Obama seeks halt to tax subsidies for oil industry

President Barack Obama is calling anew on Congress to end tax subsidies for the oil and gas industry, saying the nation needs to develop alternative sources of energy in the face of rising gasoline prices.

Obama said Saturday in his weekly radio and Internet address that he expected Congress to consider in the next few weeks halting $4 billion in tax subsidies, something he hasn't been able to get through Congress throughout his presidency. He said the vote would put lawmakers on record on whether they "stand up for oil companies" or "stand up for the American people."

"They can either place their bets on a fossil fuel from the last century or they can place their bets on America's future," Obama said.

Industry officials and many Republicans in Congress have argued that cutting the tax breaks would lead to higher fuel prices, raising costs on oil companies and affecting their investments in exploration and production. The measure is considered a long shot in Congress, given that Obama couldn't end the subsidies when Democrats controlled Congress earlier in his term.

Republican presidential candidates have accused Obama of delaying drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico and in a national wildlife refuge in Alaska and faulted him for not advancing the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to Texas Gulf Coast refineries. They have also criticized policies pursued by the Environmental Protection Agency as inhibiting energy development.

Obama said there is no quick fix to high gas prices, which climbed to $3.83 on Friday according to AAA, but he pushed back against critics who say he is opposed to more drilling. He said the U.S. is producing more oil than at any time in the past eight years and has quadrupled the number of operating oil rigs.

"If we're truly going to make sure we're not at the mercy of spikes in gas prices every year, the answer isn't just to drill more -- because we're already drilling more," Obama said. He said his administration was trying to develop wind and solar power, biofuels and usher in more fuel-efficient vehicles to make the nation less dependent on oil.

In the weekly Republican address, Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., said his constituents have been hard hit by an increase in gasoline prices and were "fed up with the way the president is handling this issue, and rightfully so. The most forceful thing the president has done about high gas prices is try to explain that he's against them."

Gardner said the $800 billion stimulus spending sought by Obama promoted energy companies that went bankrupt, wasting taxpayer money.

"After spending money we don't have on what won't work -- and overregulating what would -- is it any wonder gas prices have more than doubled on the president's watch? Make no mistake, high gas prices are a symptom of his failed `stimulus' policies," Gardner said.

Obama is expected to keep up a drumbeat on energy this week, traveling to four states over two days to push his administration's "all of the above" energy strategy. The trip includes stops in Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Ohio.

Source www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-03/D9TI626G0.htm

In Colorado, 'anybody but Obama' may not be good enough

As the rancorous contest for the Republican presidential nomination spreads across the nation's heartland, the leading candidates have begun to turn off swing voters, a setback in the party's quest to unseat President Obama.

Independents, the dominant political force in Colorado and other swing states, have been warming to Obama in recent weeks while souring on the Republican Party's top potential challengers, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, polls show.

Here in Broomfield, a bellwether Denver suburb, conversations with independents last week laid bare a shift in campaign dynamics that does not bode well for the Republicans vying to unseat the Democratic president. Though disappointment in Obama was widespread, so were negative opinions of Romney and Gingrich as their nasty scuffle drew more attention in advance of Tuesday's caucuses.

"He seems kind of weaselly," Renee Combs, 29, said of Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts.

Combs, an independent who sells beverages wholesale to restaurants in Broomfield's flagship mall, Flatiron Crossing, was unsure whether she would vote for Obama again. But she described Romney as "one of those people who puts on a big front," echoing an argument of his GOP rivals.

Mike Butler, 52, a Broomfield independent who dislikes Obama, ruled out Gingrich as an alternative last month when the former House speaker proposed colonizing the moon. "We need that like a hole in the head," said Butler, a machinery salesman on disability.

Obama still faces a difficult path to a second term, particularly if the nation fails to sustain its modest job gains since unemployment peaked at 10% in 2009.

But as the Republican contest has unfolded in recent months, Obama's popularity has been climbing from the low point of his presidency. Polls show voters almost evenly split now between those who approve of Obama's job performance and those who disapprove. Obama also holds a narrow edge over Romney in head-to-head matchups and a wider lead over Gingrich.

Much can change in the nine months left before the election, but the trend for the Republican candidates has been especially troubling among independents expected to dictate the outcome in key states. A late January poll by NBC and the Wall Street Journal found that 42% of independents had negative feelings toward Romney, up from 22% in November.

