Weekly remarks: GOP warns of new Obama taxes; Obama says reforms needed to help all

Remarks by Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, as provided by the Republican National Committee

This week, like most Americans, my family came together to break bread, give thanks and celebrate our blessings.

Even in these times of struggle and trial, we have much to be thankful for, beginning with our men and women in uniform, many of whom will spend this holiday season away from hearth and home. The tragic events at Fort Hood remind us that whether they serve at home or abroad, we owe our soldiers and their families a debt of gratitude we will never be able to repay.

This past Thursday, while empty chairs for America’s defenders were placed at Thanksgiving dinner tables in many homes, many other seats were filled with anxious Americans who are facing their own personal battles and struggles.  Millions of families have seen jobs and careers vanish in the midst of this recession.

Many are asking, ‘when will things get better?’ Many more are asking, ‘where are the jobs?’

President Obama told the American people that his last $787 billion ‘jobs bill,’ the so-called ‘stimulus’ package, would ensure that unemployment would not go above 8 percent.  And the Administration continues to insist their stimulus plan is working. But unemployment is now at a heartbreaking 10.2 percent.

In the city and on the farm, as millions of American families struggle to balance their checkbooks this holiday season, they watch in astonishment as Washington spends billions of dollars it doesn’t have.

And what is the White House’s answer to our struggles? Another meeting next week. A ‘jobs summit,’ and....

Top Democrat warns Afghanistan will bankrupt domestic programs, threatens war surtax if Obama sends more troops

David Obey came to Congress in 1969, a young Democratic congressman from Wisconsin, opposed to the Vietnam War and mindful of the funding it was draining from Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs.

Thirty years later, he is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and adamant that Afghanistan is a similar quagmire that could bankrupt President Obama's domestic agenda.

"There ain't going to be no money for nothing if we pour it all into Afghanistan," House Appropriations Chairman David Obey told ABC News. "If they ask for an increased troop commitment in Afghanistan, I am going to ask them to pay for it."

Comparing Afghanistan to Vietnam, Obey said that both were long-standing civil wars and that, in each case, the United States found itself with an unreliable partner on the ground.

"On the merits, I think it is a mistake to deepen our involvement," Obey said. "But if we are going to do that, then at least we ought to pay for it. Because if we don't, if we don't pay for it, the cost of the Afghan war will wipe out every initiative we have to rebuild our own economy."

"If we have to pay for the healthcare bill, we should pay for the war as well," Obey said, "by having a war surtax."

Obey's comments come just as Washington is starting to acknowledge the huge debt laid at its doorstep by recent programs -- including the massive drug-prescription bill and Iraq war costs enacted under the Bush administration as well as the healthcare overhaul and stimulus plans ginned up under Obama.

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The current national debt is $12 trillion, and the White House estimates that, by 2019, interest from the debt will top $700 billion a year. As one analyst, Pimco's William Gross, told the New York Times, “What a good country or a good squirrel should be doing is stashing away nuts for the winter. The United States is not only not saving nuts, it’s eating the ones left over from the last winter.”

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: David Obey. Credit: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

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Good news: Obama creates 30 new jobs in one congressional district. Bad news: No such district

Chicago politics, where voting is such a revered civic duty that people do it even after they're dead, cold, stiff, stuffed, boxed and buried beneath the permafrost for years, has now come to D.C. with the Obama administration.

This afternoon comes the most encouraging economic news, courtesy of our keen-eyed buddy Rick Klein over at ABC, that the Obama administration's $787-billion economic stimulus has, for example, thankfully created 30 new jobs in a little-known rural corner of Arizona at a cost to American taxpayers of only $761,420.

That works out to only $25,380.67 spent to create each individual job.

Seems like a lot per slot, but those 30 folks must be happy to be employed again and paying taxes.

This will be a real feather in the cap of Vice President Joe Biden, who's been left behind and assigned by the ever-campaigning president to monitor the stimulus plan, its spending and effectiveness moving into the crucial midterm elections of 2010. Might the Democrats snatch that House seat?

So the people of that 15th Congressional District in staunchly Republican Arizona should be pretty happy about this.

Trouble is, there is no 15th Congressional District in Arizona. None. Nada. Zip. Zero. Doesn't exist. Not in Arizona. Not even on paper at the Democratic National Committee. There are only eight. Period.

But the administration's much-vaunted recovery.gov website reported these jobs as being created there.

Could well be a computer glitch. Lord knows humans would never make such a dumb, misleading mistake, even in politics.

But then the trouble is that just months after grandly unveiling the recovery.gov website to showcase its economic prowess and tech-savvy, the Obama administration just spent 18 million additional taxpayer dollars to redesign the still new website.

