Obama: It’s Decision Time

15 July 2011 |permalink | email article

After a failed fifth daily meeting at the White House late Thursday the president told congressional leaders that the framework for a deal must be in place in the next 36 hours or lawmakers will have to return to the negotiating table over the weekend. “We need concrete plans to move this forward,” said Obama who holds a press conference Friday morning. In contrast to the now-infamous blowup session Wednesday sources in both parties described the talks to Politico as cordial. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said nothing.

Moody’s Investor Service said Wednesday that depending upon the outcome it might have to cut its top-notch rating for the U.S. China, which holds more than $1 trillion in U.S. Treasury securities, urged the U.S. to adopt responsible policies and measures to guarantee the interest of investors.

Jobs

Bill Clinton’s former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, now at UC Berkeley, nudges Obama to create a real jobs plan. One priority: Recreate the WPA and Civilian Conservation Corps – the two most successful job innovations of the New Deal that put millions of unemployed back to work directly in the 1930s. Rebuilding roads, bridges, ports and levees, renovate public buildings and provide services to schools and hospitals, part of the mix to boost the economy. 

California Notebook

All signs suggest the state will not choosing their 2012 presidential nominees until legislation heads to Gov. Jerry Brown’ desk. The bill was approved by the state Senate on a vote of 34-3. An Assembly bill would move the presidential primary from February of next year to June, consolidating it with the statewide primary election and save state and local officials about $100 million. Republicans oppose moving the date so far back in the cycle because it would put state voters and issues on the back burner and affect GOP candidates competing in June.

Quotable

“This is the largest and longest sustained sequence of increases in student tuition in fifty years.” – Steve Bollard, director of higher education for the state Legislative Analyst’s Office. “This raises the question, where does it end?” The decision to raise student fees continued what has become the longest period of steady tuition increases for California’s two public university systems in 50 years.

 

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