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From the desk of Bob Keefe
Washington, D.C.
January 1, 2010
Political Update
Happy New Year! As I sat down to start this Update, I took a look back at the first issues of recent years. There was a common thread of analysis of the previous twelve months. They were not at all like we had thought they would be when they began. You can say that about 2009 in spades. We saw the election of President Barack Obama as the conclusion of divisive politics… the end of racial division and the advent of positive social change.
That did not happen. We had a new President who determined to implement change. His change meant major structural alterations that required ground breaking legislation. The first target, the health care system, has consumed the legislative branch for the year. Republicans have determined that cooperation with Obama is not in their interests and their boycott of anything Obama has destroyed whatever bipartisanship had existed in this city. The hopes for accommodation and collegiality in government have been dashed, and we enter this second decade of the twenty first century as an angry mob of partisans.
Unfortunately, new presidents do not get a blank page to work from. They inherit the circumstances left by their predecessor. It is like a progressive party. Obama did become heir to a package of issues and problems that were unique in their severity and importance. The programs and actions he had dreamed of when he began his quest for the office in 2005 did not fit with the hand he had been dealt. He was forced to tear up his things to do list and begin to act on problems he had never imagined. It must have been discouraging to him. But begin he did and he will forever be judged by how he adapted his governance to the new and difficult world that he found awaiting him.
Terrorism 2010
It took a year, but finally, a real and present terrorism threat has challenged him. The Christmas bomber on the flight from Amsterdam changed aviation security again. We reacted to the smuggling of knives onto airplanes, then liquid bomb ingredients and now we have the problem of the plastic explosives sewn into a man’s underwear. We will react again, probably with more body scanning.
Over the past fortnight, I did more miles of travel than Santa Claus. I was inspected and scanned in Washington, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing and Tokyo again. United States inspections were, clearly the most thorough, but all were serious and careful. No where was I subjected to a complete pat down or body scan. But I had bought a ticket by credit card, had luggage (overweight, at that) and was operating on a return itinerary. I had not been to any funny places on my current passport.
When I fly again, and it will likely be soon, what will be different? I have my inspection routine down pat. I put all of my metal things in my sport coat pocket. My passport and boarding pass go in my shirt pocket. My only problem is shoes. I wear my walking shoes and they are usually helped on by a shoe horn, which is not available at the TSA inspection counter. My carry on is usually re-checked because I have a lot of cords packed in it. But I do not hold up the line. I am a good guy to be behind.
I have resigned myself to being at the airport very early… I was at the Beijing airport at 5:30 am for an 8:00 am flight. Maybe I will have to be earlier. Whenever the TSA has changed its process, the lines have gotten longer. But I can suffer this.. For safety.
Meanwhile, I hope the President will crack some heads together between the various agencies that are supposed to be making me safe. As in most enterprises, good communication makes for a good outcome. If our teams are not talking – and that seems to be the case in this latest matter –then we are in trouble. But count me in, I will keep flying.
Harry the Hero
There is no doubt about it. The “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” is the result of the laudable actions of Senator Harry Reid, the Majority Leader of the Senate from Searchlight, Nevada. Harry prevailed against long odds. His legislative skills and personal persuasion brought a majority of 60 Democrats to vote for the bill on Christmas Eve. The Republican opposition had bet the table against him… and lost. Every member of the Democratic caucus backed the measure; every Republican opposed it.
The Senate passed a historic $871 billion health care reform bill Thursday morning, handing President Obama a Christmas Eve victory on his top domestic priority. Should it become law, the measure would constitute the biggest expansion of federal health care guarantees since the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid more than four decades ago. It is expected to extend insurance coverage to 30 million additional Americans.
Over the last months, Harry Reid was the face in the bulls eye. He was the guy who had this impossible task of creating a piece of legislation that would satisfy sixty of the most persnickety people in America. His chances of doing that were slim or none. He had the impossible task. He was required to deliver a daily report on his task. The television reporters asked him every day how he was doing… and things did not change much from day to day… so he seemed to be failing…at least in the eyes of the beholders.
But, legislation, being like sausage, hard to watch being made, always looks bad, but Harry was still working the recipe. He made it and I am happy for the Senator from Searchlight. He has never gotten the respect he deserves.
Senator Reid began his political career as the Lieutenant Governor of Nevada; ran for Senate but was defeated by Paul Laxalt; served as Chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission; he was elected to Congress and finally succeeded to a Senate seat in 1987. He succeeded Tom Daschle as the Democratic Leader in 2005.
