President Obama's Weekly Radio Address

RNC Chairman Michael Steele, always thinkin': Blame it on 'The Gays'

I'm a thinkin' single-payer health care. If we had it, then we wouldn't be able hold the gay community responsible for wrecking health care, or taking something away from someone else.

It's the same old strategy. Divide the American people and conquer. I hope we're not falling for it again in 2010.

Think the little engine that could. I think I can, except say single-payer, single-payer, single-payer, single-payer.

Republicans can reach a broader base by recasting gay marriage as an issue that could dent pocketbooks as small businesses spend more on health care and other benefits, GOP Chairman Michael Steele said Saturday.

[snip]

"Now all of a sudden I've got someone who wasn't a spouse before, that I had no responsibility for, who is now getting claimed as a spouse that I now have financial responsibility for," Steele told Republicans at the state convention in traditionally conservative Georgia. "So how do I pay for that? Who pays for that? You just cost me money."

As Steele talked about ways the party could position itself, he also poked fun at his previous pledge to give the GOP a "hip-hop makeover."

"You don't have to wear your pants cut down here or the big bling," he said. "It's a metaphor for taking this party to places and to people that we've either forgotten about, ignored or feel don't want to engage with us." source: Examiner.com

Rahm Emanuel doesn't give up much at WSJ CEO Counsel Conference

Rahm Emanuel speaks in vagaries like a good Chief of Staff.

Emanuel said he sees opportunities for government and business to work more closely together to help the public sector reorganize and retool for dealing with a global economy in a way that business has been doing for the past 20 years.

He also called on business leaders to “stay with us” as the administration undertakes a massive reform of the health-care industry.

The former Clinton staffer and congressman from Illinois was determined not to make news in his appearance before the Journal’s CEO Council conference. And he was largely successful. for WSJ source - click here

Emanuel did address the up and coming hot button topic The Employee Free Choice Act.

...Emanuel responded to a question on the Employee Free Choice Act, a measure backed by organized labor but strongly opposed by business, saying, “Let me take your question and go somewhere else.” Instead, he spoke about the need to address falling income among middle class workers. for WSJ source - click here

I find it slightly amusing that the author's last sentence above starts with the word 'Instead'. Although Emanuel was intentionally vague, The Employee Free Choice Act is a matter of great importance to the middle income earners in this country --those people who in large numbers, voted to elect Barack Obama for President of the United States of America.

But then again, I guess that WSJ CEO Counsel Reporter is looking to discuss how the Act would affect business (shareholders) so I am probably just being a bit oversensitive and possibly testy.

Snark-a-doodle.

Anyway, no blunders so it was a good day for Rahm Emanuel, White House Chief of Staff to President-Elect Barack Obama.

Obama Campaign: Obama Proposes New Small Business Rescue Plan

by Christopher Hass

Friday October 10 2008 01:40:06 PM

Today, in Chillicothe, Ohio Senator Obama introduced a new short term proposal to address the credit crisis of struggling small businesses. Senator Obama’s goal is to put all tools on the table to ensure that we are taking the necessary steps to help Americans who are struggling. Many small business owners can’t even make their payroll or finance their holiday inventories. Obama’s proposals are one step to help them during this time of crisis.

NEW PROPOSAL: While the financial market rescue plan is designed to unfreeze credit which will indirectly benefit small businesses, Obama recognizes that small businesses need direct and immediate access to capital now. Today he is calling for a Small Business Rescue Plan to help small firms get the loans the need to conduct day-to-day operating expenses, undertake short-term investments, and meet payrolls. The plan will use the tools we have available through the Small Business Administration to aggressively extend credit to struggling firms, while providing tax cuts for small businesses to encourage job creation. With small businesses responsible for more than two-thirds of new job creation, this plan is vital to stemming job losses and turning our economy around.

Obama’s small business plan includes:

• A Nationwide Emergency Lending Facility for Small Businesses
• Expanding Small Business Administration Guarantees to Encourage Private Lending to Small Businesses
• Temporary tax incentives to encourage small businesses to invest in jobs

In addition, Senator Obama has previously proposed:

• Zero capital gains rate for investment in small businesses
• Cut Taxes for the Vast Majority of Small Businesses
• Create New Small Business Health Tax Credit

Read the full press release outlining Senator Obama's plan in detail . . .

Investing in Change: Barack Obama on Small Business, Energy, Jobs, Healthcare and Taxes

Road Blog: Barack at the Siemans Hydro Plant in York PA

by Obama Road Blog, Thursday, September 04, 2008 at 05:07 PM

Today Barack stopped by York, Pennsylvania to take a tour of the Siemans Hydro Power plant. He was joined by Senator Bob Casey and York Mayor John Brennan for a walk-through of the factory.

