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Archive for August, 2009
August 1, 2009
- “This is not the government taking over the corporate sector,” Rep. Melvin Watt, D-N.C, said of the House action. “It is a statement by the American people that it is time for us to straighten up the ship.”
- “That’s when it will really feel like a recovery to theAmerican people,” he said.
- "Innovation has been essential to our prosperity in the past, and it will be essential to our prosperity in the future. But it is only by building a new foundation that we will once again harness that incredible generative capacity of the American people," he said.
- “We cannot stand up for the judiciary by leaving two-thirds of the American people ignorant that there are three branches,” he said.
- “It is only by building a new foundation that we will once again harness that incredible generative capacity of the American people,” the president said. “All it takes are the policies to tap that potential — to ignite that spark of creativity and ingenuity — which has always been at the heart of who we are and how we succeed.”
- In a memo to his rank-and-file on Friday, Boehner urged Republicans to adopt “a culture of entrepreneurial insurgency,” using new media such as Twitter to connect with voters. “A flurry of surveys over the last couple of days demonstrate that the American people now oppose the Democrats’ government takeover of health care, and any time the president talks about it, they like it even less,” Boehner wrote.
August 2, 2009
- Taking aim at the suddenly pivotal Blue Dog Democrats in Congress – whom he termed “Lap dogs” for Pelosi – the chairman blasted the conservatives in Obama’s party for highlighting some of their right-leaning positions while not having “the cojones to stand up and support the American people.”
- To the House Republican leader, it’s an “ill-conceived plan” that would bring terrorists into the U.S. despite opposition by Congress and the American people. “The administration is going to face a severe public backlash unless it shelves this plan and goes back to the drawing board,” said Antonia Ferrier, spokeswoman for Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio.
- Before the House began its recess, Obama’s chief politicaladviser, David Axelrod, conferred with Democrats about thehealth-care message lawmakers and the administration will taketo the American people.
August 3, 2009
- “You have to capitalize on the anxiety in the voter base,” a House GOP leadership aide said. “How are [Democrats] going to defend a health care bill that the American people hate? You just ram it down their throats and knock their teeth in.”
- “We strongly believe that when the American people understand the proposals, they’ll see that it’s a lot better than doing nothing, which is the Republican Party’s stance,” said Democratic Congressional Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who met with vulnerable freshmen members Tuesday to go over their recess month plans.
- “There will be a drumbeat across America, a positive drumbeat across America about what this means for the American people,” she said. “For them individually and their families, for our businesses to be more competitive, for our economy to be dynamic, for our budget to be more in balance by reducing the upward spiral of health care costs having an impact on our entitlements.”
- Before the House began its recess, Obama’s chief politicaladviser, David Axelrod, conferred with Democrats about thehealth-care message lawmakers and the administration will taketo the American people.
- To the House Republican leader, it’s an “ill-conceived plan” that would bring terrorists into the U.S. despite opposition by Congress and the American people. “The administration is going to face a severe public backlash unless it shelves this plan and goes back to the drawing board,” said Antonia Ferrier, spokeswoman for Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio.
August 4, 2009
- “Well, nothing can be farther from the truth. You know the people who always try to SCARE people whenever you try to bring them health-insurance reform are at it again. And they’re taking sentences and phrases out of context, and they’re cobbling them together to leave a VERY false impression. The truth is that the president has been talking to the American people a LOT about health-insurance reform and what is at stake for them.
- “So what happens is that because he’s talking to the American people so much, there are people out there with a computer and a lot of free time, and they take a phrase here and there — they simply cherry-pick and put it together, and make it sound like he’s saying something that he didn’t really say.”
- "We don't want to do a partisan bill, and we hope our Republican colleagues acknowledge that," he said. "We'll continue to work with them as long as we have to. The American people want health care reform, and we're going to do health care reform."
- "All indications are at this point that the American people would like for us to slow down and try to get this right, because of the magnitude of it," McConnell said. "So August will be a good opportunity for all of us, regardless of what our leanings may be on how to deal with this issue, to go home, interact with our constituents, and come back here in September with a stronger understanding of exactly where the American people might be on this most important issue."
- "All indications are at this point that the American people would like for us to slow down and try to get this right because of the magnitude of it. I think they're not interested — and have clearly expressed themselves already — in another rush and spend, like we saw on the stimulus package," he added.
- “The preference is do it together,” Baucus said shortly after the White House meeting. “The American people do not like partisanship. But the American people also don’t like groups of people trying to kill something that should be done, should get passed. … So we’re going to get it done.”
