Subject: Government reform speech/new policy promises documents
From: "Chris Lu" <[email-masked]>
To: "Chris Lu" <[email-masked]>, "Adam Hitchcock" <[email-masked]>, [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], "Valerie Jarrett" <[email-masked]>, [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], "Pete Rouse" <[email-masked]>, "Melody Barnes" <[email-masked]>, [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], "Jim Steinberg" <[email-masked]>, [email-masked],
Cc: [email-masked], [email-masked], "Jayne Thomisee" <[email-masked]>, [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], "Katie Johnson" <[email-masked]>, "Elizabeth Utrup" <[email-masked]>, [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2008 14:52:01 -0500

1)      At a previous transition meeting, there was some discussion
about a government reform speech that the campaign was planning to give.
That speech was given yesterday in Green Bay and is attached below.
Here is a factsheet on our proposals:
http://obama.3cdn.net/0080cc578614b42284_2a0mvyxpz.pdf
<http://obama.3cdn.net/0080cc578614b42284_2a0mvyxpz.pdf> .   Because the
issues addressed in this proposal affect many of the working groups,
it's worth reading.  

Much of this is similar to a speech that Obama gave last year - no gifts
from lobbyists; ban on executive branch officials lobbying the
Administration after they leave; all cabinet officials have to do
internet chats, etc.  But, there are some new wrinkles.  For instance,
we're now calling for the creation of a Chief Performance Officer in the
White House to evaluate the results of government programs and determine
what works and doesn't work.   Also, we're calling for new enforcement
authority for OGE.

2)      Over the past few days, our research assistants have posted the
following policy promises documents in the general data room:
faith-based initiatives; courts; reproductive rights; government
reform/ethics; and rural/agriculture.

 

Remarks of Senator Barack Obama-as prepared for delivery

The Change We Need in Washington

Monday, September 22nd, 2008

Green Bay, Wisconsin 

 

The era of greed and irresponsibility on Wall Street and in Washington
has led us to a perilous moment.  They said they wanted to let the
market run free but instead they let it run wild, and in doing so, they
tramped our core values of fairness, balance, and responsibility to one
another.  As a result, we are facing a financial crisis as profound as
any we have faced since the Great Depression.  As a result, your jobs,
your savings, and your economic security are now at risk.

This week, we must work quickly, in a bipartisan fashion, to resolve
this crisis and avert an even broader economic catastrophe.  And as we
do act, Washington must recognize that true economic recovery requires
addressing not just the crisis on Wall Street, but the crisis on Main
Street that so many of you have been feeling in your own lives long
before the news of last week.  We need a plan that helps families stay
in their homes, and workers keep their jobs; a plan that gives
hardworking Americans relief instead of using taxpayer dollars to reward
CEOs on Wall Street.  And we cannot give a blank check to Washington
with no oversight and accountability when no oversight and
accountability is what got us into this mess in the first place.   

But no matter what solution we finally decide on this week, it is
absolutely imperative that we get to work immediately on reforming the
broken politics and the broken government that allowed this to crisis to
happen in the first place.  

We did not arrive at this moment by some accident of history.  We are in
this mess because of a bankrupt philosophy that says we should give more
and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down
to the rest of us.  

We're here because for too long, the doors of Washington have been
thrown open to an army of lobbyists and special interests who've turned
our government into a game only they can afford to play - who have
shredded consumer protections, fought against common-sense regulations
and rules of the road, and distorted our economy so that it works for
them instead of you.  

We are here because an ethic of irresponsibility has swept through our
government, leaving politicians with the belief that they can waste
billions and billions of your money on no-bid contracts for friends and
contributors, slip pork projects into bills during the dead of night,
and spend billions on corporate tax breaks we can't afford and old
programs that we don't need. 

And today, even as Congress debates an emergency plan to save our
economy from the verge of collapse, there are reports that lobbyists and
CEOs are already lining up to figure out what's in it for them; to find
out how they can get theirs.  

Green Bay, enough is enough.  

I began this race for the presidency as the one candidate who hasn't
spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington.  But I've been
there long enough to know this - if we want a government that puts the
needs of middle-class families before the whims of lobbyists and
politicians; if we want to grow this economy and prevent a crisis like
this from ever happening again, then the ways of Washington must change.
We must reform our lobbyist-driven politics.  We must reform the waste
and abuse in our government.  We must reform the rules of the road that
let Wall Street run wild and stuck Main Street with the bill.  We must
change Washington now.  

