Sonia Sotomayor's Senate Hearings

So far, so good. That is in reference to Judge Sotomayor's three days of Senate Hearings so far this week led by Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy. She has been asked some very tough questions from Senators on both sides of the isle, and has answered them all diligently in a cool and calm voice. Even Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who has been amongst those asking some of the toughest questions from the bunch, said to Sotomayor that "unless you have a complete meltdown, you will be confirmed. And I don't think you will."

Sotomayor has been questioned on everything from gun rights to abortion. She has also been questioned about some extremely controversial statements she has made in the past. Amongst these statements were one in which she said "I hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life." Sotomayor explained herself by saying that this statement was made during a speech especially for Latino women, and that it was meant to inspire them. She admitted that the statement "fell flat," and probably regrets ever saying it. In the hearings Senator Graham told her that "If I had said anything remotely like that, my career would have been over. And that's true of most people here." He is probably correct about that.

For such an important position in which you are appointed for life, it is necessary that such tough hearings be held, and that we learn absolutely everything there is to know about this woman. Tomorrow we will hear speeches from some of Sotomayor's biggest supporters and foes. However, even if her enemies make some great points, Republican Senator Graham is probably correct in saying that she will in all likelihood be accepted and become the first Latino women to be on the Supreme Court of America.

Health care in America

For decades the choice to socialize health care has been debated in the United States.  Those for socialized health care often argue that in a country like America we should not leave nearly 50 million Americans uninsured, and even more Americans underinsured.  They argue that America is the only westernized country in the world that does not have free (taxed) public health care.  They will argue that roughly 20 thousand Americans die every year simply because they do not have health insurance.  They will argue that health insurance is a business that strives to make a profit, and that saving someone's life should not coincide with making money off of an ill person.  They will argue that health insurance isn't a Republican issue or a Democratic issue, but rather a moral issue.  They will argue that not only do countries with public health care spend less, but they actually do better with respect to quality and availability.  They will argue that our mail, police, public schools, libraries, and many other things in America are all socialized, so why not socialize something that will save lives.

People against socialized health care will argue that many people who have health care are satisfied with their privatized health care system.  They will argue that socialized health care means that people will start going to the doctor an unnecessary amount of times because it's free, and we will all have to pay for it out of our own pockets.  They will argue that the government rarely does anything right, and health care is certainly something that they don't want in the government's hands.  They will argue that socialized health care means waiting in long lines.  They will argue that socialized health care means less attention from doctors.  And perhaps most importantly they will argue that if health care becomes socialized the quality of our health care will decrease.

Both sides bring up great points.  One thing that everybody should be able to agree on however is that now is certainly one of the best times to put this issue on the table, and have people with strong opinions from both sides dispute their views.  Tell the American people the truth about the benefits and weaknesses of each system, let the public know the facts, and let them decide.

If the U.S. Government is going to hold conferences and committees to discuss the issue of health care in America it is only fair to discuss the issue with people who hold a variety of perspectives.  This past week some doctors, nurses, and concerned citizens interrupted a Senate Committee hearing one after another (watch video below), raising their concerns that not one single person on the committee was in support of "Single Payer" health care, a health care system that many people believe to be the only solution for public health care in America (read up on Single Payer at http://singlepayernow.net/).  Those who interrupted the hearing were escorted out of the committee by police and arrested.  I urge everybody to get the facts on the issue, talk to your local politicians (http://www.house.gov/), and stand up for what you personally believe in, whether it be private health care, public health care, or something in between.  If you support "Single Payer," support HR676.

Another day of Senate Committee hearings brings more protesters...perhaps it is time to put Single Payer on the table, at least for the purpose of debate and discussion.  SINGLE PAYER ON THE TABLE NOW?

Democrats: almost unstoppable

Senator Arien Specter has been the Senator of Pennsylvania for the past 29 years as a devout Republican. On April 28th, Specter decided to switch playing fields, taking a step towards the left, miraculously overnight turning himself into a Democrat.  Specter was stated saying, "As the Republican Party has moved farther and farther to the right, I have found myself increasingly at odds with the Republican philosophy and more in line with the philosophy of the Democratic Party."  The reason this is such a big deal is due to the fact that the Democrats are extremely close to reaching the 60 necessary senators needed to create a "fillibuster proof majority" with which President Obama will be able to pass any piece of legislature he wishes; a truly dreadful thought for any right winger.

