The New White House Website

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Republicans May Have Lost On Auto Bailout

The White House is moving forward with a rescue plan for the automakers. Congressional Republicans are not happy about it. What was first declared a tactical victory for the GOP leadership by the likes of MSNBC's First Read, is now looking like a loss. Because Senate Republicans failed to reach a deal with Democrats and their union allies, it now looks like they will get none of the conditions they were pushing for. In a post from the New Republic, Jonathan Chait notes that the White House is poised to bailout the automakers anyway, suggesting that the "GOP maneuver will have been a total disaster" for the party. If the White House uses the TARP funds its doubtful that the carmakers will be required to accept all of the restructuring conditions the Republicans were pushing for Thursday. This is because if the White House does use TARP funds the Republicans will have lost most of their leverage. Right now they have 49 Senate, in January they will have at most 42 seats, maybe only 41, their ability to block a closure vote. When that happens the Democrats will cut a much better deal for themselves, for the union, and for the auto companies. There will be more protections for the workers and there will be tougher environmental standards. Thus Mitch McConnell who was pretty much being hailed as a genius as a leader of the opposition, will have won nothing.

Republicans had a chance to make this bill as appealing as possible, but they didn't want want to concede anything. They didn't want to concede anything on environmental standards. They didn't want to concede anything on worker rights. They wouldn't negotiate in good faith.

New Rescue for Auto Industry?

With Republicans being assholes, the economy floundering, the Bush administration has declared that it will step in to prevent the "precipitous collapse" of the U.S. auto industry which would have been disastrous for the economy, with the potential loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs that was sure to follow.

A day after the Republicans killed the rescue legislation in Congress, George W. Bush realized he was about to be George Herbert Hoover Bush, and so changed his mind about using money from the TARP bailout. The TARP is the $700 billion Troubled Assets Recovery Program, the financial industry bailout plan enacted in October. The White House warned of the severe impact on a weakened US economy if the auto makers collapsed. President Bush had originally refused to use the bailout fund to help the auto makers, insisting that aid come from Congress. But the White House said it must reconsider after the Senate failed to agree on a $14 billion rescue plan late Thursday night.

In a letter to Bush, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged the president to demand "the same tough accountability" and taxpayer protections from the automakers as was contained in legislation that cleared the House at midweek.

President-elect Obama has also contacted President Bush and urged him to give the U.S. Auto industry the band aid that would get them trough the end of the year, so he and the Democrats can address the problem early next year. Obama, who will inherit the problem next month said,

"My hope is that the administration and the Congress will still find a way to give the industry the temporary assistance it needs while demanding the long-term restructuring that is absolutely required."

Here is video from earlier this morning:

LibertyAid Blog

Froomkin on Transparency and Obama

Dan Froomkin who Blogs on the President and the Executive Branch for the Washington Post, wrote an interesting post recently for NiemanWatchdog.org about ways a reconceived whitehouse.gov Web site could revolutionize the relationship between the public and the presidency, bring the policymaking process into the open, welcome opposing views and encourage accountability.

Barack Obama’s campaign promise to use the Internet to “create a transparent and connected democracy” will be put to the test when he launches a new White House Web site on January 20.

On that day, the Bush administration’s stodgy, wheezing version of whitehouse.gov will be carted off to the National Archives in its entirety, leaving precisely no legacy – and no limits.

Obama is already being touted as the first Internet president, but the Internet is about more than e-mail blasts and rallying the likeminded. If he and his team truly embrace the paradigms of the modern Internet – as defined by blogs and YouTube, Facebook and Google, instant messaging and crowdsourcing, wikis and reader comments -- Obama’s whitehouse.gov will bring unprecedented accountability to the White House. It will offer a vastly better way for the American people to relate to their government – and maybe even learn to trust it again.

Imagine a White House Web site where the home page isn’t just a static collection of transcripts and press releases, but a window into the roiling intellectual foment of the West Wing. Imagine a White House Web site where staffers maintain blogs in which they write about who they are and what they are working on; where some meetings are streamed in live video; where the president’s daily calendar is posted online; where major policy proposals have public collaborative workspaces, or wikis; where progress towards campaign promises is tracked on a daily basis; and where anyone can sign up for customized updates by e-mail, text message, RSS feed, Twitter, or the social network of their choice.

Read more here.

Currently we have a president who has overt contempt for public opinion, who shields himself from opposing views and whose idea of White House Web site interactivity is a video of his dog.

Barack Obama has a chance to take governing to a whole new height. Currently the Obama transition team is actually soliciting public comments on its Web site, reading them and responding to them.

The Obama transition team set-up the website Change.gov as part of this transistion, and last week they used this site to asked members of the public:

What worries you most about the healthcare system in our country?

They recieved 3,700 comments.

On Tuesday, former Senator Tom Daschle, President-elect Barack Obama's point person on health care, posted a video response. "I spent a lot of the weekend actually reading the comments," he said. "And I have to tell you I'm extremely moved by a lot of the stories that you shared with us. We want to keep this a very open process. We want to make sure that you understand how important those comments and your contributions are. We really want to hear from you, and already have begun to follow through with some of the ideas." Daschle's video has now generated an additional 3,800 comments and counting.

And as of last night, there's a new question on the site:

How is the current economic crisis affecting you?

It's early and it's entirely possible that a Barack Obama administration will simply use the Internet as a glorified marketing device. But what's happening on Change.gov could be the beginning of a true national conversation.

White House Finally Admits U.S. Economy in a Recession.»

Despite all evidence happening in the country, and the National Bureau of Economic Research's determination earlier this week that the U.S. was actually in a recession, the White House still couldn’t bring itself to use the word.

Today, however, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino appeared to finally recognize that relying on strained euphemisms is not an effective way to hold an informed discussion about the nation’s struggling economy. Instead, Perino acknowledged reality and finally used the word “recession.”

Awkward

I believe New York Times columnist and Princeton Professor Paul Krugman is one of America's best and brightest economists. As you may remember in October Paul Krugman was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics “for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity.”

If you have ever read any of Krugman's works over the last 8 years, you also know he has been an ardent Bush critic. Maybe one of the harshest critics, from even before Bush was made President. It thus must have been a bit awkward yesterday in the Oval Office as President Bush and Professor Krugman met face to face. The President congratulated Professor Krugman, along with two other Nobel Award winners.