August 5, 2009
- “There was a general agreement that we needed to move forward — history is going to judge whether we’re courageous or timid or right or wrong,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who was elected in 2006 and who said she’s encouraged by efforts in the Finance Committee to forge a compromise. “Not doing anything when these costs are escalating for the American people is the wrong thing to do.”
- But asked whether he was open to compromise on the public option, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), who was appointed this year to fill a vacant seat and faces what could be a tough election next year, said: “I think that it's not a huge benefit for anybody, certainly not to the American people, to draw lines in the sand. I got people in my state that are losing their health insurance every day … .”
- "You know, too often there are those in Washington who focus on the ups and downs of politics. But my concern is the ups and downs in the lives of the American people," Obama said.
- "You're welcome," Obama replied, to laughter. "Thank the American people."
- "I promise you we will pass reform by the end of the year," Obama said, "because the American people need it."
- Obama said health care “shouldn’t be a partisan issue”because “the American people, the American economy and thefederal budget have to have some sort of reforms in the health-care system.”
- Obama said health care “shouldn’t be a partisan issue”because “the American people, the American economy and thefederal budget have to have some sort of reforms in the health-care system.”
- "I promise you, we will pass reform by the end of this year because the American people need it," Obama said in Wakarusa, Indiana, where he traveled to tout his economic initiatives. "We're going to have to make it happen."
- "With these investments, we're planting the seeds of progress for our country, and good-paying, private-sector jobs for the American people," he said.
- When someone in the audience at his speech shouted a thank-you to Obama for coming back with taxpayer-dollar grants, he responded: “You’re welcome. Thank the American people.”
August 6, 2009
- “The most effective long-term strategy for safeguarding the American people is one that promotes a future where a young man or woman never even considers joining an extremist group in the first place; where they reject out of hand the idea of picking up that gun or strapping on that suicide vest,” said Brennan, President Barack Obama’s assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism.
- “The American people understand that the status quo would work very well for insurance companies. It doesn’t always work well for them,” White House adviser David Axelrod said Thursday in its latest salvo.
August 7, 2009
- The public is already holding Obama responsible, says Democratic strategist Douglas Schoen, who stamps a fall sell-by date on the tactic. “When asked the question, 'Who’s more to blame?' the American people say, ‘Bush is more to blame than Obama — but we’re looking to Obama for solutions.’” Schoen says the strategy may still be useful now, but it won’t be indefinitely: “Do I think they can get through the midterms with that? No, I don’t.”
- Republicans, scrambling for a quick response to the positive economic buzz, quickly downplayed the figures, dismissing the tenth of a point as statistically insignificant while focusing much more on the 247,000 lost jobs in July. House Republican Leader John Boehner said that “today’s unemployment report is yet another reminder that more spending, taxing, and borrowing does not mean more jobs for the American people."
- “These photos would provide visual proof that prisoner abuse by U.S. personnel was not aberrational but widespread,” said ACLU lawyer Amrit Singh, expressing disappointment with the government’s decision to appeal. “As disturbing as the photos may be, it is critical that the American people know the full truth about the abuse that occurred in their name.”
August 8, 2009
- "There's an intense impatience here for results, and I think an absolutely understandable impatience among the American people for results," said a senior administration official who requested anonymity, as did other officials and aides interviewed for this story, to speak freely about a policy that's still being formulated. "In the course of August, these plans will be complete."
- A senior administration official said Saturday: "Because we believe the American people deserve clarity on our progress in Afghanistan, we have compiled a comprehensive set of metrics based on the objectives laid out by the president and informed by a stringent intelligence review. We have briefed members of Congress and their staffs over the past few weeks. Work has already started on the first quarterly round of measurements and we expect to continue engaging Congress in the months ahead."
August 9, 2009
- That puts the White House and its not-always-artful spokesmen — Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and Lawrence H. Summers, Obama's top economic adviser — in a difficult spot, because all isn't rosy just yet and the administration has to maintain an air of reality. Both have been making the rounds of news shows asking the American people to be patient. But Geithner stumbled in an appearance with Stephanopoulos when he left the (possibly truthful) impression that tax increases may be needed some day to close the budget deficit. And Summers on several occasions had to defend his prediction of general economic improvement against expectations that unemployment will remain severe for some time.
August 10, 2009
- Kevin Smith, communications director for House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), said in response: “While Democrats are playing defense, Republicans are educating the American people about the cost and consequences of the Democrats’ government takeover of health care and promoting our better solutions to lower health care costs, increase access, and preserve the doctor-patient relationship.”