And that site proudly also reported nonexistent new stimulus spending not just in Arizona but other states across the country.

So that looks to have worked pretty well, at least if you're counting computer designer jobs created.

Anyway, how do you think the 15th will vote next year?

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Josua Roberts / Bloomberg News

As Obama leaves for Asia, GOP gains first lead on generic congressional ballot since he took office

Time was when American presidents in domestic trouble would travel abroad to be seen positively back home as a world leader.

Then-freshman Sen. Barack Obama was hoping for a little of that back in the summer of 2008 when he staged his expensive campaign rally with an adoring throng in downtown Berlin. Alas, Germans couldn't vote for him -- or a Republican. But it looked great stateside for a few days.

After a brief media statement this morning to get him plastered on the daytime news, President Obama will make the long flight (just ask Sarah Palin) to Alaska to talk with U.S. troops at Elmendorf Air Force Base at local lunchtime while Air Force One refuels for a flight to Tokyo, beginning the president's nine-day trip across Asia. Talk about throngs.

Obama could use some good political news because as he boards the plane with his own bedroom and shower stall, word spread from the Gallup Poll folks that for the first time in over a year, more Americans say they would pick Republicans on a generic congressional ballot than a Democrat.

It's now 48% Republican and 44% Democrat. And this comes after months of the ...

Clever Calif. Dem Garry South says one specific Republican would make 'a great governor'

Garry South, the ever-voluble, ever-quotable political strategist, has made a name for himself with his provocative, often outrageous statements on behalf of Democratic candidates and causes.

More than a few of his candidates have cringed -- even if they were privately pleased -- as South scorched the Republican opposition. (Most of his inflammatory, over-the-top remarks are, in truth, about as random and spontaneous as a precision-guided missile.)

Nonetheless, it was something of a surprise at a California Chamber of Commerce forum today in Napa, Calif., when South had this to say about GOP gubernatorial hopeful Tom Campbell:

"He's a great guy. He would make a great governor. You can quote me on that."

OK.

True, South probably said those nice things because he's convinced that Campbell, the pauper in the 2010 Republican gubernatorial race against big-spending Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner to succeed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, has no chance of winning.

That, of course, remains to be seen.

Some have drawn a comparison between Campbell's circumstances and another vastly outspent dark horse candidate who improbably managed to beat a pair of free-spending millionaires: Gray Davis in 1998.

His campaign, not incidentally, was run by none other than -- oh, look! -- Garry South.

The difference, South pointed out, was Davis' support within the Democratic base, something the heretical Tom Campbell -- he of the 32-cent-a-gallon gas tax hike proposal -- seems to lack among the state's tax-hating Republican base.

What makes South's comment especially noteworthy, however, is his current role, managing the gubernatorial primary campaign of Democratic San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.

If Campbell is such a great fellow with all that promise, why isn't South supporting his bid for governor?

"I'm a Democrat," South replied. "You need to ask?"

Jamie Fisfis, a Campbell strategist who joined South on the panel along with consultants for Poizner, Whitman and Democratic Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown, had this to say afterward: "Sounds like Garry's trying to destroy another Republican candidate he doesn't want to face in the general election."

South, it might be recalled, helped engineer the defeat of former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan in the Republican primary of the 2002 governor's race, helping ease the way for Davis' reelection. [Updated 9:40 a.m. Oct. 30: An earlier version of this post incorrectly said Riordan ran in the 2006 primary.]

-- Mark Z. Barabak

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Photo: South's office.

Wall Street exec pay cuts: boon or bust for taxpayers?

The Obama administration plans to announce -- as early as today -- new 90% pay cuts for 175 Wall Street executives at the seven firms bailed out by the government  amid the economy's collapse earlier this year.

Many are applauding.

“It’s about time that somebody stands up to these folks we bailed out,” Maryland Democrat Elijah Cummings, told Bloomberg. “They seem to have forgotten that they would not have jobs in many instances if it were not for taxpayers.”

Republicans agree. “Politically it’s a slam dunk for the administration,” said Dan Schnur, communications director for Arizona Republican John McCain’s presidential campaign against George W. Bush in 2000.

But others are cautioning that the pay curbs could lead to a brain drain at the seven companies, making it less likely that taxpayers will ever be reimbursed for their "too big to fail" TARP investment.  Steven Hall, a New York compensation consultant, put it this way, “The fear is, will this make people throw up their hands and say, ‘I have to leave?’ ”

Even more concerning, some critics worry that the pay cuts, authored by pay czar Kenneth Feinberg, won't make a dent in the Wall Street culture of greed. And chief among these critics is billionaire Warren Buffett, who pays himself $100,000 a year in salary for running Berkshire Hathaway.