"There's no doubt that independent voters have been somewhat scared away from the Republican field, given the tone of the campaign and just how negative it has become," said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College poll in New York.

By dint of the Republican contest calendar, independents in some general election swing states — Iowa, New Hampshire, Florida and Nevada — have been exposed to a blast of TV ads casting aspersions on the GOP candidates' character and integrity.

In New Hampshire, where Romney won the Jan. 10 primary, a University of New Hampshire poll released Friday found Obama holding a clear lead over Romney in that state for the first time.

Voters in other swing states, such as Colorado, have been spared the brunt of the TV ads. But nationally televised debates and news coverage have nonetheless stoked bad impressions of the party's candidates.

"I can't say I'm enamored with any of them," said Edward Messier, 39, a Republican who stopped by Flatiron Crossing on his lunch hour. Messier, wearing a fleece jacket and white-rimmed sunglasses, said he voted for John McCain in 2008 but might switch to Obama this year because "things may be finally starting to turn around."

Messier mistrusts Gingrich because of his ethics transgressions as House speaker, an issue raised by Romney. Messier is also skeptical of Romney. "I don't know that he's been forthcoming with his finances," he said, voicing a concern raised by Gingrich.

Like Colorado as a whole, Broomfield swings back and forth between Democrats and Republicans in statewide elections. In 2004, President George W. Bush carried the state and county. In 2008, Obama won them both.

A suburb of about 56,000 people, Broomfield is easy to miss on the highway between Denver and Boulder. Scattered across foothills on the Rockies' front range, its generic middle-class houses and national retail chain stores make it indistinguishable from hundreds of similar communities, apart from its stunning vistas of snowcapped mountains.

"Broomfield is like everywhere but no place in particular," said Andy McPherson, who runs the Swift Originals imported goods store at Flatirons Crossing.

But Broomfield, like older suburbs in nearby Jefferson and Arapahoe counties, will play an outsized role in determining the fate of Obama and his Republican challenger, thanks to its status as a swing area of a swing state.

Dick Wadhams, a former state Republican chairman, said independents on the outskirts of Denver were disenchanted with Obama "and want to vote for a Republican, but they've got to like the one we nominate."

"It's not automatic," he said. "It's not 'anybody but Obama.' "

A cautionary tale for Republicans in Colorado is the 2010 defeat of the party's Senate candidate, Ken Buck. In a Republican year, Buck was roundly rejected by independents, a key factor in his loss. For the Republican presidential nominee, strictly conservative approaches on immigration, healthcare, abortion and other issues — already emphasized by the candidates — pose similar risks this year.

Given the disaffection of many of Obama's 2008 supporters — at a Broomfield thrift shop, independent John Lowe of Westminster said he was "disgusted" by Obama's record on Iraq and Afghanistan — the president is unlikely to duplicate the immense grass-roots operation of his last campaign in Colorado.

Another vulnerability is Obama's weak ties to the established political networks of Colorado's Democratic officeholders and party leaders. In 2008, his campaign team largely bypassed them. This time, however, those are "precisely the people they need to cultivate" for the reelection race, but until recently Obama's political team made little effort to do so, said Alan Salazar, chief strategy officer for Gov. John W. Hickenlooper, a Democrat.

"My sense is that having won the state four years ago, the administration didn't put down roots here," he said. "I do think there was a missed opportunity."

Pam Alden, 52, an independent who manages the bakery at Safeway in Broomfield, is one of the swing voters Obama is unlikely to win over. "I think he's just a little too much talk," she said.

A more promising prospect is Karen Cernazanu, a 60-year-old esthetician. An independent, she voted for Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama, but she has not decided whether to back the president for reelection. Her business is down; skin care is a luxury in a slow economy. And her husband, a computer project manager, has been out of work twice in the last four years.

But Cernazanu likes Obama's proposal to raise taxes on the rich. "It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever" for billionaire Warren Buffet's secretary to pay a higher tax rate than her boss, she said. And she doesn't blame the poor economy on Obama.

"He was handed a big basket of garbage when he came into office," she said. "I can't fault the man."

