Subject: RE: Podesta Was Right
From: "Christina Reynolds" <[email-masked]>
To: "'Begala, Paul'" <[email-masked]>, [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 09:18:22 -0400

McCain would tackle big budget problems: aide

Fri Mar 7, 2008 3:28pm EST

By Caren Bohan

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain is committed to tackling the problem of mandatory social spending for the nation's elderly and poor and is well aware that just paring wasteful items from the U.S. budget will not solve fiscal ills, a top aide told Reuters.

The Arizona senator has long railed against special-project spending known as "earmarks" and has made his vow to eliminate them a top economic theme.

Critics say cutting such spending would not even come close to solving budget deficits that private economists worry will balloon as the huge baby boom generation retires.

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain's top economic adviser, said in an interview billions could be saved by cutting budgetary fat but that was not a cure-all. Even with a leaner discretionary budget, he said, "there would still be pressure on spending" because of the future costs of the Social Security retirement plan and Medicare and Medicaid health programs.

U.S. politicians widely agree the looming entitlement crunch must be addressed but proposed remedies often become lightning rods for controversy, as President George W. Bush found out when his failed plan to overhaul Social Security became ammunition for Democrats in congressional elections.

Holtz-Eakin said if McCain fulfilled a pledge to bring more discipline to other areas of the budget, he would acquire the clout needed to address entitlement spending.

"Unless you clean up the culture and make it clear to the American people that you are doing things in the national interest, you're are not going to have the moral authority to take on the more challenging issues," Holtz-Eakin told Reuters.

"We're going to get a thorough scrub of the budget," Holtz-Eakin said, adding that McCain would then turn his attention to reining in Social Security's future growth and overhauling Pentagon contracting practices that lead to overspending.

TANKER FIGHT

McCain's efforts to revamp Pentagon procurement practices by torpedoing the recent Boeing deal has caused a political firestorm. One week ago the Air Force awarded a $35 billion program to build mid-air refueling tankers to Boeing's arch-rival, Airbus, and its partner, Northrop-Grumman.

McCain led an investigation that killed an earlier Air Force proposal to lease 100 Boeing 767 refueling tankers.

On Social Security, McCain has steered clear of outlining a lot of specifics because he says changes should be worked out through bipartisan negotiations with the U.S. Congress. He has expressed openness to measures like slowing the growth of future benefits by changing the way they are indexed for inflation. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal earlier this week he said he supported Bush's plan for private retirement accounts.

McCain will vie for the White House in November against either Illinois Sen. Barack Obama or New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, who are still locked in a battle for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The presidential race takes place against a backdrop of growing worries about the economy with many private economists fearing the United States may already be in a recession.

Polls show U.S. voters put the economy at the top of their list of concerns -- even ranking it higher than the unpopular Iraq war.

While McCain, a Vietnam War hero, touts his grasp of foreign affairs, Democrats say he is vulnerable on the economy because of a remark he made in December that was seen by analysts a faux pas that will haunt him in a general election.

"The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should," McCain told the Boston Globe while campaigning in New Hampshire. He said he would consult former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's book.

Holtz-Eakin attributed the comment to the senator's "self-deprecating" style and said McCain was, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, which handles economic and regulatory matters.

The McCain adviser, who has taught economics at Columbia and Princeton universities and is a former head of the Congressional Budget Office, insisted the Republican senator was in fact "a very astute practitioner of economics."

(Additional reporting by Andy Sullivan)

(Editing by Lori Santos and Bill Trott)

 

From: Begala, Paul [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Monday, March 10, 2008 8:52 AM
To: [email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked]
Subject: Podesta Was Right

Remember last Sunday when John predicted McCain's top econ guy could be baited into saying something crazy on entitlements?

Scroll down for the story on Douglas Holtz-Eakin saying McCain will cut entitlements. Chrstina, do we have the whole story - or better still, the transcript?

----- Original Message -----
From: Michael Allen <[email-masked]>
Sent: Mon Mar 10 07:55:23 2008
Subject: Politico Playbook: "Everyone can do the math" -- resending with link to the President singing

BREAKING NEWS -- Vice President Cheney heads to the Middle East on Sunday, including a West Bank stop. The White House: “The Vice President will meet with Sultan Qaboos of Oman, King Abdullah of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Prime Minister Olmert of Israel, President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad of the Palestinian Territories, President Gul and Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey.”

Good Monday morning. The cover of The New Yorker has Senator Clinton and Senator Obama in bed together, both lunging for a ringing red phone. The title: "I'll Get It."

She’s closer. He’s trying to reach over her.

