Obamalog: A Brief History of the

Obama Administration

WEEK SEVENTY-ONE

May 24, 2010

        President Obama sent legislation to Congress that would allow him to force lawmakers to vote on cutting earmarks and wasteful programs from spending bills:

·                    The legislation would award Obama and his successors the ability to take two months or more to scrutinize spending bills that have already been signed into law for pork-barrel projects and other dubious programs, and he could then send Congress a package of spending cuts for a mandatory up-or-down vote on whether to accept or reject them.

May 25, 2010

1.     The Dow Jones industrials plunged below 10,000 after traders dumped stocks on worries about the global economy and tensions between North and South Korea:

·                    The Dow fell about 160 points in afternoon trading—it has fallen 1,346 points, or more than 12%, from its recent high of 111,205, reached April 26^th.

2.     President Obama will send up to 1,200 National Guard troops to the southwestern border and seek increased spending on law enforcement there to combat drug smuggling after demands from Republican and Democratic lawmakers that border security be tightened:

·                    The troops will be stationed in the four border states for a year, according to White House officials, and it is uncertain when they will arrive—they will join a few hundred members of the Guard already there, and the additional troops will provide help to law enforcement officials by helping observe and monitor traffic between official border crossings.

May 26, 2010

        The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, an international research group, raised its overall growth forecast and its outlook for the U.S., the euro zone, China, and Japan, saying that despite mounting concerns about European debt and Asian economies that may be overheating, the global recovery is taking root:

·                    They said that the rebound from the severe downturn that plagued the global economy for much of 2008 and 2009 is driven by a healthy increase in trade flows, booming emerging markets, the continued support of government stimulus policies that are now unwinding, and better market conditions.

May 27, 2010

1.     The Senate approved $10 million to help farmers in the drought-stricken Klamath Basin, good news to a region that has suffered a shortage of water for months:

a.     The effort was orchestrated primarily by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) who found a way to add the money to a must-pass spending bill that financed President Obama’s troop surge in Afghanistan—it also includes $5 billion to replenish disaster aid accounts as well as money for earthquake relief in Haiti and U.S. allies in the fight against terror;

b.     The measure, totaling nearly $60 billion—more than half for the Pentagon—passed by a bipartisan 67-28 tally with Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon voting against it.

2.     The House voted to let the Defense Department repeal the ban on gay and bisexual people serving openly in the military, a major step toward dismantling the 1993 law widely known as “don’t ask, don’t tell”:

·                    It was adopted as an amendment to the annual Pentagon policy bill, which the House is expected to vote on today—the repeal would be allowed 60 days after a Pentagon report is completed on the ramifications of allowing openly gay service members, and the report is due by December 1^st.

3.     The Obama administration released a sweeping statement of its national security goals, emphasizing a strong counter-terrorism effort, but also citing the importance of government action on issues such as climate change and the economy:

·                    The 52-page manifesto, called The National Security Strategy, aims to draw contrast with President Bush’s 2006 version, which centered heavily on the anti-terror fight—by contrast, the Obama plan says that the government effort against radical extremism is “only one element of our strategic environment and cannot define America’s engagement with the world.”

4.     After days of sudden losses and reversals in the market, investors rallied around the news that the Chinese government had dismissed reports that it might pare its European investments given Europe’s debt problems:

·                    The broader market was up 3.3%, one of its biggest advances this year—the Dow Jones industrial average gained 28.54 points, the broader Standard & Poor was up 35.11 points, and the Nasdaq gained 81.3 points.

5.     Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in Berlin that the U.S. and Europe were in “broad agreement” on the need for stricter market regulations, but stressed that they would take different paths when necessary:

·                    The G-20 nations are trying to reach a consensus on new rules to avoid “regulatory arbitrage” in which some banks or hedge funds move their activities to whatever location offers the lowest oversight.

May 28, 2010

1.     House Democrats salvaged a bill to continue providing unemployment checks to people out of work more than six months and to revive tax breaks popular with families and businesses:

·                    The House approved the legislation 215-204 (all Oregon Democrats voted “yes”; Walden, Oregon’s sole Republican, voted “no”), capping a week where Democratic leaders were forced to kill $24 billion in aid to cash-strapped states and $7 billion for health insurance subsidies for laid-off workers.

2.     Stocks closed out their worst month in more than year by sliding again on more unsettling news about Europe:

·                    The Dow Jones industrials dropped 122 points after Fitch Ratings gave Spain the second downgrade of its credit rating in a month—another reminder to traders of long-term economic problems facing several European countries—and perhaps the rest of the continent and the global economy as well.

3.     Consumers earned more income in April but also spent less, according to government statistics released today, raising some questions about the pace of the recovery:

·                    The Commerce Department said that personal income rose by $54.4 billion or 0.4%, and spending increased by $4 billion and was essentially flat—both were less than economists had forecast, but savings grew, the rate rising to 3.6% in April from 3.1% in March.

4.     The Obama administration urged the Supreme Court to prevent Arizona from enforcing a law that punishes businesses that employ illegal immigrants, arguing that federal immigration law trumps state efforts:

·                    In asking the Supreme Court to take the employer sanctions case, theObama administration said that federal immigration law expressly pre-empts any state law imposing sanctions on employers hiring illegal immigrants—the administration added that if Arizona businesses knowingly use illegal immigrants, the businesses can have any of their state licenses suspended or revoked.

May 29, 2010

        BP admitted defeat in its attempt to block the Gulf of Mexico oil leak by pumping mud into a busted well, but they said that, after a series of failures, they are readying yet another approach to fight the spill:

·                    BP PLC Chief Operating Officer Dug Suttles said that the company had determined that the “top kill” had failed after it spent three days pumping heavy mud into the crippled well located 5,000 feet underwater—more than 1.2 million gallons of mud was used, but most of it escaped out of the damaged riser.