This has been our message from the day we began this campaign.  Our
opponent, on the other hand, has spent much of the last nineteen months
arguing that what qualifies him to be President are the decades he's
spent in Washington.

But with forty-two days left, he's had a sudden change of heart.  An
election-time conversion.  After twenty-six years in Washington - years
where he voted for the same trickle-down, on-your-own policies that got
us into this mess - he now claims that he's the one who can clean it up.

 

Well let's be clear.  When it comes to regulatory reform, Senator McCain
has fought time and time again against the common-sense rules of the
road that could've prevented this crisis.  His economic plan was written
by Phil Gramm, the architect in the US Senate of the de-regulatory steps
that helped cause this mess.  Even knowing what we know now,  Senator
McCain said in an interview just last night that de-regulation actually
helped grow our economy.  Well that might be true for the profits of a
few CEOs, but it's certainly not true for America's prosperity.  

When it comes to taking on the special interests, my opponent sounds
like Fighting Bob Lafollette.  But he acts like a guy who's spent three
decades of his life in Washington.  He's put seven of the biggest
corporate lobbyists in charge of his campaign - lobbyists for the
insurance industry and the oil industry; for foreign governments and
Freddie and Fannie Mac, who paid his campaign manager nearly $2 million
to defend them against stricter regulations.  I guess they got their
money's worth.  

And rest assured, those lobbyists who are working day and night to elect
my opponent aren't doing it to put themselves out of business.

When it comes to reforming government waste and spending, Senator McCain
talks a lot about earmarks.  And while he deserves credit for not
requesting many of those earmarks during his time in Congress, what he
never mentions is that he voted for 144 billion dollars worth in just
six years; or that he voted for four out of the five Bush budgets that
have been filled with special interests giveaways and left us with the
largest deficit in history. 

The truth is, our earmark system in Washington is fraught with abuse.
It badly needs reform - which is why I didn't request a single earmark
last year, why I've released all my previous requests for the public to
see, and why I've pledged to slash earmarks by more than half when I am
President.  

But let's not pretend, as John McCain does, that proposing the
elimination of 18 billion dollars of earmarks will make up for the more
than 300 billion additional dollars he wants to spend on tax breaks for
big corporations and multi-millionaires that don't need them and weren't
asking for them - more than 300 billion dollars at a time when taxpayers
are being asked to help finance two wars and a historic financial
bailout.  That's some pretty creative math, but it doesn't add up to is
change.  And change in Washington is what we need right now.  

This change will not be easy.  It will require reforming our politics by
taking power away from the lobbyists who kill good ideas and good plans
with secret meetings and campaign checks.  It will require reforming our
government by taking on the spending habits of both parties and going
after the tax havens and loopholes that big corporations use to avoid
paying their fare share while you pay more.  And it will require
reforming our out-dated, unfair regulatory system that favors Wall
Street over Main Street but has ended up hurting both. 

But I am ready to reform our politics because I've done it before.  I've
spent my career taking on lobbyists and their money, and I've won.  When
I was a state Senator in Illinois, if you wanted a favor, there was
actually a law that let you give campaign cash to politicians for their
own personal use.  In the State House, they called it business-as-usual.
I called it legalized bribery, and while it didn't make me the most
popular guy in Springfield, I put an end to it.  I brought Democrats and
Republicans together, and we passed the first ethics reform in
twenty-five years. 

When I got to Washington, Jack Abramoff and his lobbyist pals had
engaged in some of the worst corruption since Watergate.  I led the
fight for reform in my party, and let me tell you - not everyone in my
party was too happy about it.  When I proposed forcing lobbyists to
disclose who they're raising money from and who in Congress they're
funneling it to, I had a few choice words directed my way on the floor
of the Senate.  But we got it done, and we banned gifts from lobbyists,
and discounted rides on their corporate jets.  And I'm the only
candidate in this race who can say that Washington lobbyists do not fund
my campaign, you do - with donations of $100, and $10, and $5.     

I also joined with one of the most conservative Republicans in Congress
to end the abuse that allowed no-bid contracts to waste taxpayer dollars
instead of using them to rebuild the Gulf Coast after Katrina.  And we
worked together to put the federal government's checkbook online - so
you can see how and where Washington is spending trillions of dollars of
your money.  