- "As disturbing these photos may be, it is critical that the American people know the full truth about the abuse that occurred in their name."
- “I anticipate we'll do just fine” in the midterms, Obama said. “And I think when all is said on health care reform, the American people are going to be glad that we acted to change an unsustainable system so that more people have coverage.”
- On immigration, he added, “Those are fights that I'd have to have if my poll numbers are at 70 or if my poll numbers are at 40. That's just the nature of the U.S. immigration debate. But ultimately I think the American people want fairness.”
- "We had twin goals," said Cantor deputy chief of staff Rob Collins, "Have a conversation with the American people about how to solve the problems they confront, and, in doing that, we wanted to make sure we were 100 percent compliant with the rules governing members of Congress."
August 11, 2009
- “Congress has a responsibility to the American people to ensure there is some level of accountability, some minimum standard in place,” Snowe said in a statement.
August 12, 2009
- But in a country where trust is in short supply, Emanuel has become a proxy for all the worst fears of government efforts to rein in costs by denying care. “The fundamental danger is that the American people are being asked to delegate all these life-influencing decisions,” explains Betsy McCaughey, the conservative scholar who wrote the New York Post attack on Emanuel. “There is a lack of transparency here.”
- For Emanuel, the entire experience has been a painful education in the sometimes brutal ways of politics, something his brother has long endured and dolled out. “I guess I have a better appreciation for what Rahm had to go through for years and years,” Emanuel says now. But that appreciation does not solve the question raised by the controversy. There is universal understanding that the nation’s fiscal course is doomed without major changes to health care, but whom will the American people trust to carry it out?
- “Now is the hard part — because the history is clear — every time we come close to passing health insurance reform, the special interests fight back with everything they’ve got,” Obama told a town hall in Portsmouth, N.H., on Tuesday. “They use their influence. They use their political allies to scare and mislead the American people. They start running ads. This is what they always do.”
- Obama answered his critics indirectly. At his town hall in Portsmouth, N.H., he urged Americans to ignore those who try to “scare and mislead the American people,” telling a cordial audience, “For all the scare tactics out there, what is truly scary is if we do nothing.”
- “The United States,” Obama said during a news conference in Mexico on Monday, “will also meet its responsibilities by continuing our efforts to reduce the demand for drugs and continuing to strengthening the security of our shared border — not only to protect the American people, but to stem the illegal southbound flow of American guns and cash that helps fuel this extraordinary violence.”
- In Pennsylvania, Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter heard boos for a second day after a raucous session where he was jeered for more than an hour on Tuesday — and told reporters he thinks the protesters are “not representative of the American people.”
- “All the American people know about this bill is that it costs a lot of money and there’s a new government plan,” said a health industry official. “We can’t live with a public plan, but are we going to have to? [The public plan] is kind of dying under its own weight.”
August 13, 2009
- “The president’s record of standing by our troops, launching new strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan, and restoring our leadership in the world stands for itself. Nothing is more important to the president than keeping the American people safe,” he said.
August 14, 2009
- "If Megrahi is released, there will be a very negative reaction by the American people."
- “It is time for a change in the way we view and manage America’s forest lands with an eye toward the future,” he said. “This will require an unprecedented, all-lands approach that engages the American people and stakeholders. It is essential that we reconnect Americans across the nation with the natural resources and landscapes that sustain us.”
- "Americans are looking at these rallies that are happening and the town-hall turnouts, and they say, 'No one group out of thin air could do that,'" Phillips said. "The American people can see through the attacks on the other side, where they try to vilify these groups as being corporate groups or front groups. They're believing it is in fact a broad groundswell.
August 15, 2009
- “Every time we come close to passing health-insurancereform, the special interests with a stake in the status quouse their influence and political allies to scare and misleadthe American people,” Obama said. “Those who would stand inthe way of reform will say almost anything to scare you aboutthe cost of action.”
- Obama, facing declining poll numbers and a week when congressman have been shouted down by constituents at raucous health care meetings, used the radio and internet address to explain and tout his plan and to take on his critics, insisting that opposition to reform amounts to embracing "a health care system that works better for the insurance industry than it does for the American people."
- "These are the stories that aren't being told - stories of a healthcare system that works better for the insurance industry than it does for the American people," he said in the address, referring to people he has met who have struggled with the current system.