The other reason this move has been making such big news is because Specter, acting as Pennsylvania's Senator for the past 29 years, has been in charge of some major committees due to his seniority.  While making the switch from right to left, Specter wanted to be assured that he would retain his seniority.  To no surprise of the dirty game of politics, Specter was stripped of his seniority after he made his big move.  Now Specter will have the last word on almost every committee on which he sits, going from first in line to back of the line behind some men who have been in the Senate for just four months.  This was a very ugly vote in my opinion, which was cast by none other than his newfound fellow Democrats.  We can all but hope that Specter is given back his seniority, and that 29 years is not stripped away because a difference in philosophies.

Can we spend our way out of this recession?

People all across America are arguing about what steps need to be taken to solve our economic crisis. President Obama has taken a very unique approach to fix our economic problems, and that is to spend his way out of this recession. Many people are wondering why in the world we are spending ridiculous sums of money when our economy is going down the drain. If a family is having monetary troubles, shouldn't they be saving rather than spending? Shouldn't a country with monetary problems be saving rather than spending? This question could be debated by radicals on each side without ever coming to a conclusion of what the best way is to get out of the recession that we are currently in. It is clear where President Obama and his economic advisers stand on this issue. While many ask where the money is going to come from and what this will mean for future generations, President Obama has stressed the importance of acting now and acting fast. Aside from spending money to do things like create jobs and get our educational system back on track, and making long term investments in energy, what else do you propose be done about America's current economic crisis? It is easy to find blame, but hard to find solutions. Below is a summary of what/where President Obama is spending America's stimulus dollars.

The stimulus plan that is currently underway in the United States divides $789.2 billion dollars between spending (24%), aid (38%), and tax cuts (38%). Spending will go to modernizing our electric grid, energy efficiency, road and bridge construction/modernization, grants/loans for water infrastructure and food prevention, equipping schools with 21st century classrooms/labs/libraries, etc. Aid will come in the form of helping local school districts balance their educational budgets, temporary increase in federal funding for Medicaid to states, increases in student aid, extra grants for colleges work-study programs, extending jobless benefits, etc. And finally tax cuts will come in the form of helping workers who earn less than $75,000/year (married couples $150,000) get payroll tax credits, increasing tax credits to first time homeowners buying between April 2008 and June 2009, etc. (Wall Street Journal Friday, February 13 2009)

The launch heard around the world

As if President Obama didn't have enough on his plate already, Kim Jong-il gave the President, along with the rest of the world, a larger plate to deal with. At 4:30 this morning North Korea launched a rocket in their attempt to thrust a satellite into outer space. According to Washington officials, the rocket failed to go into orbit but flew at least 2,000 miles. This is double the range of a rocket they tested in 1998, which raises fear across the world of a long-range missile attack. Although their rocket failed to reach space, the North Korean media was praising Kim Jong-il's actions and insisted that the satellite was not only successfully circling the Earth, but broadcasting North korean patriotic songs as well.

While the United Nations is not yet sure what actions they will take, President Obama has firmly condemned North Korea for their missile launch, calling it a "provocative act." China and Russia on the other hand are not yet convinced that North Korea has done anything wrong, but are still studying the matter.

What it comes down to, even if you believe that North Korea should have the right to pursue their nuclear and space program development, is that Kim Jong-il is depriving his citizens of a good life by actions such as these which will only further ruin any hope they have left at restoring a relationship with the western world. China remains one of the only countries that continues to import food, oil, and other aid to the ailing country. If Kim Jong-il wants to see his country prosper he needs to stop launching rockets such as the ones he launched today, and join the civilized world in their pursuit of a peace.

The return of stem cell research

On Monday morning President Obama is scheduled to sign a reversal of President Bush's stem cell law. Bush's law banned any government aid to stem cell research back in 2001. President Obama believes that there should be a separation between science and politics, and the stem cell research has the potential to make some major medical breakthroughs.

Some on the right, like Representative Eric Cantor, believe that President Obama is doing this to distract the American public from what our real problems are at hand, and that of course is the economy. I don't know if Rep. Cantor got the memo, but President Obama signed into a law a close to 800 billion dollar stimulus plan called the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act", which is being implemented every day, and has already created several jobs.

So Rep. Cantor, if you are suggesting that President Obama should be worrying about the economy 24 hours a day, I've got news for you. The President is worrying about the economy, and it is his number one priority, but at the same time he has other jobs to do, like reversing hundreds of idiotic "Bush Laws" such as this one.

What to do about the banking crisis?