Source http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-obama-gop-20120206,0,6102950.story

Clinton Set to Visit Myanmar as Obama Cites Progress

Citing “flickers of progress” in Myanmar’s political climate, President Obama announced Friday that he was sending Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on a visit next month, the first by a secretary of state in more than 50 years.

The decision was announced in Bali, Indonesia, where nations from Southeast Asia were meeting on Friday with leaders from across the Pacific Rim, including the United States, China and Japan.

“For decades Americans have been deeply concerned about the denial of basic human rights for the Burmese people,” Mr. Obama said. “The persecution of democratic reformers, the brutality shown toward ethnic minorities and the concentration of power in the hands of a few military leaders has challenged our conscience and isolated Burma from the United States and much of the world.”

But he added that “after years of darkness, we’ve seen flickers of progress in these last several weeks” as the president and Parliament in Myanmar have taken steps toward reform.

“Of course there’s far more to be done,” Mr. Obama said.

The decision to send Mrs. Clinton came as Myanmar took another step away from its diplomatic isolation on Thursday when its neighbors agreed to let the country, which had been run for decades by the military, take on the chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in 2014.

Myanmar has long coveted the rotating chairmanship of the organization, known as Asean. The country renounced its turn in 2006 in the face of foreign pressure over human rights abuses.

“It’s not about the past, it’s about the future, what leaders are doing now,” the Indonesian foreign minister, Marty Natalegawa, told reporters in Bali about the chairmanship. “We’re trying to ensure the process of change continues.”

Myanmar inaugurated a new civilian system this year after decades of military rule. The new government, led by a former general, Thein Sein, has freed a number of political prisoners, taken steps to liberalize the nation’s heavily state-controlled economy and made overtures to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel laureate who was released from house arrest last year.

In a telephone conversation flying from Australia to Indonesia, Mr. Obama sought assurances from Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi before approving the visit and she “confirmed that she supports American engagement to move this process forward,” Mr. Obama said.

Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi’s political party won elections in 1990, but the result was ignored by the military. Her party, the National League for Democracy, has said it will decide on Friday whether to rejoin the political system after having been de-listed as a party by the junta.

Source http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/18/world/asia/myanmar-will-lead-asean-group.html?_r=1

Obama’s ratings could damage Brown’s chances

President Obama’s approval ratings may be tanking in the rest of the country, but he’s still the most popular Democrat in Massachusetts — and that could make it tougher for Republican Sen. Scott Brown to keep his job.

A new UMass-Lowell/Boston Herald poll shows that 61 percent of registered voters in Massachusetts give him favorable marks, with just 34 percent viewing him unfavorably. But many Democratic-leaning voters are ambivalent about Obama, with one quarter saying they are dissatisfied with his administration’s policies.

Obama trounces former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in a presidential election trial heat, according to the poll. The president is beating Romney by a 57-33 percent margin in Romney’s home state.

And if Texas Gov. Rick Perry wins the nomination, he probably shouldn’t be scheduling too many campaign stops in the Bay State. Obama holds a 62-25 percent lead over Perry among Massachusetts voters.

Democrats are counting on an Obama “coattail effect” in November 2012 to carry their Senate nominee to victory. Brown won in a special election with no other Democrat on the ballot.

“Whether Obama winds up helping or hurting his party’s Senate nominee here may depend on how well he turns out his base,” said Mike Mokrzycki, a consultant who produced the poll.

But harnessing those coattails may not be as easy as some Democrats think. Just 10 percent of all registered voters in the UMass-Lowell/Herald poll say they are “enthusiastic” about Obama’s policies, while 41 percent indicate they are “satisfied but not enthusiastic.” And 54 percent agree that Obama has “fallen short of expectations” as president, including 42 percent of Democratic-leaning voters.

“He’s done some good things and not so good things,” said an Arlington voter who took part in the UMass-Lowell/Herald poll. “He used a lot of political capital pushing health care.”

The poll also shows that Brown’s re-election chances could be hurt badly by his Republican colleagues in Congress. Nearly one in four Massachusetts voters describe themselves as “angry” at the policies of Republican leaders in Washington, while another 37 percent say they are “dissatisfied.”