My most significant memory of a long relationship with the Senator was a time when the newly elected Prime Minister of Andorra visited Washington. Andorra was considering adding gambling to its attractions and he came to the United States to watch his son sing in the Andorran Boys Choirs and to inspect American Casinos… I thought it was a good idea to introduce him to the former boss of the Gaming Commission of the top Gaming state, Harry Reid.
The meeting was a complete bust. I forgot Harry is a Mormon and he spent a half hour lecturing my Andorran friend on the evils of gaming. Harry is a man of principle…
For the Record – The Markets
Let me quantify what you already know. The stock markets have just completed a very dismal decade. They actually collapsed twice in those ten years. The Dow had the best performance. It closed just 8.25 percent below where it ended 10 years ago, in 1999. The S.& P. index closed 23 percent below and the NASDAQ was hit hardest . The bursting of the dot-com bubble pushed it down 44 percent over the decade.
For most Americans, for most of the decade, there was no gain in their personal earning power. It was a lost decade for both the rich and the poor.
For the Record – The Political Polls
Yes, it is an election year. In ten short months the nation will go to the polls to select a new Congress, a third of the Senators, a majority of the state governors, and many, many other officials. Though he will not be on the ballot this year, the election results will be seen as a report card on the Presidency of Barack Obama.
Democrats cannot be happy about the trend lines that have developed since the Inauguration of Obama last January. The answers voters are giving the pollsters on the critical questions are all troubling.
Here are the results of what political experts consider the “state of the union questions:”
The President’s favorability rating:
1/21/09 7/12/09 Now
Favorable 63.0% 51.7% 50.1%
Unfavorable 19.0% 37.8% 44.5%
The favorability rating of Congress:
1/18/09 6/15/09 Now
Favorable 21.2% 37.0% 27.4%
Unfavorable 70.7% 52.0% 65.8
The Direction of the country:
1/20/09 6/13/09 Now
Right Direction 69.3% 45.8% 35.9%
Wrong Direction 23.1% 45.0% 56.7%
Generic Congressional Vote:
1/20/09 6/13/09 Now
Democrat 46.0% 41.0% 43.0%
Republican 22.0% 39.2% 44.3%
Politicians are, by nature, optimists. They see the glass half full. But they are also realists. The Democrats will be more cautious in these coming months. The President must be prepared to accommodate to their concerns.
Meanwhile, our Wars Continue
Lest we forget, Americans keep dying and keep being injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. The official count as of October 31, 2009, of the dead since our involvement in Iraq began on March 23, 2003 is 4,372; the dead from the war in Afghanistan from its beginning in September 2001 is 948. The count of American service personnel wounded in Iraq is now 31,557; in Afghanistan 4,434, according to the Department of Defense.
For the first time in the long war in Afghanistan, the announced death toll includes seven CIA operatives. Close to dusk, when some people on the base were finishing their daily work and relaxing or taking a break before dinner or before returning to their offices for the evening, a man dressed in an Afghan army uniform covering an explosive-laden suicide vest managed to elude security and reach an area near the base’s gym. In addition to the seven agency employees who were killed in the attack, another six agency employees were injured.
The Afghan man was being courted as an informant. He had been invited onto the base for the first time and had not been searched. A senior and experienced CIA debriefer came from Kabul for the meeting, suggesting that the purpose of the meeting was to gain intelligence. The bomber set off the explosives as he was about to be searched.
In this event, the number of CIA employees killed in Afghanistan was tripled. The CIA operatives were responsible for collecting information about militant networks in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and plotting missions to kill the networks’ top leaders. One of the victims was the base chief. The loss of these specialists will impede its ability to collect valuable intelligence on Taliban and al-Qaida forces operating along Afghanistan’s eastern border with Pakistan.
As the additional troops arrive and go to work, we can expect the casualties to mount up more quickly… more troops equal more casualties. We saw that in Iraq and we will see it again in Afghanistan. The death toll in 2008 was 155; in 2009 it is 318, more than double.
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Robert J. Keefe
TKC International, Inc.
1776 I Street, NW, Suite 900 – Washington, D. C. 20006
Telephone: 202 255-8161 – E mail: rkeefe@tkci.com
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From the desk of Bob Keefe
Washington, D.C.
December 1, 2009
Political Update
From the looks of it, this will be a very big week for President Barack Obama. Tonight he will unveil his comprehensive Afghanistan policy to the waiting world from the West Point Military Academy. And on Thursday, he hosts a major conference at the White House designed to attack a more important political question, unemployment.