- "It's not a good idea for Republicans to go overboard," warned Ron Bonjean, a former spokesman for Republican leaders in the House and Senate who ran the press shop at the Department of Commerce during George W. Bush’s first term. "If the jobs numbers are declining, it's important to talk about… but just focus on long-term problems and be thoughtful. The American people will be the ones who go over the top if there isn't progress."
August 16, 2009
- "Because we are getting close, the fight is getting fierce," Obama told a town hall meeting of around 1,600 people packed into a high-school gym here, accusing critics of trying to scare the American people.
- Coburn calls health care a symptom of the debate over an uncontrolled federal government. He says unchecked spending by Congress has raised the question of whether lawmakers are legitimately thinking about the American people and their long-term best interests.
- “President Obama and his cabinet have read the tealeaves,” said Senator Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican, onthe Fox program. The American people “don’t want a government-run program,” Shelby said. Shelby also said that the creationof co-ops, while “that would be government involvement” wouldbe “a step in the right direction.”
- “Ultimately, if the president decides he’s going to go with a reform effort that doesn’t include a public option, what he will have done is spent a ton of political capital, riled up an incredibly angry right-wing base that’s been told this is a plot to kill Grandma, and he will have achieved something that doesn’t change health care very much and that doesn’t save us very much money and won’t do much for the American people,” MSNBC host Rachel Maddow said on NBC’s "Meet the Press." "It’s not a very good thing to spend a lot of political capital on."
August 17, 2009
- “The best thing the president can do to get health insurance reform passed is to have a substantive debate and discussion with the American people,” said Dan Pfeiffer, the White House deputy communications director. “Doing that, building a consensus, helps get it through Congress.”
- The president defended the war as a necessary conflict which was "fundamental" to the defense of American people in depriving Al-Qaeda of a safe-haven to plot follow-on attacks to the September 11 strikes in 2001.
- “It’s inexcusable. It’s an affront to the American people and to our troops. And it’s time for it to stop,” Obama said.
August 18, 2009
- — Rachel Maddow: “[W]hen you have a weekend like that, it’s no real surprise when Monday turns out to be a great day for health insurance stock prices. … We got here through a collapse of political ambition, and the resultant downgrading of expectations for this once-in-a-lifetime, stars-aligned political shot at fixing this system … [W]hy is the public option dying now? It’s dying because of a collapse of political ambition. The Democrats are too scared of their own shadow to use the majority the American people elected them to in November to actually pass something they said they favored.”
- “Whether it was for the AP, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Sun-Times or on Crossfire, Robert Novak was a strong voice for journalism and the American people. ‘Inside Washington’ … consistently brought the reality of Washington, from one end to the other, to life,” said House Republican Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., in a statement.
August 19, 2009
- Robert Zirkelbach, spokesman for the American Health Insurancance Plans, said Democrats on the panel hoped to “silence the health insurance industry and distract attention away from the fact that the American people are rejecting a government-run plan” as part of President Barack Obama’s planned overhaul.
- “I love what the American people are doing to the Democrats,” he said in reference to the recent raucous town halls. “I’m sitting back and watching, and it’s just amazing.”
- "We've always said that the best politics is based on the best policies that have the support of the American people; those are clearly the policies supported by the President and captured in the legislation passed by the four committees that have acted," said Richard Kirsch, campaign manager for Health Care for America Now, a liberal advocacy group. "When the Republican leadership makes it crystal clear that they have no interest in passing the legislation that the President was elected to deliver, the only course is to move ahead with the support of a majority in Congress."
- "Any Republican that goes along with this idea of, 'Let's pass something in the Senate and send it to conference with the House,' is really betraying everything we're hearing right now from the American people," DeMint said on Fox News yesterday.
- "If the Democrats choose to go it alone, their health care plan will fail because the American people will have no confidence in it," Enzi said in a statement.
- "Democratic leaders find themselves all alone in support of a plan that will drive health care costs higher than ever, increase the federal deficit, slash Medicare, and let government bureaucrats make personal medical decisions that only patients and doctors should make," Boehner said in a statement. "The more the American people learn about this plan, the less they like it. It's time for President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and congressional Democrats to scrap this costly plan, start over and work with Republicans on reforms that make health care more affordable and accessible."
- In a speech before veterans on Monday, Obama defended the war as a necessity that was "fundamental" to the defense of the American people in depriving Al-Qaeda of a safe-haven to plot follow-on attacks to the strikes of September 11, 2001.
August 20, 2009
- “If the Democrats choose to go it alone, their health care plan will fail because the American people will have no confidence in it,” Sen. Mike Enzi of Wyoming said Wednesday.