Kevin Madden and James Carville are scheduled to sit down with guest host John King tonight on CNN's “Larry King Live.”

Stephen Saunders is a birthday boy. My Grandma Powers is 95, and still keeping copy editors on their toes at the Portland Oregonian – and at Politico.

VIDEO DU JOUR 1, Shaky Bootleg Edition: At Saturday's "off-camera" Gridiron Club dinner, President Bush joins in "Auld Lang Syne," holding hands with Helen Thomas. He gives her a peck at the end. (Hat tip: Ann Compton)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=bbCkC4OyTV4

VIDEO DU JOUR 2 – Jamaican singer Coco Tea is out with a reggae tribute to Senator Obama. (Hat tip: “Good Morning America”) AP: “He becomes the second major Caribbean musician to endorse Obama in song, joining Trinidadian calypso star Mighty Sparrow, who recently recorded a track titled ‘Barack the Magnificent.’ ”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Tw8tesd5EA <http://exchange.acc-email.com/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://exchange.acc-email.com/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Tw8tesd5EA>

TOP STORY:  The Wall Street Journal says the National Security Agency “now monitors huge volumes of records of domestic emails and Internet searches as well as bank transfers, credit-card transactions, travel and telephone records. The NSA receives this so-called ‘transactional’ data from other agencies or private companies, and its sophisticated software programs analyze the various transactions for suspicious patterns. Then they spit out leads to be explored by counterterrorism programs across the U.S. government, such as the NSA's own Terrorist Surveillance Program, formed to intercept phone calls and emails between the U.S. and overseas without a judge's approval when a link to al Qaeda is suspected.”

TOPS IN POLITICS -- "House GOP funk worsens," by Politico’s John Bresnahan and Josh Kraushaar: “For National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Cole (Okla.), every week seems to bring a new set of problems. On Saturday night, things got even worse. With Democrat Bill Foster’s victory in the Illinois 14th District special election, Democrats now hold the seats occupied only 21 months ago by former Speaker Dennis Hastert (Ill.) and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (Texas) — the two GOP lawmakers who ran the House from 1998 to 2006.”

BRIEFING: The New Yorker seriously pushes Secretary Rice for veep, and thinks it’s a charade to say Senator Clinton is really even with Senator Obama. Southern Baptists, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, get serious about global warming. And the N.Y. Times says the feuding by Clinton aides reflects poorly on their boss. The deets:

OBAMA TODAY: The senator is in Mississippi, which has its primary tomorrow. At a union building in Washington, Obama military advisers (“former service secretaries for each of the Armed Forces – Clifford Alexander, Jr. (US Army), Richard Danzig (US Navy), and F. Whitten Peters (US Air Force),” per the release)” hold a presser “to discuss why Obama has demonstrated the judgment and has the experience to be Commander In Chief.” The Rezko trial resumes this a.m.

CLINTON TODAY: The senator becomes the first of the two Ds to kick off the Pennsylvania campaign with a stop in Scranton, where her father, Hugh Rodham, was born and buried. The WashTimes fronts, “Family ties offer boost to Clinton in Pennsylvania.” She’s there again tomorrow. President Clinton is there Tuesday and Wednesday.

The N.Y. fronts, “Sniping by Her Aides Hurt Clinton’s Image as Manager,” by Nagourney, Healy & Zernike: “[I]nterviews with campaign aides, associates and friends suggest that Mrs. Clinton, at least until February, was a detached manager. … [S]he paid little attention to detail, delegated decisions large and small and deferred to advisers on critical questions. Mrs. Clinton accepted or seemed unaware of the intense factionalism and feuding that often paralyzed her campaign and that prevented her aides from reaching consensus on basic questions like what states to fight in and how to go after Mr. Obama …  Mrs. Clinton showed a tendency toward an insular management style, relying on a coterie of aides who have worked for her for years.”

McCAIN TODAY: Presser in Phoenix. Funder in St. Louis. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the senator’s top economic adviser, told Caren Bohan of Reuters that McCain is committed to tackling the problem of mandatory spending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and is well aware that just paring wasteful items from the U.S. budget will not solve fiscal ills.
THE PRESIDENT TODAY: Makes East Room remarks in honor of Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day. Per AP: “Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk is hoping talks Monday with President Bush will help break an impasse on allowing U.S. missile defense interceptors to be based on Polish soil.”

THE V.P. TODAY: Headlines the Georgia State Republican Party’s President’s Day Dinner.