CEO and President E. Mark Garner and Executive Vice President Frank Daley led of the group through the loud, industrial space while describing how the Hydro turbines are made and used to generate energy.

After the tour, Barack spoke to a group of roughly sixty workers in the parking lot.

Touring plants like this is one of my favorite things as a candidate. You get to learn about the people who are making the things that make people's lives better. Nothing beats it.

Brad Kunkel, an HVAC installer of 23 years who had recently become a small business owner, expressed concern about being able to continue his new business in these tough economic times. Here is what Barack had to say:

Peon Lesson: FactCheck.org is a wonderful tool

I'll be real honest here. I'm not going to show you fact checks of Barack Obama here. I will tell you this, having gone to factcheck.org, there are more checks on McCain than Obama, and McCain's are much bigger distortions. I monitored this site during the 2004 election cycle. There was distortion on both sides, but I'm not counting the 527 ads either. When it boils down to it, political advertisements should be ignored on television because they are there to target you and are not telling you the whole story or the entire truth.

If an ad does make a claim that doesn't seem right, factcheck.org is a good place to find out how wild it is. I think there was an ad already that said John McCain voted against Breast Cancer research. Sounds outrageous because it is. It was in a bill where he objected to other funding. That is not voting against Breast Cancer research, so I'm saying that to tell you it does happen.

Adwatch: McCain ad blames Obama for gas price hike By The Associated Press Mon Jul 21, 2:22 PM ET

TITLE: "Pump." LENGTH: 30 seconds

AIRING: National cable and Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Northern Virginia and Wisconsin. more

FactCheck.org A Full Tank of Nonsense July 22, 2008. McCain ad says Obama's the guy to thank for emptying our wallets at the filling station. We say that's ridiculous.

Summary = McCain's new ad accuses Obama of keeping gas prices high, all by himself. That's absurd, and McCain knows it – he has said repeatedly that our current problems were "30 years in the making."

The ad also tells us that gas prices are high because "some in Washington are still saying no to drilling in America." Not true. The federal government's estimate is that if the moratorium on offshore drilling were lifted today, it would be 2030 before we'd see a noticeable effect on supply and prices.

For the same reason, it's simply not true that drilling more now will "rescue our family budgets." more

FactCheck.org The Truth on Troop Support? July 22, 2008. A McCain TV ad says Obama "voted against funding our troops." He did, once. Every other time he voted in favor.

Summary - The McCain campaign is running a TV ad attacking Obama with statements that are literally true but paint an incomplete picture.

It says he "voted against funding our troops." He did – exactly once. Obama cast at least 10 votes for war-funding bills before voting against one last year, after Bush vetoed a version that contained a date for withdrawal from Iraq.

It says he "hasn't been to Iraq for years." He was headed there at the time the ad was released, however, and had been there in 2006.

It says he "never held a single hearing on Afghanistan." It was the full Senate Foreign Relations Committee, not Obama's subcommittee, that had the hearings on this global hot spot, and Obama attended one of those. Over the same time period, McCain himself attended none of the Afghanistan hearings held by the Armed Services Committee on which he serves. more

FactCheck.org Questionable Quotes July 18, 2008. Vets for Freedom ad attributes CIA chief's viewpoint to a critical newspaper.

Summary - Vets for Freedom, a group made up of veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, launched a new ad this week that falsely attributes a quote to the Washington Post. The ad gives the impression that the Post was a critic of the surge in Iraq and is now admitting it was wrong. But the words the group uses are the views of the head of the CIA, not the newspaper. more

FactCheck.org McCain's Small-Business Bunk -July 14, 2008. He claims 23 million small-business owners would pay higher tax rates under Obama. He's wrong. The vast majority would see no change, and many would get a cut.

Summary = McCain has repeatedly claimed that Obama would raise tax rates for 23 million small-business owners. It's a false and preposterously inflated figure.

We find that the overwhelming majority of those small-business owners would see no increase, because they earn too little to be affected. Obama's tax proposal would raise rates only on couples making more than $250,000 or singles earning more than $200,000.

McCain argues that Obama's proposed increase is a job-killer. He has a point. It's true that increasing taxes on those at the top would leave them less money for other purposes, including investment and hiring in the case of business owners. But the number of business owners who would see their rates go up would be only a small fraction of what McCain says. Many would see their taxes go down. more

Stay informed and remember what I said before - the television is not always your friend. Sometimes it tells lies.

Peace and Love,

PD