Feb 28 2009
President Barack Obama's first budget proposal, released Thursday, would be the largest in American history, with also the biggest deficit.
From one point of view, it's a bold step forward to the future, realigning America's goals and having a transformational effect. But from another perspective, it's a little like the person who is out of work saying he wants to buy a Cadillac to drive to his next job.
Regardless of which it turns out to be, the needs of an expiring economy are many and the new budget pledges to address them. The Democratic Congress is likely to pass much of the proposal, even with the Republicans gnawing at it already. The long-term impact of the big spending, and the ballooning national debt, will take a while to see. So will the effect of the heavy investments in improved health care and education.
The budget proposed is $3.55 trillion. The anticipated deficit is $1.75 trillion. Mr. Obama promises that at the same time spending increases, the deficit will be cut over the long haul. This may require a leap of faith. He says he will find savings and increased revenues in cutting corporate and agribusiness subsidies, higher taxes for corporations and the well-to-do, and savings from the end of the Iraq war.
Maybe. But in Washington, going after executive- and legislative-branch sacred cows can be a difficult business. Each is protected by lobbyists and campaign contributors. Their pet sponsors -- bureaucrats and legislators -- will fight to keep their cow out of the slaughterhouse.
One key part is the Defense Department budget and troop withdrawal from Iraq. Mr. Obama in his transparent budget, unlike the Bush administration's annual omission of intended war spending, plans to cut the Pentagon wish list and begin Iraq troop withdrawal. The two are clearly linked and he will have to be careful that he achieves both. Cutting money is the only sure way to reduce Pentagon activities.
Now the fun will begin in Congress. Democrats will favor the proposals, seeking only to preserve or reinsert their own pet projects in the final budget. Republicans will bleat that the Democrats, starting with Mr. Obama, are irresponsible spenders, especially evil for taking aim at the Republican base, the rich, by ending in 2010 some of the Bush tax cuts.
The boldness of vision, shift of emphasis to human infrastructure and partial reallocation of the nation's tax burden in Mr. Obama's budget are all correct. The new president has made an inspired opening bid. The devil of the budget will be -- as it always is with Congress -- in the details.
Feb 28 2009
They resurrect big band numbers, strum our patriotic heart strings, harmonize with angelic choirs and revive toe-tappers from Broadway to the Beatles. They're the River City Brass Band, a 27-year-old musical treasure that is trying to come to grips with some dissonant finances.
On Wednesday the band's management and musicians reached an agreement in principle on new contract terms that would stabilize its future. If adopted, the union-represented 28-member band and the seven employees of the administrative staff will take a 15 percent pay cut through June 2010. The group will also cut the number of rehearsals beginning in the fall.
The brass band, which performs throughout the country, specializes in concert series that reach multiple audiences in Western Pennsylvania -- not just those who can make their way to a Pittsburgh performance hall. Its typical season features 49 concerts in different venues, including the Byham Theater, Downtown; the Palace Theater, Greensburg; the Pasquerilla Arts Center, Johnstown, and finer school auditoriums in Monroeville, McCandless, Bethel Park, Upper St. Clair and Beaver.
The River City Brass Band says that in the course of a year, 40,000 listeners attend its regional concert series, with thousands more turning up at its other performances. That would suggest the organization is achieving success in meeting its mission -- not just to entertain but "to propagate and perpetuate musical culture" and to have "as its central obligation service to the people of Western Pennsylvania."
Once the musicians' agreement is sealed, the River City Brass Band can turn its attention to other challenges, like slumping ticket sales, raising revenue and finding a music director to follow Denis Colwell. When those notes are struck, it'll be music to our ears.
Feb 27 2009
Tony Norman
I'm beginning to think faux conservative Stephen Colbert is the only trustworthy presence on late night television these days. He consistently nails the pretentions of politicians and celebrities alike four nights a week on Comedy Central's never-less-than-hilarious "The Colbert Report." This week, Colbert challenged Republican National Committee Chairman Micahel Steele to a freestyle rap. Colbert is responding to Steele's plans to put the GOP through a "hip-hop" makeover.
"There's was underlying concerns we had become too regionalized and the party needed to reach beyond our comfort zones," Steele told the Washington Times on Feb. 19. "We need messengers to really capture that region -- young, Hispanic, black, a cross section. We want to convey that the modern-day GOP looks like the conservative party that stands on principles. But we want to apply them to urban-suburban hip-hop settings."
Steele, the former lieutenant governor of Maryland is African-American, but that didn't stop him from pimping stereotypes about what blacks and other minorities look for in deciding which major political party to support. He promises that the strategy he will devise for the GOP going forward in appealing to blacks, Hispanics and young people will be "off the hook."