BOOKERS/PRODUCERS – “SOUTHERN BAPTIST leaders take unusual step of urging fight against climate change,” from AP: “In a major shift, a group of Southern Baptist leaders said their denomination has been ‘too timid’ on environmental issues and has a biblical duty to stop global warming. The declaration, signed by the president of the Southern Baptist Convention among others and released Monday, shows a growing urgency about climate change even within groups that once dismissed claims of an overheating planet as a liberal ruse. The conservative denomination has 16.3 million members and is the largest Protestant group in the U.S.”

TALKER: The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza writes in his five-page “The Iron Lady” that Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe “indulged in an impromptu we-told-you-so session” with reporters on the night of the big Ohio victory.

“The next day, a Clinton adviser was more candid about what lies ahead,” Lizza continues. “ ‘Inside the campaign, people are not idiots,’ she told me. ‘EVERYONE CAN DO THE MATH. It isn’t like the Obama campaign has some special abacus. We can do these calculations, too. Everyone recognizes how steep this hill is. But you gotta keep your game face on.’

*** “For Clinton, it will be vital in the weeks ahead to maintain the public perception that she can still win.”

In the same issue, Hendrik Hertzberg suggests – sincerely – that Secretary RICE be Senator McCain’s shrewdest choice for V.P.:

“Her failures would be buried in an avalanche of positive publicity for a personal story as yet only vaguely known to the broad public. … Her ascension, though nowhere near as momentous a breakthrough as the election of Obama or Clinton, would be a breakthrough all the same. … By appointing first Colin Powell and then Rice to the most senior job in the Cabinet, a job of global scope, Bush changed the way millions of white Americans think about black public officials. This may turn out to the most positive legacy of his benighted Presidency.”

ALSO DRIVING THE CONVERSATION:

1) COUNT THE DAYS TILL YOU READ … a story asking, “Can a Mormon win ‘American Idol’?” TWO Church members are in the final 12 – David Archuleta, 17, of Murray, Utah, and Brooke White, 24, of Mesa, Ariz.

Playbook’s Bay Area Correspondent writes with tongue in cheek: “America may not be ready for a Mormon in the Oval Office, but we are dominating reality TV.”

2) SCOOP: Greg Miller of the L.A. Times, “Senate verdict is mixed on Bush's prewar claims”:

“After an acrimonious investigation that spanned four years, the Senate Intelligence Committee is preparing to release a detailed critique of the Bush administration's claims in the buildup to war with Iraq … The document criticizes White House officials for making assertions that failed to reflect disagreements or uncertainties in the underlying intelligence on Iraq, officials said. But the report acknowledges that many claims were consistent with intelligence assessments in circulation at the time.”

THAT took FOUR YEARS? The LAT adds: “The report focusing on the Bush administration's prewar statements is set to be delivered to members of the committee this week, officials said. But it could be weeks away from public release because members may push for changes, and much of the material cited in the report has yet to be approved for declassification.” Republicans will add a rebuttal.

3) The N.Y. Daily News rains on the DREAM TICKET conceit, which made the front pages of both New York tabs yesterday after President Clinton told ABC News in Mississippi that his wife and Senator Obama would be “an almost unstoppable force.”

Jake Tapper notes on “Good Morning America” that the Clintons “keep dropping hints”: “Obama and his allies feel this is more like an undesired arranged marriage -- a shotgun one, at that.”

“HIL’S CHUTZPAH,” screams this morning’s N.Y. Daily News. Columnist Michael Goodwin says: “Talk about chutzpah! For the third time in a week, the Clintons are pushing the idea of a presidential ticket of Hillary and Barack Obama. … It's a dream team all right, as in dream on.

“It's a fantasy because, in the Clintons' pitch, naturally, she is on top of the ticket and Obama is her No. 2. That's rich of her, considering that Obama leads in both the delegate race and the popular vote. Forget those pesky voters - Hillary has declared herself the winner! … She's like a con artist trying to sell a house she doesn't own. Based on the votes so far, she should have suggested herself as the vice presidential running mate. …

*** “The offer of a joint ticket looks like an olive branch, but it's really a knife aimed at cutting Obama down to size. In the words of one Clintonista, ‘It's a way of belittling him’ by suggesting he's not ready to be President and would lose the general election as nominee to John McCain. It's the same attack she has been using all along, though now it's presented as a compliment.”

4) CRACKING THE CODE -- A Financial Times editorial says: “In spite of his recent demagoguery on the subject, Mr Obama has broadly pro-trade views that he now feels obliged to disguise. Exactly the same is true of Mrs Clinton, who was once an enthusiastic supporter of Nafta (as she was right to be). One of the most damaging charges you can make against a US presidential candidate is that he or she is a hypocrite – but, unattractive as that trait may be, there are much worse things, and protectionism is one.