A great deal of his presidency will be defined by these two issues… not so much by what he says in these events, but how the strategies he defines and the results he produces play out over the next months.
These are the two biggest political problems he faces – though it is fair to suggest that there are several other issues on his plate that compete for space in the top two – health care, budget deficit, global warming, just to name a few. All are critical, but Afghanistan and employment are the issues that win and lose elections.
The Wars
The last thing that President-elect Obama would have thought he would be doing these first days of December is explaining his plan to increase the American troop strength in Afghanistan – with still 120,000 troops still in Iraq – just a few days before heading to Stockholm to pick up the 2009 Nobel Prize for Peace. It would have been incomprehensible twelve months ago… but here we are.
While the focus on Iraq has dimmed, we still have more forces there than in Afghanistan – a total of 124,000 U.S. troops as of September 30, 2009. The Coalition of the Willing has collapsed. All other nations have withdrawn their troops. We believe that the force will be drawn down dramatically next year, after the Iraq election now scheduled for January to fulfill the promise Candidate Obama made to end combat operations and withdraw most of the 142,000 troops he found in Iraq when he was sworn in within 16 months.
This would leave in Iraq a residual force of as many as 50,000 troops until the end of 2011, the date the US-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement stipulates the removal of all US troops. According to the president, this transitional force would have three missions: training Iraqi security forces, carrying out anti-terrorism missions and protecting American civilian and military forces.
The President, in a prime time address to the nation tonight that mirrored his speech in July 2007 as a candidate, explained his goals, his strategy and his long range vision for the Afghanistan mission. In simple terms, the goals are to provide a security force as part of a counterinsurgency strategy to wipe out al Qaeda elements and stabilize the country, while training Afghan forces and building the central government to be self sustaining and secure. Al Qaeda is, after nine years of war, the reason we went to Afghanistan after their attack on the United States on 9/11. And we are still there trying to eradicate their threat once and for all.
This new troop deployment brings the total U.S. force in Afghanistan to almost 100,000 troops, and they are supported by about 45,000 NATO forces. Obama also emphasized the limit on U.S. resources in manpower and budget, and stressed that the Afghan mission is not open-ended.
In pursuing this new troop deployment, Obama is swimming directly upstream and alienating his political base. Most Americans (32 percent) oppose the increase while about 4 in 10 (39 percent) say the number of troops should be decreased. Just 2 in 10 say troop levels should be kept the same. Democrats are the least likely to support an increase – just 17 percent do, compared with 34 percent of independents and about half of Republicans. Obama pulled some scabs off of years old divisions in the Democratic Party with his decision to expand the Afghanistan conflict. The Hawk and Dove division of the party of the 70’s may be re-emerging big time. It is not pretty.
This new commitment is expected to cost $30 billion a year. To date, $915.1 billion dollars have been allocated to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan based on the total approved amounts through the end of Fiscal Year 2009. In addition to this approved amount, the FY2010 budget shows a $130 billion request for more war spending. This would bring total war spending in Iraq and Afghanistan to more than $1 trillion.
Unfortunately, these costs are just the start of a long drain on the national treasury to pay for these conflicts. The residual cost of providing care for the injuries and health problems of the veterans of these wars will be immense. The count of the wounded now measures over 35,000. Twenty percent of those injured have serious brain or spinal injuries- not counting those with psychological problems. Thirty percent of US troops serving in these theaters have developed serious mental health problems within four months of returning home. The care and treatment of these veterans will cost billions into the next decades.
And what do we get for thousands of American lives and Billions of our dollars? A recent poll in Iraq showed that:
- Iraqis “strongly opposed” to presence of coalition troops… 82%
- Iraqis who believe Coalition forces are responsible for any improved security… -1%
- Iraqis who feel less secure because of the occupation… 67%
- Iraqis who do not have confidence in multi-national forces… 72%
What a pretty dish to set upon the Presidential table.
Jobs
Last week The Federal Reserve raised its estimate for economic growth next year and, while forecasting lower unemployment ahead, although the jobless rate will stay uncomfortably high for at least the next three years. That is bad political news for the President and his party. Nothing matters as much in politics as the unemployment rate.
The economic stimulus package passed last winter to stop the slide of the economy over the precipice did wonders for the overall economy and particularly, the stock market, but it did little to address the problem of unemployment. The forecast shows the central bank expects gross domestic product, the broadest measure of the nation’s economic activity, to grow between 2.5% to 3.5% in 2010. That’s a bit more bullish than the 2.1% to 3.3% growth it had forecast for the period back in June.
