The Coming Climate Election

by William S. Becker

State Capitol

On November 2, America’s attention will focus on the mid-term elections for Congress. But those of us who believe government must act against global climate change had better pay attention to another set of races: the election of 37 governors and scores of state legislators.

In the years ahead, the people we elect to our 50 statehouses may be more important than the people we elect to Congress.

Consider the impact on international climate treaty negotiations. At the end of November, negotiators from more than 190 nations will gather for the 16th Conference of the Parties in Cancun to continue working on a global climate pact.

Few experts expect that a treaty will be signed in Cancun, but there’s hope the meeting will narrow the gaps nations have failed to bridge in the negotiations so far. One positive development would be a concrete, credible, verifiable plan by the United States to cut its greenhouse emissions.

The chief U.S. negotiator, Todd Stern, has just reaffirmed Obama’s goal to cut the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. But with no climate bill from Congress again this year, U.S. negotiators reportedly are pondering how to show the United States will achieve the goal with “other available tools”. Continued...

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President Obama's Vision for the Economy (Video)

President Obama gave a defining speech on the economy where he drew a line in the sand between his policies and those of Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), calling out the congressional minority leader eight times for obstruction, while he defined his own economic vision.

It was a statement of policy and the moment when the president stood up against those who opposed him and said, in essence,  this is what I have been doing and what I'm going to do to revive our economy.  What are my opponents doing other than obstructing?  What are they going to do that's different than what brought us to the brink of a second Great Depression?

This was the choice he presented along with several proposals for tax cuts for the middle class to compensate for declining wages, putting Americans to work here, rather than subsidizing business to send work offshore, and infrastructure investments.  He pointed out that John Boehner and his associates have blocked all of these initiatives and more and that they were also obstructing the tax cuts for the middle class in an effort to preserve the 700 billion dollars in tax cuts for the top two percent.

See: Politifact's analysis of statements by Rep. John Boehner.

Excerpts from the President's remarks:

"With all the other budgetary pressures we have -– with all the Republicans’ talk about wanting to shrink the deficit -- they would have us borrow $700 billion over the next 10 years to give a tax cut of about $100,000 each to folks who are already millionaires. And keep in mind wealthy Americans are just about the only folks who saw their incomes rise when Republicans were in charge. And these are the folks who are less likely to spend the money -- which is why economists don’t think tax breaks for the wealthy would do much to boost the economy.

So let me be clear to Mr. Boehner and everybody else: We should not hold middle-class tax cuts hostage any longer. (Applause.) We are ready, this week, if they want, to give tax cuts to every American making $250,000 or less. (Applause.) That's 98-97 percent of Americans. Now, for any income over this amount, the tax rates would just go back to what they were under President Clinton.

This isn’t to punish folks who are better off –- God bless them. It’s because we can’t afford the $700 billion price tag." Continued...

[ [1] 2 ] link to video and transcript →

President Obama's Labor Day Speech (Video)

President Obama kicked off the 2010 midterm election season with a rousing Labor Day speech in Milwaukee at the annual Laborfest event. The speech is notable for its focus on green and infrastructure jobs and for its tone, which shows a more direct approach to the ongoing obstruction by special interests of programs the president has proposed to revive the economy.

A notable excerpt is where the president when off script to remark that powerful special interests talked about him "like a dog":

"We didn’t come this far by letting the special interests run wild. We didn’t do it just by gambling and chasing paper profits on Wall Street. We built this country by making things, by producing goods we could sell. We did it with sweat and effort and innovation. (Applause.) We did it on the assembly line and at the construction site.

We did it by investing in the people who built this country from the ground up –- the workers, middle-class families, small business owners. We out-worked folks and we out-educated folks and we out-competed everybody else. That’s how we built America.

...Over the last two years, that’s meant taking on some powerful interests -- some powerful interests who had been dominating the agenda in Washington for a very long time. And they’re not always happy with me. They talk about me like a dog. That’s not in my prepared remarks, it’s just -- but it’s true." Continued...

Link to video and full transcript →