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Throughout the debt crisis in Washington, the one prevailing theme has been, where is President Obama? Even the New York Times has questioned the absence of the President at this crucial time. Since Monday's press conference, President Obama has been rarely seen or heard. Today, the President in a short statement mentioned that the GOP plan in the House has "no chance of becoming law," urging "bipartisan compromise" in the Senate.
The President has urged bipartisan compromise, unfortunately President Obama has resorted to partisan rhetoric, all the while failing to submit his own proposal. Throughout the process, the President has failed in presidential leadership, the budget he submitted in February, was soundly rejected by the Democratic controlled Senate 97-0. President Obama has even failed to address the federal debt, which is the basis for the crisis today, by failing to accept any recommendations from his own debt commission.
The one aspect that has been rarely reported, was last year when the Democrats controlled both the House and Senate failed to pass a budget, which was only resolved this spring. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid failed to increase the debt ceiling last December, instead decided to let the next Congress tackle this volatile issue.
All the while President Obama has provide very little leadership and only resorted to partisan politics and wanting to push the crisis forward until after the 2012 Presidential election. Hardly asserting presidential leadership.
It's time for the President to start providing leadership, instead of engaging in partisan politics.
http://militarybriefingbook.com/topic.cfm?topic=U.S.%20Politics
The on going debt debate in Washington has both Republicans and Democrats prepared to take the U.S. over an economic cliff just to preserve their own partisan agenda. Throughout this entire crisis each party has behaved in a despicable manner, all the while stating they are doing this for the America people, when in fact they are only serving themselves.
Republican's have to understand they only control one branch of government! In our constitutional system of government, one branch of government can not pass a budget without the Senate and eventually the President signing the budget. At some point you are going to have to compromise, otherwise you will force the U.S. to default on its debt obligations for the first time.
Democrats on the the other hand have acted just as stubborn as Republicans failing to understand that you will have to overhaul non-discretionary spending, which means reining in entitlement spending of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. You will never be able to meaningful reduce the federal debt without reforming social spending.
President Obama has acted less like a President and more like a partisan politician. While running for president in 2008, he repeatedly stated that he could bridge the partisan divide, well he has made matters worse. Throughout this debate the President has failed to deliver a budget or summit any written proposal on how he would reduce the federal debt. Too often the President has often resorted to partisan rhetoric and partisan warfare, then acting in any presidential manner.
What this country needs is for both parties to act in a bi-partisan manner and for the President to assert presidential leadership, other wise disaster is in store for the United States.
http://militarybriefingbook.com/topic.cfm?topic=U.S.%20Politics
President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner, both addressed the nation to give their version of reducing the national debt and preventing the United States from defaulting on its obligations for the first time.
The President again reiterated what he has been saying for weeks, that he wants the crisis avoided, but again his rhetoric fails to meet reality. After months of debate and political rancor the President Obama routinely criticizes Republicans for the their stance on the federal debt, and there is merit to his argument, but what is lacking is that the President has so far failed to produce his own proposals.
As of right now, the President has failed to produce or submit his own proposal on what his plan is for reducing the federal debt. Even the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, Douglas Elmendorf, told a House Budget Committee in April after the President outlined a speech in an April 13 budget speech. "We don't estimate speeches," said Elmendorf. "We need much more specificity than was provided in that speech for us to do our analysis."
Since then nothing has changed. Again, like in the past, the President gives highly charged partisan speeches, highlighting the failure of the previous administration policy with regard to the federal debt, but fails to mention that his administration increased the debt by almost $5 trillion in just three years in office.
It's time for both parties to put aside election politics and start solving the countries. It's also time for the President to submit in detail his own proposal so that everyone will know specifically how he wants to reduce the federal debt, and stop blaming others for his lack of leadership.
http://militarybriefingbook.com/topic.cfm?topic=U.S.%20Politics
Last week talks broke down between the Republican dominated House and President Obama, over reducing the federal debt in conjunction with raising the federal debt ceiling. Over the weekend both House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are now planning to unveil competing proposals.
The question is, and I have raised this before; where is the President's plan on debt reduction? In his press conference on Friday, the President gave a stinging rebuke and placed the blame on House Republicans for the collapse of the talks, at one point stating, "Republicans can't say yes to anything."
The problem that has not been reported by the media is that the Republican controlled House has passed a budget, you may have disagreements with it, but at least they passed a budget. So far the President has failed to address the crisis in any meaningful way and only resorts to rhetoric and campaign politics.
The President's lack of leadership to take any recommendations from his own debt commission, failing to address entitlement reform, and failing to submit a reasonable budget has only made the situation worse. Even his own budget which he released in February failed 97-0 in the Democratic controlled Senate.
It's time the President submit his own plan for reducing U.S. federal debt, and with it his plan for raising the debt ceiling. The time has come for both sides to stop playing election politics and solve the problems facing this country. Too bad we have a President who lacks any presidential leadership!
http://militarybriefingbook.com/topic.cfm?topic=U.S.%20Politics
"First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish."--President John F. Kennedy, Joint Session of Congress, May 25, 1961
Fast forward to 2011, the United States will no longer be launching shuttle missions into space, but will rely on Russian, and possibly European, and Japanese capsules to place U.S. equipment into space. Budget cuts have grounded the shuttle program and will severely hamper the U.S. space program into the future.
Now it is time to take longer strides--time for a great new American enterprise--time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on earth.
...Let it be clear that I am asking the Congress and the country to accept a firm commitment to a new course of action, a course which will last for many years and carry very heavy costs."--President Kennedy
Currently there is a lack of strategic vision on what role the U.S. will play with regard to its space program, much of the uncertainty emanates from the White House, who has given conflicting leadership direction on NASA's continued role. It's no wonder that NASA is in disarray when NASA Administrator stated on Al Jazeera in 2010, that President Obama told him before he took the job that he wanted him to do three things: inspire children to learn math and science, expand international relationships and "perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contributions to science...and math and engineering."
President Kennedy would shudder to think what happened to his beloved space agency!
http://militarybriefingbook.com/topic.cfm?topic=U.S.%20Politics