At the recent Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, Steele said: "We know the past, we know we did wrong. My bad. But we go forward in appreciation of the values that brought us to this point." This encouraged Minnesota Rep. Michelle Bachman, the most clueless white women in the U.S. Congress to respond to the chairman of her party with this gem of ebonic wisdom: "Micheal Steele! You be da man! You be da man!"
On ABC Radio Host Curtis Silwa's show this week, Steele sent out some "slum [dog millionaire] love" to his buddy, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal who has been taking a pounding for his atrocious and condescending response to President Obama earlier this week. I know we just celebrated Darwin's 200th birthday, but is it necessary for the Republicans (best known for their Creationist proclivities) to evolve backwards in trying to appeal to a broader base? Why would Steele, a black man, single out Jindal's south Asian roots by making a connection between the American-born Indian America and the fictional film about the slums of Mumbai?
No wonder Colbert has challenged Michael Steele for the supremacy of the party. Steele doesn't have a clue of how to relate to the masses that elected Barack Obama the nation's first black president. Even more appalling, he doesn't have a clue about how to relate to the lost souls in his own party. The GOP doesn't need a hip-hop makeover. It needs a brain transplant. If Stephen Colbert usurps Steele's power, then at least the party will be in the hands of someone who knows how to get laughs on purpose. Michael Steele has set back the last 50 years of civil rights gains at least 75 years.
Feb 27 2009
Political movement is taking place within the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships as the efforts of President Barack Obama's special envoy, George Mitchell, now in the region, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who will visit next week, zero in on the problem.
One difficulty on the Palestinian side is the split between the two main organizations, Fatah and Hamas. Their leaders and those of 10 other Palestinian groups met yesterday in Cairo to try to construct a united front. The problems are many. The term of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas expired Jan. 9, with elections in the West Bank and Gaza to replace him expensive and difficult to envisage.
Besides the Fatah-Hamas split is friction between Palestinian leaders in exile and those living in the Palestinian territories, under Israeli bombs and harassment. The most serious Palestinian barrier to fruitful international negotiations is the Hamas position of not renouncing violence as a tool and not recognizing Israel's right to exist. Some believe that a Hamas folded into a reunified Palestinian movement can be persuaded to sand down those positions to something acceptable to all external parties and to the Israelis.
Once again, the Egyptians, who hosted the Palestinian meeting, will play a key role in trying to forge a unified position. The Egyptians also will hold a donors' meeting next week to raise international funds to repair the damage in Gaza inflicted by the Israelis in December and January. The Palestinians will be asking for $2 billion.
On the Israeli side, the composition of a future, post-election government is still in question. Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu is charged with putting together a coalition. There is some thought among Israelis that making it a government of national unity, including Kadima and even possibly Labor, rather than a coalition of hard-liners is the best course for the country to follow.
The future of a Middle East peace process, in which the United States has a large stake, is very much in play, as Mrs. Clinton prepares to travel. America can hope that the parties to the conflict will all make an effort to be reasonable.
Feb 27 2009
If Pittsburgh's three rivers are its heart and soul, then efforts to draw more people to its center can only be life-sustaining.
That's why everyone should welcome construction of the long-awaited bike and pedestrian promenade along the Monongahela Wharf, Downtown, which will begin Monday and complete an important link in the Pittsburgh-to-Washington, D.C., trail. The 2,017-foot walkway will run the length of the popular wharf parking lot, which holds 700 spaces.
About 150 to 200 parking spots will be sacrificed to the $2.3 million project, but the improvements will be worth it.
Spearheaded by the Riverlife Task Force, the plan will turn an unsightly riverfront into a linear green space that has a finished trail with blue stone inlay, sloped planting beds, benches and scores of trees. Not only will the resulting park be a magnet for city dwellers, workers and visitors -- on foot or on wheels -- but it will also be a visual improvement to the cityscape as seen from the South Side, Mount Washington or that famous view upon emerging from the Fort Pitt Tunnel.
For nearly a century, cars have been parked on the sloping, initially dirt-surfaced bank of the Monongahela. Now the construction of a recreational trail, which should be completed by early fall, will bring the added benefit of natural screening to one of the city's all-too-visible auto lots.
The improvement won't end there, though. This phase is only part of a $6 million package that also includes a "Mon Wharf Connector" that will route the trail around a pier of the Fort Pitt Bridge and link it to Point State Park and a switchback ramp that will connect the other end of the wharf with the Eliza Furnace Trail at the Smithfield Street Bridge.
While foundations have generously provided the financial base for the phased package, the final $2 million must still be found and could come from several public sources, including the federal economic stimulus plan. The Riverlife Task Force says that in two years the whole project will be under way, if not completed.
It will be the newest sign to Pittsburghers of a most livable city, and it all begins Monday.