- Said Drew Altman of the Kaiser Family Foundation, “The whole debate drifted in a direction that was disconnected from the core concerns of the American people.”
August 21, 2009
- "The American people are looking to you, Mr. President. They'll follow your lead," said Robert Guttman, director of the center on politics and foreign relations at Johns Hopkins University. "Why not lead them to the places that need your help the most, instead of to an already financially stable and prosperous New England island? America's heartland is calling, Mr. President, won't you answer their call?" he wrote on the liberal Huffington Post website.
- “If there’s not a Senate Republican vote for the package,then the American people are going to be very skeptical,â€
August 22, 2009
- “As every credible person who has looked into it has said, there are no so-called death panels — an offensive notion to me and to the American people,” Obama said. “These are phony claims meant to divide us.”
- Rounding out the Democratic field is Adriel Hampton, a municipal investigator for the San Francisco Attorney's office, who also hits out at career politicians on the campaign trail and argues Congress should be more representative of the American people and relate better to working Americans. Hampton largely self-funded the $24,000 he raised and had just a bit more than $2,000 remaining.
August 23, 2009
- “I don’t think the American people begrudge a president taking some time with his family that’s well-earned and well-deserved for a few days to see and spend time with them,” press secretary Robert Gibbs said. Gibbs also said the president isn’t planning any public events during his vacation but will be in touch with key congressional players.
- “I don't think the American people begrudge that people make big salaries, as long as they're not jeopardizing the good will of the public in doing so,” said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs.
- “The American people will be very troubled by a single political party’s ‘my way or the highway’ attitude to overhauling their health care, especially when it means government-run health care, new taxes on small businesses, and Medicare cuts for seniors,” McConnell, R-Ky., said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
August 24, 2009
- “I share the president’s conviction that as a nation, we must, to the extent possible, look forward, and not backward, when it comes to issues such as these. While this department will follow its obligation to take this preliminary step to examine possible violations of law, we will not allow our important work of keeping the American people safe to be sidetracked,” Holder insisted.
- "As every credible person who has looked into it has said, there are no so-called 'death panels' — an offensive notion to me and to the American people," Obama said. "These are phony claims meant to divide us."
- Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky predicted that "the American people will be rightly outraged" by Holder's move.
- CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano echoed some of Obama’s forward-not-back language in pledging to cooperate with the investigation. “The CIA’s primary focus remains, as the American people expect, the present and the future, not the past,” he said.
- Also yesterday, Holder released a once-heavily redacted CIA inspector’s general’s report from 2004 that laid out some of the most egregious abuses of the interrogation program – as if to show the American people that what he wanted to investigate was so outrageous it had to be re-examined, even though prosecutors already considered and passed up the cases under the Bush administration.
August 25, 2009
- And Democratic Senator Bob Casey said Monday he had warned Afghan President Hamid Karzai during a visit to Afghanistan "that the American people expect to see progress and that their patience is not unlimited."
- "It's very important that the American people see that. This can't be open-ended," warned the Pennsylvania lawmaker.
- Bernanke "lacks the independent voice we need in a Federal Reserve chairman and has refused to provide any sort of transparency or accountability to the American people when it comes to who exactly the Fed is lending to and how much they are lending," said Bunning.
- "The president continues to bail out Wall Street and help the oil industry reap even larger profits, while blocking needed relief for the American people," Kennedy said.
August 26, 2009
- For five decades, virtually every major piece of legislation to advance the civil rights, health and economic well-being of the American people bore his name and resulted from his efforts.
- “For five decades, virtually every major piece of legislation to advance the civil rights, health and economic well-being of the American people bore his name and resulted from his efforts,” Obama said of the Massachusetts senator, who died Tuesday at his home on Cape Cod, Mass., after a yearlong struggle with brain cancer. He was 77.
- President Barack Obama led the Democrats, saying in a statement: “For five decades, virtually every major piece of legislation to advance the civil rights, health and economic well-being of the American people bore his name and resulted from his efforts.”
- “For five decades, virtually every major piece of legislation to advance the civil rights, health and economic well being of the American people bore his name and resulted from his efforts,” said Obama, vacationing at Martha’s Vineyard off the Massachusetts coast.
- "For five decades, virtually every major piece of legislation to advance the civil rights, health and economic well being of the American people bore his name and resulted from his efforts," Obama said.
- "The message will be we're doing it for the American people, which is why he wanted to get this done," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen , D- Md. , the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "In my view, he would not want this to be about him, it never was. It was about getting it done for the American people."
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