Lawrence Summers and Christina Romer, and other senior officials have decided that California could hold on a little longer and should get its budget in order rather than rely on a federal bailout.
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Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis has been walking a fine line during his testimony before the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee.
The committee is investigating claims that the Fed and/or Treasury Department improperly pressured Bank of America to go through with its acquisition of Merrill Lynch despite the latter company's worsening losses in the fall and winter of 2008.
Lewis has acknowledged that the Treasury department said they would fire both him and his board if they backed out of the deal, but Lewis refuses to characterize that as a "threat."
Instead, he says that the seriousness of Treasury's position convinced him that they must be right about the necessity of the deal.
Committee members of both party's have ridiculed that characterization. The fiercest of those critics so far has been Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.)
Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) agreed with Cummings incredulity, but with a lighter touch:
Lewis hasn't yet given way, but the strikingly bipartisan consensus of the hearing so far is that the Treasury and Fed overstepped their bounds.
Steps being taken by Congress and the Obama administration are guided the principle that "everyone has to pay an equal price" to right the economy, Congressman Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.) said Monday.
Kanjorski, appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," discussed reforms to the credit card industry that President Obama is pushing this week. In his weekly radio address, Obama called for stronger consumer protections and stronger penalties for credit card companies that "take advantage of ordinary Americans."
Kanjorski, a member of House Financial Services Committee, said society pushed the country "right up to the brink of disaster" and the way to fix it is by asking all sectors to make sacrifices.
"I think everyone has to pay a little price," Kanjorski said. "What we call it is even warfare [not class warfare] - everyone has to pay an equal price."
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