Feb 27 2009
President Barack Obama's decision to review an order for a new generation of presidential helicopters won't solve the problem of military cost overruns, but it's a welcome start.
The fleet of 28 high-security helicopters ordered from Lockheed Martin after the Sept. 11 terror attacks has nearly doubled in cost to $11.2 billion. That makes each $400 million chopper more expensive than any of the Boeing 747 jets dubbed Air Force One.
That's outrageous, but it's only a drop in the bucket according to a Government Accountability Office report last fall that said the military's top 95 procurement programs were nearly $300 billion over budget since 2000.
Michael Sullivan, the GAO's director of acquisition management, and other experts told a Senate panel in September that the process for identifying and filling military needs was broken. They said that contractors can make bids they know are unrealistically low because officials are loath to let weapons programs fail.
But contractors are not solely to blame, as the cost overruns in the VH-71 helicopter program make clear. The Bush administration's security requirements for the helicopter were upgraded frequently to add electronic equipment that did not yet exist, according to The Washington Post, and the Pentagon went ahead with the project before design and testing of key components had been completed.
Nowhere else is so much spending permitted with so little oversight and accountability. What President Obama did by declaring that military procurement has "gone amok" and the current fleet of presidential helicopters "seems perfectly adequate" is to put defense contractors and military leaders on notice that "change" is coming to them as well.
It's about time.
Feb 26 2009
Stressing hope and determination, President Barack Obama's first speech to the nation and Congress on Tuesday night appears to have rung the right bell.
Mr. Obama looked closely at the sick patient, the American economy, and offered what he proposes as the right treatment. He declared his faith that not only would the patient recover, but also that the nation would resume its traditional upward course in history.
"The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation," he said. "The answers to our problems don't lie beyond our reach."
He dealt the country some tough cards -- for instance, who among the affluent could like the prospect of higher taxes? -- but at the same time he demonstrated an understanding of Americans' frightened state of mind and indicated no sign of discouragement in the face of the nation's problems.
Mr. Obama projected a hopeful image. It helps to see a young president -- energetic, articulate and even eloquent in his formulation of the problems and proposed solutions -- in action. At the same time, polls show Americans generally reassured by their choice in the November elections. By contrast, the Republican response to Mr. Obama's talk, offered by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, was more of his party's tax-cuts-as-a-remedy-to-everything approach.
A strong point in Mr. Obama's presentation was the comprehensiveness of his program. While he acknowledged that government could not "solve every problem or address every issue," he still urged Congress to pass a market-based cap on carbon pollution and renewed his support for the effort to provide health insurance to all Americans.
He tried to build confidence in the nation's banks by telling Americans that their deposits were safe, but warned that, "If we do not restart lending in this country, our recovery will be choked off before it even begins." If there was a weakness in his pitch, it was that he left vague what he intends to do about banks that take taxpayer money and spend it on corporate excess or banks that have the gall not to reveal what they are doing with public dollars.
The next move for the president is to keep pressing forward with his systematic focus on the economic puzzle. The full-court press he laid out Tuesday night was the right talk for a worried nation.
Feb 26 2009
It's not always easy to second-guess judges who sentence defendants after hearing all the facts at trial. But in the case of former Brentwood Borough Council President Mary Dytko, it is easy enough. Her punishment clearly does not fit the crime.
Mary Dytko, 48, lied on state disclosure forms and used a borough Sam's Club purchasing card to charge $2,500 worth of goods for herself, including video games, "The Devil Wears Prada" on DVD and pierogies. She reimbursed Brentwood for most of this sum but didn't pay back the last $723.76 until after her 2007 arrest.
By itself, this could be considered relatively small potatoes, but she also pleaded guilty to not disclosing a prior felony that involved, yes, credit card fraud in 1997, an offense that would have prevented her from holding public office in the first place. Additionally, she failed to list a $10,000 debt on a disclosure form and lied about having a bachelor's degree from the University of Pittsburgh.
This is not just small potatoes; this is a noxious stew of trouble. And so what did Common Pleas Senior Judge John K. Reilly do Monday? He sentenced her to 60 days of house arrest and three years of probation.
Sorry, but two-time felons who abuse the public trust don't deserve to serve their sentences at home. There is no way that such treatment would make someone like Ms. Dytko sufficiently remorseful. And, sure enough, it didn't.
After the sentencing, she had the gall to vaguely threaten retribution against political rivals in Brentwood. "The ball game is not over," she said. It wouldn't have taken much prison time to call her out on strikes (one or two years in prison was what the district attorney's office was hoping for when she was convicted in December).
This was not Judge Reilly's best day, but unfortunately it was a great one for Mary Dytko. She didn't exactly walk, but she was allowed to relax on a couch at home to the shame of the system.
