Romney revives attacks on Obama’s health-care plan

Mitt Romney pledged to replace the U.S. health-care overhaul with a plan relying on private markets to provide “access to good health care” for every American, as he revived attacks on President Barack Obama’s signature achievement that the U.S. Supreme Court is preparing to rule on.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee told small- business owners in Orlando, Florida, that he would implement policies, including tax breaks, aimed at helping the private market care for the uninsured and those with preexisting medical conditions.

“Free enterprise is the way America works,” Romney told the group gathered in the warehouse of Con Air Industries, which makes air filters. “We need to apply that to health care.”

The Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision on the Affordable Care Act by the end of the month, ruling on a law that would expand insurance to at least 30 million people and transform an industry that accounts for 18 percent of the U.S. economy.

Romney, 65, said if the justices fail to overturn the law completely, he would repeal the remaining pieces on his first day as president by granting waivers for every state to opt out of the restrictions.

“Regardless of what they do, it’s going to be after the next president to either repeal and replace or replace Obamacare,” Romney said. “And I intend to do both.”

Reducing Benefits
 
Democrats charged Romney with trying to roll back the benefits of the law for young people, women, and the uninsured.

“For too long, American families have faced a choice between going bankrupt to afford the care they need or going without that care at all, and Mitt Romney wants to take us back to that time,” Obama campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith said in a statement.

As Democrats attack Romney’s health-care policies, Obama said his opponent is promoting economic plans focused on cutting funding for national priorities in education, transportation and research.

“You’ll never see a sharper contrast between the two parties in the vision that they have for where this country needs to go,” Obama told a crowd of Democrats at a private home in Owings Mills, Maryland.
Obama was raising more than $3 million yesterday in Maryland and the battleground state of Pennsylvania, seeking to maintain a cash advantage over Romney. He’s holding six fundraisers, three in each state, bringing to 160 the number of events to solicit cash for his campaign since he declared his candidacy for re-election on April 4, 2011.

Republican Rhetoric
 
He dismissed Republican rhetoric on the economy by saying it could be boiled down to fewer than the 140 characters allowed in a post on Twitter.

“You can pretty much put their campaign on a tweet and have characters to spare,” he said.

Standing in front of a banner reading “Repeal & Replace Obamacare,” Romney said caring for the uninsured is his top priority. He would put that responsibility on the states and not require people to obtain insurance or face financial penalties, as the federal law does. To provide the care, Romney would divert money from Medicaid, the federal health program for the poor, and other funding to local governments.

He also vowed to maintain coverage for people with preexisting conditions, though only those who risk losing their benefits when they change jobs or get laid off.

Romney’s proposal is a more limited version of a provision included in Obama’s Affordable Care Act, which requires insurance companies to cover all people with preexisting conditions -- even first-time buyers.
Between 36 million and 122 million adults, or from 20 percent to 66 percent of the U.S. adult population, reported having medical conditions that could result in health insurance coverage restrictions, according to a March 27 report by the Government Accountability Office, Congress’s auditing arm.

It’s unclear how insurance companies could cover those with preexisting conditions without the individual mandate for everyone to buy insurance -- part of the law Romney has said he would repeal if it isn’t struck down by the Supreme Court.

Romney also didn’t mention the provision in the current law, which Obama signed in March 2010, that lets children stay on their parents’ plan until the age of 26.

Health Insurance
 
UnitedHealth Group Inc., Aetna Inc. and Humana Inc. said this week they would save some of the law’s provisions, including letting young adults stay on parents’ plans, regardless of how the court rules.
Without the law, parents would have to pay for their child’s coverage with after-tax dollars, resulting in a higher tax bill.

Though Romney first laid out his health-care plans in a May 2011 speech in Michigan, he largely avoided the issue in the Republican primaries while his rivals sought to use it against him.