Tim Geithner and Lawrence Summers have been hard at work devising a plan to aid America's banking crises. They have been getting a lot of scrutiny from the media, especially when they announced that they needed more time to think of a better plan. Most people were stunned and distraught by the fact that these men need more time to figure out how to solve America's banking crises, but I for one appreciate the fact that they are taking their time to think over their options and do what's right. In the mean time, here is a letter to President Barack Obama from Rahm Emanuel that I thought some of you may find interesting.

To: The President

From: Rahm Emanuel

Re: A Second Opinion on the Banks

Mr. President:

I share your concerns both on the optics and on the substance of the plan not working. Basically there are three views of how to proceed with the banks. One is the Tim/Larry approach: Lend money to hedge funds and private equity speculators to get purchases of securities from banks flowing again, so that bank lending resumes. The problem is that this does not sop up existing toxic bonds. The Street seems to have no confidence in it. And, appearance-wise, it looks like rewarding the bad guys.

The second approach is the good bank/bad bank strategy, where the bad assets are taken off the books of the banks, and they can resume operations again with clean balance sheets. The problem is that the taxpayer pays, it costs more money than we have, and the same bad actors keep running the banks. Alan Blinder makes the case for this approach, in Sunday's Times, about as well as anyone. But he didn't convince me.

The third approach is "conservatorship" or "receivership" (let's keep avoiding the N-word) where a government agency--probably an expanded FDIC--takes temporary charge of the big banks (the top four hold more than half of all the deposits). That way, the government cleans up the balance sheets, existing management goes, and we can break them up into manageable parts where no bank is too big to fail. The taxpayer shares the loss with the bondholders. Bank stockholders lose, but they've already lost upwards of 95 percent of the value of the shares.

I'm no expert on this, but the third option seems more likely to actually work, more likely to head off a full blown depression, is less costly to the taxpayer, and is far better politics.

The middle option is flawed--more expensive for taxpayers, more windfalls to speculators--but it's better than the Tim/Larry plan.

But I definitely agree that we should hear from more outside experts. Here's what I recommend:

Some of the best sessions in the campaign were the times when you put fifteen people with different views around a table, let them argue it out, and then you decided. As long as Larry and Tim are heading the economic team, we can't very well exclude them, but we should bring in others--and you should hear this argument in the raw, and not filtered.

This should be a very small event, and participants should be emphatically asked to keep the meeting confidential. It should not be a media event like the recent White House summits on fiscal responsibility and on health reform, where we papered over vast ideological differences for the sake of the appearance of consensus.

If we are not absolutely certain that this won't leak, then let's do it as several one-on-one conversations with you, maybe with Summers arguing the other side. Leaks from Summers or Geithner spinning dissent inside would be just as damaging as leaks from one of the outsiders. But if we can keep it confidential, there is no substitute for hearing the arguments hashed out by both sides. As participants, I'd recommend:

From the Administration:

The President

Larry Summers

Tim Geithner

Rahm Emanuel

David Axelrod

Skeptics of the Geithner/Summers approach:

Joe Stiglitz, Columbia University

Paul Volcker, former Fed Chair, heads your outreach panel

Sheila Bair, heads FDIC

Nouriel Roubini, NYU

Elizabeth Warren, chair, Congressional Oversight Panel, Harvard Law

Damon Silvers, deputy chair, Congressional Oversight Panel, AFL-CIO

From the Fed:

Ben Bernanke, chair

Dan Tarullo, governor

Don Kohn, governor

As for others, Alan Greenspan is somewhat skeptical, but I'm not sure we need him in the meeting, and we certainly don't want self-interested people like Rubin. This is also not the time for bipartisanship; we can get Republican and Wall Street input at a separate meeting (in any case Geithner more or less speaks for Wall Street.) Paul Krugman has been very critical and ahead of the curve, if nasty to us, though his last column on the budget was kind to you (finally!) But he also plays a journalist role, and he might be tempted to use what he learned in a column, even indirectly. This also precludes people like Kuttner. He's very friendly to you, but he's been pretty hard on the economic team. I don't quite trust the guy.

Sincerely,

Rahm

Dean doesn't make the cut

Howard Dean, the Former Democratic Party Chairman, or otherwise more important former Governor of the great and beautiful green mountain state, a little place I like to call Vermont, did not make the cut for the Obama Administration. Dean, who is most famous for his yelling of "byaaaaaa" during his 2004 run for president, was eagerly seeking the position of Health and Human Services Secretary. Dean was quoted as saying "I was pretty clear that I would have liked to have been Secretary of Health and Human Services but it is the president's choice and he decided to go in a different direction." Instead, President Obama gave the position to the more competent Governor Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas. Poor Dean, once again taking the walk of shame. Luckily, Dean is not too distressed because they chose him over Ben Stein to give a commencement speech for the class of 2009 at the University of Vermont.