For years, I have also pushed for reform of the same loose regulations
and lax oversight that could've prevented the crisis we're in.  It was
two years ago that I introduced legislation to stop mortgage
transactions that promoted fraud, risk or abuse.  It was one year ago
that I called on our Treasury Secretary and our Fed Chairman to bring
every stakeholder together and find a solution to the subprime mortgage
meltdown before it got worse.  In March, when John McCain was saying
"I'm always for less regulation," I called for a new, 21st century
regulatory framework to restore accountability, transparency, and trust
in our financial markets. 

These are the types of reform I will pursue beginning on my very first
day in office as President of the United States - political reform,
government reform, and regulatory reform. 

First, I'll reform our special interest-driven politics.  When I am
President, I will start by closing the revolving door in the White House
that has allowed people to use their Administration job as a stepping
stone to further their lobbying careers.

I'll make it absolutely clear that working in an Obama Administration is
not about serving your former employer, your future employer, or your
bank account - it's about serving your country.  When you walk into my
administration, you will not be able to work on regulations or contracts
directly related to your former employer for two years.  And when you
leave, you will not be able to lobby my Administration - ever.  I will
also institute an absolute gift ban so that no registered lobbyist can
curry favor with members of my administration based on how much they can
spend on a fancy dinner.

I'll make our government open and transparent so that anyone can ensure
that our business is the people's business.  As Justice Louis Brandeis
once said, sunlight is the greatest disinfectant.  As President, I will
make it impossible for Congressmen or lobbyists to slip pork-barrel
projects or corporate welfare into laws when no one is looking because
when I am president, meetings where laws are written will be more open
to the public.  No more secrecy.

When there is a bill that ends up on my desk as President, you will have
five days to look online and find out what's in it before I sign it.
When there are meetings between lobbyists and a government agency, we
will put as many as possible online for every American to watch.  When
there is a tax bill being debated in Congress, you will know the names
of the corporations that would benefit and how much money they would
get.  And we will put every corporate tax break and every pork-barrel
project online for every American to see.  You will know who asked for
them and you can cast your vote accordingly. 

The second set of reforms I'll make will eliminate the waste, fraud, and
abuse in our government.   

We are facing the largest deficit in history.  We are facing the largest
government bailout in history.  And we are also facing some of the
greatest challenges in our history.  All of this will cost money - to
fix our health care system, and our schools, and build a new energy
economy.  And the only way we can do all this without leaving our
children with an even larger debt is if Washington starts taking
responsibility for every dime that it spends.  

We can start by ending a war in Iraq that is costing us $10 billion a
month when the Iraqi government is sitting on a $79 billion surplus.  We
should also stop sending fifteen billion dollars a year in overpayments
to insurance companies for Medicare and go after tens of billions of
dollars in Medicare and Medicaid fraud.  We need to stop sending three
billion a year to banks that provide student loans the government could
provide for less, and hundreds of millions a year in subsidies to
agribusiness that can survive just fine without your tax dollars and use
some of the money to help family farmers who are struggling.  I will put
an end to this waste when I am President.  

I am not a Democrat who believes that we can or should defend every
government program just because it's there.  There are some that don't
work like we had hoped - like the Bush Administration's
billion-dollar-a-year reading program that hasn't improved our
children's reading.  And there are some that have been duplicated by
other programs that we just need to cut back - like waste at the
Economic Development Agency and the Export-Import Bank that has become
little more than a fund for corporate welfare. 

I understand there are parts of these programs worth defending and
politicians of both parties who will do so.  But if we hope to meet the
challenges of our time, we must make difficult choices.  As President, I
will go through the entire federal budget, page by page, line by line,
and I will eliminate the programs that don't work and aren't needed.  

As for the programs we do need, I will make them work better and cost
less.  I will create a High-Performance Team that evaluates every agency
and every office based on how well they're serving the American
taxpayer.  We will fire government managers who aren't getting results,
we will cut funding for programs that are wasting your money, and we
will use technology and lessons from the private sector to improve
efficiency across every level of government - because we cannot meet
twenty-first century challenges with a twentieth century bureaucracy. 

I will also save billions of dollars by cutting private contractors and
improving management of the hundreds of billions of dollars our
government spends on private contracts, and I will end the abuse of
no-bid contracts for good.  One employee of a former Halliburton
subsidiary actually admitted that he was ordered to put his company's
logo on towels provided to U.S. troops because our government - our tax
dollars - would pay for it no matter how much it cost.  That is
wasteful, that is wrong, and that will end when I am President.  

