Obama Calls His Budget Needed Change

Peter Baker of the New York Times posted an article titled "Obama Calls His Budget Needed Change." President Obama described his budget proposal as “a threat to the status quo in Washington” but has special interests to expand health care, curb pollution and improve education.
The president said, “I came to provide the sweeping change that this country demanded when it went to the polls in November. That is the change this budget starts to make, and that is the change I’ll be fighting for in the weeks ahead.”
There is a $3.6 trillion budget for the year 2010. Obama wants to extend health coverage to the more than 40 million uninsured, revamp industry so that it stops producing so many emissions that cause climate change, develop alternative energy sources and invest billions of dollars more in education.
He also wants to restructure the tax code to shift more of the burden from lower- and middle-income workers to the rich to reverse the widening income gap. And he promised to bring the federal deficit, projected to reach $1.75 trillion this year, under control by 2013. Obama says that banks, insurance companies, and oil companies won't like his idea.
Republicans think that Obama's plan is a "job killer." Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina argued that the Obama plan represented out-of-control spending that would drive the nation deeper into debt.

I think there are both good points and bad pints to Obama's plan. I hope it works but everybody's going to have to wait and find out. I don't think the plan is a "job killer" like most of the republicans think so. The banks and insurance companies probably wn't like it but there are a lot of people that are not involved in the banks and insurance companies that are going to love this plan if it actually works. It would benefit more people than it would hurt.

Obama Upholds Detainee Policy in Afghanistan

Charlie Savage posted an article in the New York Times titled "Obama Upholds Detainee Policy in Afghanistan." The Obama administration has told a federal judge that military detainees in Afghanistan have no legal right to challenge their imprisonment there, embracing a key argument of former President Bush’s legal team. The Justice Department said that the new administration had reviewed its position in a case brought by prisoners at the U.S Air Force base at Bagram, just north of the Afghan capital. The Obama team determined that the Bush policy was correct: such prisoners cannot sue for their release. The detainees argue that they are not enemy combatants, and they want a judge to review the evidence against them and order the military to release them. The Bush administration had argued that federal courts have no jurisdiction to hear such a case because the prisoners are non citizens being held in the course of military operations outside the United States. The Obama team was required to take a stand on whether those arguments were correct because a federal district judge, John D. Bates, asked the new government whether it wanted to alter that position. The power of civilian federal judges to review individual decisions by the executive branch to hold a terrorism suspect as an enemy combatant was one of the most contentious legal issues surrounding the Bush administration. For years, President Bush’s legal team argued that federal judges had no authority under the Constitution to hear challenges by detainees being held at the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and elsewhere. The Supreme Court rejected the Bush administration’s legal view for prisoners held at Guantánamo in landmark rulings in 2004 and 2006. But those rulings were based on the idea that the prison was on U.S. soil for constitutional purposes, based on the unique legal circumstances and history of the naval base. After becoming president last month, Mr. Obama issued orders requiring strict adherence to antitorture rules and shuttering the Guantánamo prison within a year. He also ordered a review of whether conditions there meet the standards of humane treatment required by the, and a review of what could be done with each of the 245 detainees who remain at the prison.

I think this artice gives very good detail. I think Obama should keep some of Bush's plans and also make plans of his own. They should keep the prisoners. They were there for a reason and should be punished.

Is the Government Off Our Backs Yet?

John Funiciello of the Black Commentator posted an article titled Is the Government Off Our Backs Yet?

For decades, politicians on the right has been: “Get the government off our backs.” An anti-government, anti-tax advocate said, "I want to halve the size of government in 25 years and get it down to the size where we can drown it in a bathtub.” The current economic meltdown in the U.S. and around the world is proof enough that they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Deregulation and wild speculation with other people’s money that came with deregulation are the main reasons for the financial crisis in America, but the problem goes back far beyond that. There has been a recent salmanella outbreak that killed about 8 people and made hundreds ill. The reason why corporations were not inspected before the outbreak was because there were not enough inspectors. The reason for not having enough inspectors? Budget cuts that reduced staff. This reduction of government oversight goes back many years, but a shocking example was the explosion and fire at Imperial Foods, a chicken processing plant in Hamlet, N.C., in September, 1991. Twenty-five workers died and more than four dozen were seriously injured, many never to completely recover. The reason for the catastrophe? Many of the doors were locked, some from the outside, to prevent the theft of chicken. Some workers knew the danger of the closed doors, but the jobs were so valuable to them that they didn’t complain in that community of less than 7,000. Ronald Reagan was elected president and one of his main themes was: “Don’t look to government to solve your problems. Government is the problem.” With that kind of attitude about the efficacy of government, where could workers go but down? Mortgages, savings, and investments of ordinary citizens were going to be affected by this mass deregulation that took place over so many years that it all seemed normal. Wage workers didn’t recognize that their welfare was tied to the government operating on an even ensuring that the institutions of the private sector were functioning in a fair, efficient, and honest manner. With deregulation of banking and finance - and with two wars of choice that drained the economy even further over the past eight years - the U.S. economy has gone into a tailspin and it has taken the rest of the world with it. If America is to recover from this assault, it will be the people who will be the instrument of the recovery. Predatory capitalism will have to retreat to its cave for the foreseeable future and let a naturally industrious people prove that local and regional production of the goods necessary for life is possible. Finally, the people will prove that they can govern themselves, without the controlling hand of corporations and their lobbyists.

I very much agree with this article. The government doesn't do enough to help the U.S. and protect them. They're always worried about money and they only think about themselves and not about the health of the U.S. The economy is important but health is more important.

More Bipartisanship, Less Stimulus

The Nation posted an article titled More Bipartisanship, Less Stimulus by John Nichols. The House approved the stimulus plan and the Senate is now going over the key elements. The Senate's $780 billion plan is still a budget buster. It's just not focused on spending as much of the money as the House sought to on renewing the economy. In order to get the votes of two Republican (Maine's Susan Collins and Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter) and perhaps another (Mainer Olympia Snowe) that were needed to undermine the threat of a GOP filibuster, Reid surrendered $86 billion is proposed stimulus spending. In doing so, the Democrats agreed to cut not just fat but bone, and to warp the focus and intent of the legislation. The Senate plan is dramatically more weighted than the House bill toward tax cuts (which account for more than 40 percent of the overall cost of the package). The Senate's increased emphasis on tax cuts comes at the expense of the aggressive spending in key areas that might actually get a stalled economy moving. The House's proposal to help unemployed Americans maintain their health benefits has been cut down.

Under the Senate plan:

* States will get less aid.

* Schools will get less help.

* Job creation programs will be less well funded.

* Preparations to combat potential public health disasters -- which could put the final nail in the economy's coffin -- will not be made.

At a time when smart economists are saying that a bigger, bolder stimulus plan is needed, Senate Democrats and a few moderate Republicans have agreed to a smaller, weaker initiative. The White House still wants to advance this measure, as do Senate Democratic leaders. And, considering the urgency of the moment, they are probably right to try to do something. But if the final "stimulus package" proves to be insufficient to jump start the economy -- and if what is left of public confidence in the prospect of turnaround collapses as a result -- this Friday night compromise will be remembered with pained regret.

I think that this article does give some very good points and does bring up a very good argument. I do think the stimulus package is a very good idea. It gives the people money that need it. The economy is in bad shape and it needs to get better fast. The House keeps stalling on getting the plan passed but they need to hurry. I do think this article is wrong in a lot of ways. It says that schools will get less help and states will get less aid. That is not true. The community helps the schools and if people in the community have more money, they could help the schools and help the community. I think the stimulus package is a good idea.