It never gets old, so here it is ladies and gentlemen:

Shovels have hit the ground

While many have been wondering when we will see President Obama's stimulus plan start to take effect, the answer is today. Obama has promised that the 787 billion dollar recovery plan will save or create more than 3 million jobs in America. Well just about a week after the bill was signed into law we are already seeing its affects. Today 60 people were hired to rebuild a highway in Maryland that hasn't been repaired for 17 years. Whle 60 people is miniscule, it is a promising start. It is projects like these that are going to rebuild our economy, one road at a time.

$819 billion stimulus package: coming to an economy near you

President Obama's Administration's $819 billion stimulus is going through the Senate this week, after having been passed by the House of Representatives last week. Not one single Republican of the 177 in the House voted "yay" to the bill, but it still passed because the Democrat's majority lead.

This bill will be President Obama's first major piece of legislation since he became president just 15 days ago. Yes Obama has already dealt with several other major issues such as Guantanamo, but for all intensive purposes this is the first bill that is going to have real effects on the country, whether they be good or bad. President Obama was hopeful that the bill would be laying on his desk in mid-february ready to be signed into law. It does not look like his deadline, which is less than two weeks away, is going to be met. Obama would like this thing to become law as quickly as possible because he says that every day and every week that it is not passed, the economy continues to fall and thousands upon hundred of thousands of hard working Americans are losing their jobs.

Frankly, if $819 billion is going to be pumped into this country, I would feel much better if Congress took their time and made sure that all 600+ odd pages of the bill were carefully looked over. After all, this is something that will have profound effects on our country that will effect our grand children and great grand children, and future generations beyond that.

If you would care to peruse through the lengthy bill that was passed in the House last week, take a look here.. I would recommend just picking one random section from the table of contents, and skimming through it to see how the Obama Administration and the Democrats would like to spend our tax dollars to stimulate our economy and create jobs. For example, I looked over how $5.5 billion would be used towards education in title 9 which can be found on page 157 of the bill.

Below is a list of questionable things that the Republicans took out from the bill, and would like to see either eradicated or changed. I must admit, there are several items in the bill that appear to be wasting our tax dollars. For example, why should Hollywood movie producers get a $246 million tax cut to buy motion picture film? Take a look at the list, I think you will find it quite interesting where some of this $819 billion may be spent.

• $2 billion earmark to re-start FutureGen, a near-zero emissions coal power plant in Illinois that the Department of Energy defunded last year because it said the project was inefficient.

• A $246 million tax break for Hollywood movie producers to buy motion picture film.

• $650 million for the digital television converter box coupon program.

• $88 million for the Coast Guard to design a new polar icebreaker (arctic ship).

• $448 million for constructing the Department of Homeland Security headquarters.

• $248 million for furniture at the new Homeland Security headquarters.

• $600 million to buy hybrid vehicles for federal employees.

• $400 million for the Centers for Disease Control to screen and prevent STD's.

• $1.4 billion for rural waste disposal programs.

• $125 million for the Washington sewer system.

• $150 million for Smithsonian museum facilities.

• $1 billion for the 2010 Census, which has a projected cost overrun of $3 billion.

• $75 million for "smoking cessation activities."

• $200 million for public computer centers at community colleges.

• $75 million for salaries of employees at the FBI.

• $25 million for tribal alcohol and substance abuse reduction.

• $500 million for flood reduction projects on the Mississippi River.

• $10 million to inspect canals in urban areas.

• $6 billion to turn federal buildings into "green" buildings.

• $500 million for state and local fire stations.

• $650 million for wildland fire management on forest service lands.

• $1.2 billion for "youth activities," including youth summer job programs.

• $88 million for renovating the headquarters of the Public Health Service.

• $412 million for CDC buildings and property.

• $500 million for building and repairing National Institutes of Health facilities in Bethesda, Maryland.

• $160 million for "paid volunteers" at the Corporation for National and Community Service.

• $5.5 million for "energy efficiency initiatives" at the Department of Veterans Affairs National Cemetery Administration.

• $850 million for Amtrak.

• $100 million for reducing the hazard of lead-based paint.

• $75 million to construct a "security training" facility for State Department Security officers when they can be trained at existing facilities of other agencies.

• $110 million to the Farm Service Agency to upgrade computer systems.

• $200 million in funding for the lease of alternative energy vehicles for use on military installations.