And for all his talk about earmark abuse, what Senator McCain doesn't
mention these days is the corporate abuse of our tax system - abuse that
has cost far more than earmarks ever have.  In 2003, loopholes and tax
breaks allowed 28 major corporations to actually have negative tax
liabilities.  We lose $100 billion every year because corporations get
to set up mailboxes offshore so they can avoid paying a dime of taxes in
America.  Imagine if you got to do that?  There is a building right now
in the Cayman Islands that is the address for 18,000 corporations.  Well
that is either the biggest building in the world or the biggest sham in
the world, and I think we know which one it is.  I will shut down those
offshore tax havens and all those corporate loopholes as President,
because you shouldn't have to pay higher taxes because some big
corporation cut corners to avoid paying theirs.  All of us have a
responsibility to pay our fair share.  That's putting country first.  

Finally, the third set of reforms I will pursue are the updated,
common-sense regulations of the financial market that I've been calling
for since March; rules of the road that will make Wall Street fair,
open, and honest; that will ensure a crisis like this can never happen
again.   

I've outlined six principles that such reforms should follow. 

First, if you're a financial institution that can borrow from the
government, you should be subject to government oversight and
supervision.  Taxpayers who have now been called upon to spend nearly a
trillion dollars to save our economy from the excesses of Wall Street
have every right to expect that financial institutions are not taking
excessive risks. 

Second, we need to reform requirements on all regulated financial
institutions, investigate rating agencies and potential conflicts of
interest with the people they are rating, and establish transparency
requirements that demand full disclosure by financial institutions to
shareholders. 

Third, we need to streamline our overlapping and competing regulatory
agencies that cannot oversee the large and complex institutions that
dominate the financial landscape. 

Fourth, we need to regulate institutions for what they do, not what they
are. Over the last few years, commercial banks and thrift institutions
were subject to guidelines on subprime mortgages that did not apply to
mortgage brokers and companies. This regulatory framework failed to
protect homeowners, and made no sense for our financial system. 

Fifth, we need to crack down on trading activity that crosses the line
to market manipulation.  We need regulators that actually enforce the
rules instead of overlooking them.  The SEC should investigate and
punish all market manipulation. 

Sixth, we must establish a process that identifies systemic risks to the
financial system like the crisis that has overtaken our economy.  We
need a standing financial market advisory group to meet regularly and
provide advice to the President, Congress, and regulators on the state
of our financial markets and the risks they face. It's time to
anticipate risks before they erupt into a full-blown crisis.

These are the principles that should guide the reforms we need to
establish a 21st century regulatory system - a system that recognizes
our free market economy has only worked because we have guided the
market's invisible hand with a higher principle - that America prospers
when all Americans can prosper.

To restore this prosperity, we must change Washington.  We must reform
our regulations, our politics, and our government, but we will not be
able to make these changes with the same policies, the same lobbyists,
or the same Washington culture that allows politicians and special
interests to set their own agenda. 

That's exactly what we will get from John McCain.  After twenty-six
years of being part of this Washington culture, all that he has changed
is his slogan for the fall campaign.  And the people in charge of that
campaign prove that if we elect John McCain, it's not a team of
mavericks we'll be sending to the White House - it's a team of
lobbyists.  

We can't afford four more years of that kind of politics.  We need real
change.    

It won't be easy.  The kind of change we're looking for never is.  What
we are up against is a very powerful, entrenched status quo in
Washington who will say anything and do anything and fight with
everything they've got to keep things just the way are.    

But I feel good about our chances, because I've got something more
powerful than they do:  I've got you.  In this campaign, you have
already shown what history teaches us - that at defining moments like
this one, the change we need doesn't come from Washington.  Change comes
to Washington.  

Change has always come from places like Wisconsin - the state where the
progressive movement was born; where laws were passed to regulate the
railroads and insurance companies; laws that protected consumers and the
safety of factory workers.  It was a movement rooted in a principle that
was known as the Wisconsin Idea - the idea that government works best in
the hands of the people, not the special interests; that your voices
should speak louder than the whispers of lobbyists. 

That's the Wisconsin idea.  That's the America idea.  And that's the
kind of government we need right now.  

So if you want the next four years in Washington to look just like the
last eight, then I am not your candidate.  But if you want real change -
if you want to shine a bright light into the backrooms of Washington; if
you want to replace the special interests with your interests, if you
want a government that costs less and works better for everyday
Americans, then I ask you to knock on some doors, and make some calls,
and talk to your neighbors, and give me your vote on November 4th.  And
if you do, I promise you - we will change America together.  Thank you.

 

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