5) PRIMER – As a public service, we’re picking up the first three Qs and As from the AP’s “Obama-Rezko Q&A: Connections with indicted donor Rezko raise complex questions for Obama,” By Christopher Wills in Springfield, Ill.:

“Q: Who is Tony Rezko?

“A: Antoin ‘Tony’ Rezko is a millionaire Chicago businessman who has long helped young politicians raise money and make connections. Raised in Syria, he moved to Chicago to study engineering but wound up making money in real estate and fast food. He is now on trial in federal court on mail fraud, wire fraud, money laundering and attempted extortion charges.

“Q: What is his relationship to Obama?

“A: He's been friendly with Obama for years, even offering him a job after Obama finished law school. Obama turned down the offer, but a political friendship developed. Rezko and his family donated at least $21,457 to Obama - and helped raise tens of thousands more - for his campaigns in Illinois, though not for his presidential bid. He also advised Obama on the purchase of a new Chicago home and, in his wife's name, purchased a vacant lot next to the new Obama home at the same time.

“Q: Why is Rezko on trial?

“A: Prosecutors allege he tried to shake down companies seeking contracts from Illinois regulatory boards for campaign contributions and payoffs. They say he used his influence with Gov. Rod Blagojevich to get people appointed to the boards and then threatened to have them block contracts unless the companies paid millions of dollars in kickbacks.”

6) PEOPLE: U.S. Rep. Bobby RUSH (D-Ill.) was recovering at home Sunday after undergoing surgery recently to remove a cancerous tumor from his salivary gland. – Chicago Tribune

7) FRENCH ELECTIONS: President Nicolas Sarkozy's backers lost in Paris and other key French cities in the first round of municipal elections seen as a referendum on the increasingly unpopular conservative. – AP

SPANISH ELECTIONS: Spain's ruling Socialists won a second term in elections Sunday as voters brushed aside concerns over the slowing economy and soaring immigration and backed the party's liberal social reforms. --AFP

8) FEDWATCH – When Bloomberg’s John M. Berry writes a Commentary, people listen: “Federal Reserve officials are being forced to consider limiting the size of future interest rate cuts because of the worsening inflation picture. That suggests that when the Federal Open Market Committee meets on March 18 it will reduce its 3 percent overnight lending rate target by a half-point and some officials may be arguing only for a quarter point.”

9) BUSINESS BURST, from the Financial Times: “Bank of America will come under increasing pressure this week to rescind its offer to put a top Countrywide executive in charge of the companies’ combined mortgage business after reports that Countrywide is the subject of a criminal investigation by US authorities.”

10) SPORTS BLINK: It's Championship Week in men’s college basketball, with Selection Sunday six days away. So ESPN.com’s “Bubble Watch” goes daily.

USA Today says Deckard’s comeback Wildcats look good for a bid: “Just a week ago, Ohio State looked like a long shot for the NCAA men's tournament. The Buckeyes shored up their résumé quickly with victories bound to impress the selection committee. They defeated No. 18 Michigan State 63-54 Sunday in Columbus. … Kentucky (18-11) also is inching closer to a berth. The Wildcats closed their regular season by beating two-time defending NCAA champion Florida 75-70 Sunday, ending a streak of seven losses to Florida and painting a grim picture for the Gators' NCAA hopes.”

11) DESSERT, from N.Y. Post’s “Page 6”: “He's Now O-tip  -- Q-TIP has gone political. The rapper, formerly of the group ‘A Tribe Called Quest,’ will debut a solo album this June that's heavy on guest stars, including presidential hopeful Barack Obama, who speaks throughout one song. ‘I've got Norah Jones on there, but Barack is the big one. You'll see what happens, I can't reveal too much,’ Q-Tip told Page Six Thursday at the Details magazine party at Le Royale for his album, ‘The Renaissance,’ and a photo shoot he did for the March issue. Spike Lee also makes an appearance on the album in a number with a political twist.”

12) SECONDS, from AP – “3 members of Hootie and the Blowfish prepping solo releases”: “When Hootie and the Blowfish play at a fundraiser to benefit the Animal Mission this week, the bandmates likely will compare notes on their recent solo efforts. Guitarist Mark Bryan and lead singer Darius Rucker are working on their second solo efforts, while drummer Jim ‘Soni’ Sonefeld is making his solo debut. Bassist Dean Felber doesn't have any solo plans yet.”

13) WEATHER -- WJLA ABC 7’s forecast for  D.C.: “A quick-moving clipper system leads to increasing clouds through the day with cool highs near 50 degrees.” Goodness – sounds exotic. Take a big coat – it’s 35 right now.