Source http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1370505

Obama - the reluctant partisan

BARACK OBAMA took office vowing to usher in a post-partisan era that would drain the toxic anger of the Bush years and focus the country on practical, long-overdue reforms. Like Bush, he was no doubt sincere in wanting to unite the country. Unlike Bush, he has governed in a manner largely consistent with that ideal. A lot of good it’s done him: Washington is more poisonous than ever. And as Congress courts disaster by threatening to default on the national debt, Obama must marvel at his plight. Practically a caricature of Spock-like rationality and sober caution, he’s presiding over a capital that has become completely unhinged.

Nothing illustrates this better than his struggle to raise the debt ceiling. By a quirk of history, the United States is the rare country that first passes a budget and then allots the funds for it. Obama never imagined Republicans would withhold that money to exact concessions. Asked about the possibility at a news conference last December, he dismissed the very premise.

He soon learned better. Republicans cannily grasped that most Americans don’t understand the concept of the debt limit, much less its importance. But raising it sure sounds objectionable, especially at a time of big deficits. In May, a Gallup poll found that, by almost a 3-to-1 margin, Americans didn’t want to.

So Obama set himself to the task of changing public opinion. Partly, he did this by speaking out about the urgency of the issue and flaunting his willingness to cut entitlements like Medicare and Social Security as part of a deal. His officials emphasized the horrors of default. And he cast himself in the role he loves best, that of the responsible parent admonishing his colleagues for their childish ways.

In all this, Obama succeeded. He’s brought public opinion around to his side, not only on the question of whether to raise the debt ceiling but also on how to do so. A majority of Americans now say Congress should raise the ceiling. Two-thirds agree with Obama that any deal should balance spending cuts with tax increases. Only 21 percent favor the Republicans’ plan of cuts alone. Americans have chosen the stern parent over the squabbling kids: Obama’s approval rating, while only around 50 percent, towers over that of his opponents. A CBS poll found that 71 percent disapprove of how Republicans have conducted the negotiations, while an ABC/Washington Post poll revealed that even Republicans disapprove of how their leaders have negotiated. Small wonder that dissatisfaction with government is at a 19-year high.

By almost every measure, then, Obama has prevailed - except on the one that counts. He’s almost certain to lose the fight in Congress. He’ll get the debt limit raised - maybe before a default, maybe after - but only in exchange for a package that will probably consist entirely of cuts totaling at least $1.5 trillion and force his party into a series of politically uncomfortable votes. Meanwhile, taxes remain at historically low levels and entitlements keep on growing. It’s enough to turn anyone into a raving partisan.

The irony is that, however reluctantly, Obama may decide he has no choice but to force a showdown. He’ll have few options left to address the deficit. Having sacrificed the cuts that might have been included in a “grand bargain’’ to slash debt and reform the tax code, his main point of leverage will be the expiring Bush tax cuts next year.

Obama would prefer that the quarreling parties come together, Democrats lured by the prospect of more revenue and Republicans by the lower marginal rates that would result from eliminating loopholes. But the chances of such a post-partisan scenario coming to pass seem vanishingly slim. Republicans have steadfastly refused to compromise on taxes, and each time they’ve won. Why yield now?

What’s likelier is that taxes will dominate the presidential campaign. If Obama wins, he’ll suddenly be the one positioned to demand concessions or let the Bush cuts expire.

This would prompt an epic showdown, further inflaming partisanship and ruining what remains of Obama’s image of himself as beyond ideology. But if he has the nerve to see it through, this showdown could restore the revenue necessary for government to function, shore up the country’s fiscal health, and prove that major reform is still possible. What seems impossible is that this might be achieved amicably and without drama.

Source http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2011/07/21/obama___the_reluctant_partisan/

Appeals court ruling gives Obama a health care victory

In the first ruling by a federal appeals court on President Obama’s health care overhaul, a panel in Cincinnati handed the administration a victory yesterday by agreeing that the government can require a minimum amount of insurance for Americans.

A Republican-appointed judge joined with a Democratic appointee for the 2-1 majority in another milestone for Obama’s hotly debated signature domestic initiative — the first time a Republican federal court appointee has affirmed the merits of the law.

The White House and Justice Department hailed the panel’s affirmation of an earlier ruling by a federal court in Michigan; opponents of the law said challenges will continue to the US Supreme Court.

At issue is a conservative law center’s lawsuit arguing on behalf of plaintiffs that potentially requiring them to buy insurance or face penalties could subject them to financial hardship. The suit warns that the law is too broad and could lead to more federal mandates.

