by Damozel | Did you know that George W. Bush is still president? It's true. Fortunately--- according to The Washington Post--Obama's team is busily compiling a list of nearly 200 executive orders and Bush administration policies that they can quickly reverse.
Hurray!
A team of four dozen advisers, working for months in virtual solitude, set out to identify regulatory and policy changes Obama could implement soon after his inauguration. The team is now consulting with liberal advocacy groups, Capitol Hill staffers and potential agency chiefs to prioritize those they regard as the most onerous or ideologically offensive, said a top transition official who was not permitted to speak on the record about the inner workings of the transition.
In some instances, Obama would be quickly delivering on promises he made during his two-year campaign, while in others he would be embracing Clinton-era policies upended by President Bush during his eight years in office. (WaPo)
Obama does intend to discuss all changes with Congressional leaders from both sides of the aisles in addition to representatives of affected groups.(WaPo) It's what he said he would do.
And in an interview with Jason Riley of the Wall Street Journal, Obama's new chief of staff Rahm Emanuel "didn't hesitate" when asked about Obama's priorities.
"Bucket one would have children's health care, Schip," he said. "It has bipartisan agreement in the House and Senate. It's something President-elect Obama expects to see. Second would be [ending current restrictions on federally funded] stem-cell research. And third would be an economic recovery package focused on the two principles of job creation and tax relief for middle-class families." (WSJ)
Riley, who thinks Obama is an "unabashed liberal"--and if he thinks that, he doesn't really hasn't been listening--asked Emanuel if he thinks that liberalism "is in the ascendant," whatever that means.
Perhaps what we witnessed on Tuesday means that liberalism is ascendant and the U.S. is no longer a center-right nation. "I think the country is incredibly pragmatic," he responded. "Pragmatic and progressive. But you still have to mix and match different approaches to reach your objectives. You have to be flexible..I don't think the country is yearning for an ideological answer. If anything it's the opposite. They want real solutions to real problems. And if we do an ideological test, we will fail. Our challenge is to work to solve the actual problems that the country is facing, not work to satisfy any constituency or ideological wing of the party."(WSJ)
Fair enough. If the reports are true, it seems clear that Obama plans to deliver on his campaign promises, which is really all that I ask.
Mr. Obama has acknowledged that the economy will force him to recalibrate his program but insists that he has not backed off his commitments. “We can’t afford to wait on moving forward on the key priorities that I identified during the campaign, including clean energy, health care, education and tax relief for middle class families,” he said Saturday.
During the campaign, Mr. Obama identified many other priorities, like withdrawing from Iraq; talking with Iran; tackling immigration; closing the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba; and renegotiating trade rules with the country’s neighbors. (NYT)
He still plans to make the economy his top priority.(WaPo) His advisers are giving careful consideration to setting priorities. (NYT)
Much of the issue may be out of Mr. Obama’s hands. The $700 billion financial bailout threatens to push the deficit into the stratosphere. “The poor man has his hands tied by the economic and financial mess we have right now,” said John Tuck, a former aide to President Ronald Reagan. “I don’t know what his options are. They’re very, very limited.”
At a news conference Friday and again in a radio address on Saturday, Mr. Obama signaled that he intended to move quickly to address the nation’s financial problems, despite any obstacles. “I want to ensure that we hit the ground running on Jan. 20,” he said on Saturday, “because we don’t have a moment to lose.” (NYT)
Despite the pessimism of John Tuck regarding Obama's options, it appears that he's ready to move fast on some of the policies we elected him to change. What was done by executive fiat can be undone by it.
In the meantime, of course, the Bush administration is working overtime to create the maximum number of barriers. (Buck Naked Politics 11-1) Firedoglake has an update on some of their last minute policy making.
They still have time to do plenty of damage. Fortunately, Obama can undo quite a bit of it.
Obama...has signaled, for example, that he intends to reverse Bush's controversial limit on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, a decision that scientists say has restrained research into some of the most promising avenues for defeating a wide array of diseases, such as Parkinson's.
Bush's August 2001 decision pleased religious conservatives who have moral objections to the use of cells from days-old human embryos, which are destroyed in the process.
But Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) said that during Obama's final swing through her state in October, she reminded him that because the restrictions were never included in legislation, Obama "can simply reverse them by executive order." Obama, she said, "was very receptive to that." Opponents of the restrictions have already drafted an executive order he could sign.
The new president is also expected to lift a so-called global gag rule barring international family planning groups that receive U.S. aid from counseling women about the availability of abortion, even in countries where the procedure is legal, said Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, he rescinded the Reagan-era regulation, known as the Mexico City policy, but Bush reimposed it.
"We have been communicating with his transition staff" almost daily, Richards said. "We expect to see a real change." (WaPo)
Wow, that's great news. And there's more:
Congressional leaders want to move swiftly in January to pass a major expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program — a plan vetoed by President Bush — as a step toward the broader coverage Mr. Obama promised. Likewise, Democrats plan to incorporate his proposed middle-class tax cuts in the economic legislation or pass them in tandem. And Mr. Obama could increase investment in alternative energy as a down payment on a far-reaching climate plan. (NYT)
At Political Animal, Hilzoy says:
These are wonderful changes. After the last eight years, the very idea that they might occur not as the result of a long drawn-out battle, but just like that, is amazing.
It is. I'm so used to seeing all progress ground down under the Bush Administration's big right heel that I can't quite believe it can happen just like that.
At My DD, Todd Beeton says:
Sweet, sweet consequences....In so many ways, the last eight years have been, at best, wasted time so it's nice that on several issues we won't have to wait for progress.
Kevin Drum thinks Obama's priorities sound like the right ones.
Obviously dealing with the economy is Job 1, but energy and healthcare were the main domestic policy items Obama campaigned on and he has a pretty clear mandate to act on them....Add Iraq to the mix on the foreign policy side and Obama has a pretty full plate of major policy initiatives for his first year. Add in the usual slew of more modest measures, and we could be in pretty good shape by the end of 2009.
Wow, it's all really happening. I can't believe it's finally happening...
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