There has to be "a downside to people who really mess up large institutions," Buffett said in an interview with Berkshire subsidiary Business Wire. "Too many people have walked away from the troubles they have created for society, not just for their own institution, and they have walked away rich."

Let us know what you think.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo Credit: Reuters

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Fat tax to pay for healthcare reform?

It's already happened in North Carolina, where lawmakers have decreed that starting next year, state employees who smoke will pay more for health insurance. Ditto state employees who are still obese by July 2011, defined as having a body mass index (BMI) of more than 40.

Could the federal government be far behind?

Today House Democrats are meeting in their closed-door caucus to talk about what Washington euphemistically calls "revenue streams" for funding the healthcare reform. President Obama has said he will not sign a bill increasing revenue, sending lawmakers scrambling to find a combination of spending cuts and tax increases.

Already, lawmakers have looked at taxing insurance companies for so-called "Cadillac" plans, but labor unions object. And they've looked at a so-called "botox" tax on plastic surgery, and a tax on Americans earning more than $500,000 a year or couples earning more than $1 million.

All of this was brilliantly explained by our colleague Janet Hook in a recent article asking, "Whose taxes will go up?"

But she didn't mention the prospect of a fat tax.

-- Johanna Neuman

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Downturn on Las Vegas Strip affects political decisions throughout Nevada

Nevada’s economic engine is the Las Vegas Strip, and for the last two years, that engine has been sputtering. That’s not only led to rising unemployment rates and a wildly unhappy electorate, but also to a number of painful political decisions.

Gaming taxes comprise about a third of state revenue, and sales taxes makes up another large chunk. As the tourism industry faltered, both have dropped so much that the Legislature overrode a gubernatorial veto to raise taxes, which still couldn’t save education and other services from cuts.

To balance the budget, lawmakers also rerouted tens of millions of dollars from Clark County to state coffers. Now the county must figure out how to provide for the wave of newly unemployed residents and continue to help the elderly and disabled. There’s no relief in sight either.

Some political types expect tax revenue to fall so far below projections that Gov. Jim Gibbons, a Republican, might call the part-time Legislature back to Carson City. And though frazzled gaming executives contend the recession has eased, their expansion plans for the Strip – centered on ever-pricier hotel rooms, boutiques and steakhouses – have proven ill-timed.

Check out this week’s look at the sagging fortunes of the Strip and remember that as the Strip goes, so goes Nevada.

-- Ashley Powers

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Weekly remarks: Obama offers new savings ideas; GOP's Kline urges healthcare debate reset

Well, the wily, not-so-old president decided to pull a fast one on this otherwise slow news holiday weekend and make a little news. Even though he's actually again on vacation, this time up at Camp David.

First, as his Vice President Joe Biden did the other day, Obama makes claims of seeing significant improvement in the economy because the number of jobs lost each month is less bad than before and banks are repaying some of those federal loans. 

His news is that he's found another dangerous road that Americans cannot continue to go down: The not-saving-enough-for-the-future road.

The Democrat, who now lives in free government housing, thinks Americans should save more for their future -- college, retirement, whatever. He wants to ease procedures for small businesses to have workers enroll in 401(k) programs.

He wants to enable Americans to send federal income tax refunds directly back to the federal government by purchasing U.S. savings bonds to help cover the gargantuan budget deficits coming down another dangerous road. That bond idea will be particularly popular among people certain they'll live sufficient decades to earn significant interest if current rates continue.

Obama also wants tax rules written in plain English so that people like his Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Democratic ex-Sen. Tom Daschle can understand them and not inadvertently fall behind in paying some for years.

And Obama wants politics bloggers and presumably others with unused sick and....

In Illinois, they're racing the tax man to the bar

Got a sweet tooth to feed? Need a snack? Or a drink?

If you’re in Illinois, get ready to fork out a bit more cash starting Tuesday.

The state is rolling out a sweeping new tax law that boosts tax fees for soft drinks, candy and booze: Candy will see as much as a 6.25% tax, and tax on a six-pack of beer will increase 25%.

The money is aimed to help fund a $31-billion statewide construction plan – a plan Gov. Pat Quinn hopes will revive the state’s economy and keep more than 439,000 people employed.

Wow. That’s a lot to expect from a Snickers bar or a cold Corona. Illinois is not alone. North Carolina’s about to see a penny increase in its sales tax this week, and higher excise taxes on “sin” goods – such as cigarettes, beer, wine and liquor – to help narrow a projected budget gap.

And a number of public health experts and policy analysts have suggested that extra taxes on sugary foods and drinks can aid budget woes or fund healthcare programs. 

-- P.J. Huffstutter

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Photo: Billboards in Springfield, Ill., remind customers to buy now and save. Credit: Associated Press