The Thomas More Law Center, in Ann Arbor, Mich., argued before the panel that the law was unconstitutional and that Congress overstepped its powers.

The government countered the measure was needed for the overall goal of reducing health care costs and reforms such as protecting people with preexisting conditions. It said the coverage mandate will help keep the costs of changes from being shifted to households and providers.

White House adviser Stephanie Cutter called the ruling another victory for millions of Americans and small businesses benefiting from the overhaul.

“At the end of the day, we are confident the constitutionality of these landmark reforms will be upheld,’’ she said in a statement.

The law center predicted its case would have a good shot on appeal.

“Clearly, our case won’t resolve all the issues, because we don’t raise the state rights issue, but we are the only one that is currently ripe for Supreme Court review that raises the challenge on behalf of an individual,’’ said David Yerushalmi, an attorney for the law center.

The three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit delivered a lengthy opinion with disagreement on some issues, moving unusually quickly in delivering its decision, less than a month after hearing oral arguments.

“Congress had a rational basis for concluding that the minimum coverage provision is essential to the Affordable Care Act’s larger reforms to the national markets in health care delivery and health insurance,’’ Judge Boyce F. Martin, appointed by President Carter, wrote for the majority.

A President George W. Bush appointee concurred; a President Reagan appointee who is a US district judge in Columbus, Ohio, sitting on the panel disagreed. Judges are selected for panels through random draw.

Source http://www.boston.com/news/politics/articles/2011/06/30/obama_reaps_victory_as_judges_uphold_health_law/

Obama couldn’t run a lemonade stand

The Obama administration has mindlessly flooded the country with hundreds and hundreds of billions of federal tax dollars. The government gurus claim the reason for opening the federal-money floodgates was to jump-start the sluggish economy, which was strangled to begin with by Fedzilla’s housing policies - or lack thereof.

Just as you would not pour gas on a fire in hopes of putting it out, infusing more than a trillion taxpayer dollars into the economy has not and will not work to put the economy on the path to prosperity. An artificial economy cannot be repaired with more artificiality. Who doesn’t know this?

President Obama’s economic and social engineering has been a flop, a disaster. The economy continues to sputter, gag and hemorrhage; unemployment and underemployment are getting worse, not better; housing prices continue to plummet; the dollar’s value is shrinking; and our debt is suffocating any hopes of a long-term economic recovery. Keep the Titanic on course, captain.

Dumping more than a trillion dollars into the market and claiming to want to stimulate the nation’s economy is analogous to intentionally allowing the Missouri River to flood towns and cities because the streets need cleaning.

Either the Obama administration does not know its history or it intentionally wants to kill off the nation’s private sector. It might be a little of both.

The Obama regime may be the least qualified when it comes to understanding how a free market operates, how jobs are created and how profits are made. I have yet to uncover any high-ranking Obama appointee with any free-market experience, including the secretary for the Department of Labor, which should be renamed under the Obama regime as the Department of Labor Unions.

The bottom line is that we have entrusted our economy to a group of people who would not know how to operate a child’s lemonade stand. What an inexcusable, tragic mistake.

We faced a similar economic problem back in the early 1980s. After soundly defeating President Carter, Ronald Reagan, a fan of the free market, took the opposite approach of what Mr. Obama is doing to turn the economy around.

What happened because of President Reagan’s approach of lowering taxes, reducing federal regulations and favoring the private sector over Fedzilla? Almost 40 million private-sector jobs were created and America experienced a 25-year economic boom.

What America needs is a vibrant, growing and strong economy that benefits everyone, especially the shrinking middle class. This will not happen with a guy in charge who believes Fedzilla knows best. It does not.

There has been no net increase in jobs created as a result of swamping the economy with federal dollars, and there will be none. When the free-market history books are written, this will be the central theme of surrendering the economy to central planners in Washington who have zero private-sector experience.

The Obama regime has given America a crystal-clear message that liberalism in big government is an economic wrecking ball. What America desperately needs is a much leaner, less bureaucratic federal government - the very kind of federal government our framers had in mind when they started this experiment in self-government more than 230 years ago.

Source  http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jun/15/obama-couldnt-run-a-lemonade-stand/