Obama and Bush seem to be working together to convince Congress to approve the second half of the TARP money before Bush leaves office. Supposedly, the Bush administration won't allocate any of the funding but Obama wants it ready for soon after his inauguration.
Also, all the retirements in the Republican ranks are causing a little heartburn for the GOP. And I always love that!
And, more reaction and analysis about Obama's relationship with Congressional Democrats.
It looks like Obama and Bush will jointly request the rest of the TARP money from Congress, as the AP reports. How's that for bipartisanship?
The Bush administration and the incoming Obama team have undertaken a tag-team effort to obtain the money from reluctant lawmakers, to have it waiting for Obama when he's sworn in Jan. 20.
President George W. Bush would request the additional money for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, but the incoming administration would allocate it. Obama's economic adviser, Larry Summers, briefed lawmakers Sunday on the bailout and on the incoming administration's plan for roughly $800 billion in spending and tax breaks to spur the economy.
The request may come as early as today. The WSJ reports that Obama has promised more accountability in how the money is spent and more assistance for the foreclosure crisis to soften up some skeptics in Congress. Dodd also said that Obama will seek to "rebrand" the program.
Just as long as Paulson doesn't get anywhere near it...
Obama will apparently have much stricter conditions on the TARP money than the Bush administration. Shocking, right? What conditions would you like to see him put forward? In my view, any banks or financial institutions receiving TARP money should have to demonstrate some way that those funds will benefit average Americans. And no, the typical "we're too big to fail" and "the economy could collapse" are not good or specific enough. They need to use the bailout money to lend and provide credit to consumers and small businesses, not to pay employee bonuses. David Smick agrees:
The bankers say they won't lend, or are imposing extraordinarily tough terms on borrowers, because 2009 will be a tough year. Urge them, at a minimum, to help reduce mortgage rates and increase refinancing.
That is a condition I would like to see. Also, credit card companies should not be able to receive taxpayer bailout funding (as I mentioned in a diary a few weeks ago) and then turn around and raise interest rates on their customers in good standing. I think I could come up with a whole list of conditions I would like to see!
Also this morning, the Detroit News is also reporting that Chrysler is requesting an additional $3 billion, in addition to the $4 billion they received last month.
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In political news: Another one bites the dust!
Ohio Sen. George Voinovich has told associates he intends to retire next year rather than seek a new term, party officials said Sunday night. He is the fourth Republican to make departure plans since the Democratic landslide in November.
and:
One Republican official said Rob Portman, a former Cabinet official in the Bush administration, is likely to seek Voinovich's seat. Portman was President George W. Bush's budget director and United States trade representative after stepping down from the House to join the administration.
Potential Democratic candidates include Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher, Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner and Reps. Tim Ryan and Zack Space.
Chris Cillizza talks to strategists who claim that there will probably not be a contentious primary on the Democratic side. I don't really know anything about the Dems mentioned by the AP, except Brunner. I was very impressed with how she handled the election in Ohio. And, Politico reports that all the Republican resignations are causing a little panic in the GOP. Sweet.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), one of the biggest fundraisers for the NRSC last cycle, said the wave of retirements has caused some panic among Republicans.
"I'm really concerned because it's important we have some balance here because if we don't, one side can do whatever it wants to do, and that's not good for the country," Hatch said.
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There was some speculation that Mel Martinez - the retiring Republican Senator from Florida - would retire early so Governor Crist could appoint a replacement, who would obviously have a head start on the 2010 election. But Martinez denied that rumor over the weekend and insists he will serve out this term.
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New York Magazine thinks Obama is a "political party of one":
With the selection last week of Obama’s friend, Virginia governor Tim Kaine, to chair the party, the question has more or less been answered: Much of the campaign’s grassroots operation, I’m told, will reside at the DNC. What Obama is wagering is that, with some clever branding (read camouflage), the fealty of his non-Democratic followers to him personally will overcome whatever nausea they experience owing to the partisan affiliation. And though the move has been interpreted as a sign of Obama’s empowering the DNC by having it absorb the network, I suspect that the opposite may happen. The Obama network—with its greater resources and zeal—may effectively absorb the party.
It will be interesting to see what changes will happen in the DNC under Kaine and how it will handle the 2010 elections.
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Meanwhile, Mike Madden thinks the relationship between Obama and Congressional Democrats will likely be a little testy:
So much for that mandate. The fight -- polite though it may be -- over the stimulus plan is already showing that it may not be as easy for Obama to govern with a Democratic Congress as it is to campaign at the top of a Democratic ticket. Before he's even taken charge, Obama has also gotten pushback from senior Democrats over his choice of Leon Panetta as CIA director (though that dispute seems to have been settled, and Panetta is likely to be confirmed) and rumors that he'll name CNN contributor Sanjay Gupta to be surgeon general.
On Capitol Hill and in Obama's transition office, aides played down any notion of a serious split. "There was what one would probably expect, which was constructive comments," Axelrod said Thursday night, as he squeezed through a crowd of reporters and into an elevator on the second floor of the Capitol. "I'm not going to characterize it as pushback. I characterize it as people doing their jobs." But the incoming administration took the feedback from Congress seriously. Axelrod gave the Democrats a rundown of polling by the Obama team showing the despair voters feel when they think about the economy, and the transition team dispatched Summers to the Senate again on Sunday. Faced with the prospect of a revolt, the transition team sent a clear message: we're listening. (That alone is a pretty significant change from the Bush administration, which sometimes seemed to be going out of its way to ignore its own Republican allies on the Hill when the GOP controlled Congress.)
Pushback is healthy. But Congress should remember that their approval ratings are in the toilet because the American people are sick of their bickering and want them to get shit done.
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Burris' lawyers will be in the Senate tomorrow, the Hill reports:
Lawyers for Roland Burris will be in Washington Monday to meet with Senate attorneys and press their case for seating Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's (D) controversial appointee.
A senior Senate Democratic aide said the various legal teams will review documents that Burris has collected in recent days, which he believes meets an 1884 Senate rule requiring all senators to have certificates signed by their states' governors and secretaries of state.
Ron Elving of NPR thinks Reid has run out of options and exhausted his options for delay. Will we see a Senator Burris sworn in this week? Regardless, today is my last day of mentioning the Burris story. I'm sick of it! I don't care how crazy or drama-filled the story gets this week, I am boycotting!
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A Faux-Bama was sworn in during a rehearsal in Washington D.C. yesterday:
Still, from a distance, it had the look and feel of the real thing: amplified speeches and announcements could be heard several blocks away, honor guards and color guards and processions of dignitaries (or stand-ins thereof) assembled along the western end of the Capitol. The (actual) Marine Band showed up to play “Hail to the Chief” to honor the (fake) new president.
Several hundred onlookers, reporters and photographers braved frigid predawn temperatures for the chance to get a lot closer to the faux action than they probably will for the real thing on Jan. 20.
I think it would be pretty fun to be a Faux-Bama for the day.
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I don't know what I find more disturbing about this story - that Joe the Faux-Plumber is actually in Israel acting like he's a war correspondent or the fact that the media is actually reporting what he says like anyone cares. Amanda Terkel at Think Progress has the quote from Joe (or is it Sam?):
I think media should be abolished from, uh, you know, reporting. You know, war is hell. And if you’re gonna sit there and say, “Well look at this atrocity,” well you don’t know the whole story behind it half the time, so I think the media should have no business in it.
Does that mean he is going to stop pretending to be a journalist or "war correspondent" over there? Brandon Friedman from VetVoice pleads:
Please, God, let Joe keep representing the voice of conservative American media in war zones around the world.
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What's on your mind?