Feb 26 2009
Six years ago, American troops stood by as looters carried away priceless antiquities from Iraq's National Museum. The chaos and anarchy that followed the fall of Baghdad and Saddam Hussein's regime was entirely predictable.
That doesn't excuse the lack of post-invasion planning by the United States to protect some of the oldest artifacts in the world from systematic theft by sophisticated art thieves and petty criminals.
When asked at the time why American troops didn't guard the cultural treasures, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was characteristically glib: "Stuff happens ... and it's untidy, and freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things."
While the National Museum went unprotected, the oil ministry and the petroleum fields were ringed with American soldiers. If ever there was a message about U.S. values and intentions in Iraq, this was it. Meanwhile, an estimated 15,000 artifacts of a 4,000-year-old civilization -- a few from the Stone Age -- made their way to the international black market.
Since then roughly 8,500 artifacts have been recovered from around the world. According to U.S. investigators, profits from the sale of irreplaceable relics helped finance al-Qaida in Iraq as well as various militias. Iraq's cultural ministry is determined to reacquire the roughly 7,000 pieces still hidden in private hands and museums that took advantage of the chaos to expand their own collections.
The reopening Monday of the National Museum in Baghdad is an indicator of the cultural resilience of the Iraqi people -- and the greater control of the U.S. military. Things are getting better. After six years, Iraq has begun to reclaim its history and its cultural memory.
Feb 25 2009
Tony Norman
President Barack Obama's speech hit every note it needed to hit last night. Polling immediately after the speech as well as a survey of the pundits on the major networks and on cable bears this out. Despite the grim economic news in the weeks leading up to last night's speech, President Obama managed to exude both optimism and competence. He looked like a leader who understands the power of the presidential bully pulpit and how to use it. He was interrupted by applause 65 times. He received 37 standing ovations. There was plenty of bipartisan applause along with a sprinkling of partisan script-following and hand wringing. It was a joy to watch because it was a reminder of the essential vitality of our democratic institutions. This is what it feels like to have a president who speaks like an adult and who has the ability to speak to us as if we're adults, too.
Last night was our first look at a new president making his first speech before both houses of Congress. After eight years of fear, bullying and non-stop bloviating from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, it was a pleasant change of pace. A president who can deliver a fabulous speech while looking sharp, confident and intellectually engaged is probably going to take some getting used to, especially for his critics. Mr. Obama managed to deliver a populist message that must have annoyed corporate CEOs desperate for a sign that the president feels their pain and is willing to turn the American economy upside down just to bail them out. He told America that the days of corporate irresponsibility were over and that CEOs will be accountable for the financial help they receive from the American taxpayer. Fancy drapes and corporate jets were singled out as signs of a decadent corporate culture. Michael Douglas' "Wall Street" character Gordon Gekko was officially put on notice last night. Corporate greed is no longer "good."
Mr. Obama got plenty of bipartison applause for his stand on education and the need for more parental involvement in our children's education. He said that dropping out of high school was no longer an option. "It's not just quitting on yourself," he said. "It's quitting on your country." He vowed that by 2020, the U.S. would have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. He got a big pop from threatening terrorists operating out of the badlands of Afghanistan and Pakistan, too.
When Mr. Obama conceded that growing the deficit on the backs of our children was irresponsible, too, the Republicans went wild. Their applause was an implicit rebuke of the recently passed stimulus package. "I knew we could get some consensus in here," the president said wryly before following up with a zinger --- "with the deficit we [the Obama administration] inherited." Then it was turn for the Democrats to go crazy.
When Mr. Obama said that the U.S. could finally say, without fear of contradiction that America doesn't torture, you could feel the pro-torture apologists for the Bush administration sliding under their tables.
The biggest applause was reserved for his kind words about supporting the troops with an increase in pay, shorter deployments and expanded medical benefits. Military men and women must be in shock about finally having an attentive commander-in-chief: "We honor your service," he said. "We are inspired by your sacrifice. You have our undying respect."
In contrast, it was painful watching Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal give the Republican response to the president's speech. For one thing, the boyish-looking governor looks more like Mad Magazine's Alfred E. Newman than George W. Bush does. Speaking in a sing-song cadence that tacked closely to orthodox Republican positions, Gov. Jindal did the best he could with the rotten hand he was dealt. What can a young leader in a party that specializes in failed ideas do under the circumstances?
Still, this beautiful dream that the Democrats and the country is currently experiencing could all go away if Mr. Obama's various plans to jumpstart the economy tank. Four years from now, we could very well be evaluating Mr. Jindal's much improved delivery before Congress extolling draconian taxcuts and zero federal spending on national infrastructure or job creation. It could come to that, pretty speeches or not.
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