During his 2003-2007 term as governor of Massachusetts, Romney helped craft health-care legislation that included the insurance mandate for all state residents. Aspects of the federal law are similar to the Massachusetts measure, including the provision that adults must buy insurance or face a financial penalty.

Santorum Criticism
 
Romney, while not retreating from his support of the Massachusetts law, has said he doesn’t back imposing its provisions nationwide. His chief rival in the Republican race, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, argued Romney’s record meant he couldn’t provide an effective contrast to Obama on the health-care issue.
Having locked down his party’s nomination, Romney is seeking to depict the Affordable Care Act as another example of how Obama is out of touch with the economic anxieties of many Americans.

Romney seized on a statement the president made about the law in an interview yesterday. When a television reporter in Iowa asked Obama about a small business that blamed its closing on the health-care law, Obama replied, “That’s going to be hard to explain.”

Obama continued: “The only folks that have been impacted in terms of the health-care bill are insurance companies who are required to make sure that they’re providing preventive care, or they’re not dropping your coverage when you get sick. So this particular company probably wouldn’t have been impacted by that.”

Romney yesterday called the response “something else that shows just how out of touch” Obama is.
“It was like: really? Have you not been out talking to small businesses and hearing what they have to say,” he told Florida donors gathered for a fundraiser this afternoon at the Isleworth country club, a gated community that is home to many professional golfers.

Source  http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/romney-revives-attacks-on-obamas-health-care-plan/2012/06/13/gJQAkKQwZV_story_1.html

Obama Administration’s Prebuttal on Its Record With China

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s speech Thursday in San Francisco is designed to be a preview of key concerns he’ll address next week in Beijing during the fourth round of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, the three-year-old forum for the two countries to discuss economic and security issues.
It could also be read as a preview of the Obama administration’s defense against criticism (regarding its engagement with China) during the presidential race over the next six months.

Ahead of the diplomatic gathering, Geithner hit all the usual notes: The world’s two largest economies share “complementary” economic strengths. China faces a “very complicated set of challenges” as it opens up. What the U.S. wants from China (on the exchange rate and intellectual property) is “fundamentally in China’s interest.” And, to keep the focus on what the U.S. can do, Geithner says the strength of the U.S. will not depend on China’s decisions “but on the choices we make here at home.”

Then he runs through no fewer than 11 points highlighting what the U.S. has accomplished in pressing China over the past three years. The list appears to touch on just about every complaint from U.S. businesses, lawmakers and the GOP’s presumptive nominee, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, about whether the U.S. has pushed China hard enough.

Among the “significant progress” Geithner cites:

–U.S. exports of goods to China have almost doubled since early 2009, twice as fast as exports to other countries.
–China’s exchange rate has appreciated about 13% against the U.S. dollar after inflation since June 2010. Its trade surplus fell to less than 3% of China’s GDP last year vs. 8% in 2008. –China has committed to protecting U.S. intellectual property rights, by ensuring that government agencies use legitimate software and agreeing that technology transfer will not be a precondition for accessing China’s market.
–China agreed to unwind an indigenous innovation policy that limited government purchases to Chinese domestic products, locking out U.S. companies.
–China opened up new sectors, such as auto insurance and bond underwriting, to foreign firms.
–China cut some tariffs and taxes on services, and “appears to be prepared to negotiate” new rules for government-backed financing of exports. (China routinely undercuts other countries.)

He also cites the administration’s legal cases against China, including 36 antidumping and countervailing duty orders on imports from China, a trade case to protect U.S. tire-industry jobs and challenges at the World Trade Organization.

Geithner says the U.S. will keep pushing China on just about all of those points, along with pressing the country to open up its financial system (now dominated by state-owned firms) and to end preferences for state-owned businesses.

Romney, during his primary campaign, pledged he would take on China even more forcefully from his first day in office. For fall debate prep, Romney now has President Barack Obama’s arguments neatly compiled in one place.

Source http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2012/04/27/obama-administration%E2%80%99s-prebuttal-on-its-record-with-china/?mod=google_news_blog

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/