The Fed predicted high employment through this year and they were right. Now they are predicting high unemployment for the next several years and that is really bad politics for the incumbent party. The unemployment rate, which hit 10.2% in October according to the Labor Department’s latest reading, is expected to improve to between 9.3% to 9.7% for all of 2010.
Getting America back to work is going to be the subject of a one day conference on Thursday at the White House. The President has invited economists, business leaders, union and political leaders – 130 in all, to try to brainstorm the problem and come up with concrete plans to add jobs to the economy. The conference is really a preliminary to the development of a jobs program by the Administration and the Congress.
Here’s why. As unemployment has increased, Democrats have fallen behind Republicans in Gallup’s generic congressional ballot. The latest survey shows that the Republicans now lead the Democrats 48 percent to 44 percent – the first time Republicans have held a lead in the survey in several years. And 2010 is an election year.
The Jobs Conference will propose some form of government action to directly get more jobs. One proposal Obama is seriously considering is a tax credit for businesses that bring on new workers. Obama as a presidential candidate proposed a similar plan, one that would award a $3,000 credit to businesses for each new, full-time worker that they hired. Such a plan was opposed when Congress was writing the stimulus in February, arguing that there were more direct ways of spurring economic action.
Labor unions favor fiscal aid to help states stave off teacher and public employee layoffs, transportation and other infrastructure investments and increased loans for small businesses. Plans for more infrastructure spending and expanding small businesses’ access to credit are also favored by Congress.
For sure, some form of job stimulus will be forthcoming… and soon. This week’s session will plant the seeds of what that stimulus will look like.
A Missed Deadline
President Barack Obama surprised many this past week by adding a trip to Copenhagen for the meeting of United Nations Climate Conference to wrestle with other world leaders over the challenge of developing an international policy to control the emission of green house gases and fend off the ominous threat of global warming. It was once hoped that this conference would agree on an international treaty to lock in national emission standards to replace the Kyoto Treaty which will expire soon.
Obama’s presence at the conference will be brief and more symbolic than participatory. He will arrive empty-handed. The United States is not prepared to provide the leadership other nations had expected in this vital effort. Climate change has lost ground in the pecking order of priorities. United States policy on this issue is unsettled.
Emission standards are controversial. A few nations, including the United States produce a vast majority of the noxious gases that are blamed for climate change. Our emissions are caused by our vast use of petroleum in transportation and coal to produce electricity in support of our modern advanced way of life. Less developed nations are loathe to commit to emission standards that might impinge on their increased industrialization and modernization. They want to grow through industrialization the way we did… and not have to worry about the soot and smoke that their chimneys belch carbon into the air.
Emission standards are controversial in the United States, too. There is broad public support for an energy reform policy that reduces carbon emissions and promotes increased reliance on alternative and renewable energy. Americans believe it is urgent that we end our dependence on oil, especially imported oil, and see the development of alternative energy as offering real potential to create the next generation of American jobs.
I’m afraid the consideration of health care reform by the Congress may have taught them bad lessons on how to act. Climate legislation is easily as complicated as health care. There are ample special interests which will want to protect their turf and their profits. Additionally, there is a geographic phenomenon that does not exist in health care. The energy producing states, Texas with its oil, Montana with its coal, see their interests challenged by methodical carbon reduction. And those states have two senators who can obstruct, delay, and object to legislative proposals. It could be Health Care Version 2.0, and that is a shame. We need to do it right.
Meanwhile, our Wars Continue
Lest we forget, Americans keep dying and keep being injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. The official count as of November 30, 2009, of the dead since our involvement in Iraq began on March 23, 2003 is 4,367; the dead from the war in Afghanistan from its beginning in September 2001 is 929. The count of American service personnel wounded in Iraq is now 31,607; in Afghanistan 4,684, according to the Department of Defense.
By the time I have to rework these totals in the next Political Update, President Obama will have begun to implement his new policy for the Afghanistan problem. I wish there were good options, but I fear there are none. I am glad he took a holistic look at the situation…not just a review of troop requirements.
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Robert J. Keefe
TKC International, Inc.
1776 I Street, NW, Suite 900 – Washington, D. C. 20006
Telephone: 202 255-8161 – E mail: rkeefe@tkci.com
Past issues of Political Update available at www.bobkeefedc.com
