Americana + Bush Faces New Skepticism From Republicans on Hill + America's Promises
Ohio, dal giudice chi non studia
Tribunale per gli alunni che non fanno i compiti (ANSA) WASHINGTON,28 GEN - Non fare i compiti chiesti dagli insegnanti potrebbe portare in tribunale gli studenti di scuola media di un distretto dell'Ohio. Nuove norme prevedono che gli studenti che non portano regolarmente i compiti assegnati possano finire infatti, nei casi piu' gravi,davanti al tribunale per minorenni.La prima punizione e' una sospensione da scuola per tre giorni. Ma i recidivi potrebbero finire adesso davanti ad un giudice.
Bush:forze via se iracheni vogliono
Il presidente Usa lo ha detto al New York Times (ANSA) - WASHINGTON, 28 GEN - Le forze americane lasceranno l'Iraq se la nuova dirigenza che uscira' dalle elezioni di domenica chiedera' il loro ritiro. Cosi' Bush.Parlando con il New York Times il presidente ha tuttavia detto di aspettarsi che venga richiesto alle truppe di 'restare per dare assistenza e non piu' come occupanti'. 'Mi sembra - ha proseguito - che la maggioranza dei dirigenti laggiu' comprenda che le truppe della coalizione sono necessarie fino a quando gli iracheni non saranno in grado di combattere'
Bush Faces New Skepticism From Republicans on Hill
By Mike AllenWashington Post Staff WriterFriday, January 28, 2005; Page A01
WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va., Jan. 27 -- When President Bush flies to this Allegheny mountain resort Friday to meet congressional Republicans, he will encounter a party far less malleable and willing to follow his lead than it has been for the past four years.
Bush is accustomed to getting his way with Congress and finished his first term without suffering a major defeat. But mid-level and rank-and-file Republicans have begun to assert themselves on issues including intelligence reform, immigration and a major restructuring of Social Security, the centerpiece of his second-term agenda.
Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.), who has offered a variety of Social Security ideas that differ from the president's, assured Bush at a meeting Wednesday in the White House residence that he is still fighting on his side.
"I've just opened up a new front," Thomas added, according to a participant.
Such independence was much rarer when the party's prospects for keeping control of Congress were tied to Bush's political health, and his reelection was everyone's priority. But now that Bush has run his last campaign, he is being bolder in calling for legislative action than many lawmakers who must run every two years are willing to be.
That leaves the success of his second-term agenda very much in doubt.
In hallway conversations, over glasses of wine and even in front of television cameras, Republican lawmakers are expressing trepidation about some of Bush's plans, putting him in the undesirable position of having to sell himself to his own party when he could be focusing on Democrats and independents.
Many House Republicans are hesitant to do anything that might jeopardize their chances in the midterm elections in 2006, while in the Senate at least half a dozen members have begun jockeying for the White House.
It's the 'no interest like self-interest' rule, and it's every man for himself," said an aide to a Senate Republican committee chairman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to maintain good relations with the White House. "He's discovering the fine line between having a mandate and being a lame duck."
White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. went to the Capitol on Wednesday as the guest speaker at a regular leadership meeting and to talk about the need for Republicans to be reformers and work together. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) said he thinks it is important for Bush to confront the issue of immigration and provide leadership on broad legislation.
Participants said that the tone was respectful and that Card reiterated the administration's commitment to Bush's temporary-worker program and immigration enforcement issues.
After lawmakers took a six-hour train ride from Washington to the Greenbrier resort here, White House senior adviser Karl Rove worked the crowd and gave the first of several presentations, devoting most of his introductory remarks to Social Security. Rove, discussing the issue at the request of congressional leaders, said that taking it on is important and will be popular.
Bush will make his pitch personally to congressional Republicans at a luncheon Friday.
Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman has begun conferring with lawmakers daily in a bid to sell the president's agenda. He said a main mission is to be a good listener for those who have qualms about Bush's plan to partially privatize Social Security, and to back up worried lawmakers with the party's research, regional media, booking and grass-roots operations.
"Off-year elections are won through the party's ability to motivate the base and persuade swing voters, and this is good politically from both perspectives," Mehlman said.
The skeptics remain vocal, however. During a visit to the White House this week by Finance Committee Republicans, Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (Maine) told Bush she would be concerned about doing anything that would undermine the guaranteed benefit of Social Security.
"We'll keep you in the open-minded camp," replied the ever-optimistic Bush, according to two people who attended the meeting. Later, she told reporters she will oppose the diversion of payroll taxes to individual accounts, the crux of the president's plan as his aides have discussed it so far.
Fifty-five of the Senate's 100 members are Republicans. Sixty supporters would be needed to overcome a delaying tactic known as a filibuster, so Snowe's voice is critical to the GOP. She said in an interview that it was "clear that he [Bush] was soliciting input, recognizing that it is a volatile and sensitive subject where there are disparate views."
"I always tell my colleagues that the Founding Fathers had a great idea, and that was checks and balances," she said.
The White House got a taste of the legislative branch's coming assertiveness late last year, when two committee chairmen temporarily held up a restructuring of the intelligence services -- which the president said he wanted -- because of concerns about a Bush-backed compromise.
Thomas, the House's chief tax writer and a fearless power broker, used an appearance at a National Journal forum earlier this month to announce that he plans to consider a much broader and deeper review of Social Security than Bush has envisioned.
"You people," he said, gesturing toward several former White House officials, "propose; the Congress disposes." He said Bush's failure to veto any bill so far "means we have some latitude in putting together a package that saves Social Security that is perhaps broader than the theme that he is primarily focusing" on.
That theme is a mechanism to allow younger workers to divert part of their payroll taxes into a personal stock-and-bond account. Thomas wants to use the occasion to consider eliminating the payroll tax and to add a savings program for long-term care. At least some House leaders have hailed Thomas's broadside because they believe that Bush's idea alone would fail but that Thomas's expanded ideas might make the plan more attractive to businesses and older Americans.
Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), a Bush backer and chairman of a Social Security subcommittee, contends that the differences between Bush's needs and those of the GOP in Congress are not enough to create a real fissure. "It isn't about the president personally anymore," Santorum said. "But at the same time, we all know that if the president's not popular and we're not being successful as a party, it hurts us all."
Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said the divergence of interests between a White House and a legislative majority of the same party "is natural and happens almost inevitably in a second term."
While the White House thinks Social Security legislation will be dead if it is not signed this year, Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) said such an undertaking will take some time, "and it should -- it really should."
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42895-2005Jan27.html?referrer=email
January 28, 2005EDITORIAL
America's Promises
hree years ago, President Bush created the Millennium Challenge Account to give more money to poor countries that are committed to policies promoting development. Mr. Bush said his government would donate billions in incremental stages until the program got to a high of $5 billion a year starting in 2006. While $5 billion is just 0.04 percent of America's national income, President Bush touted the proposal as proof that he cares about poverty in Africa and elsewhere. "I carry this commitment in my soul," the president said.
For the third straight year, Mr. Bush has committed a lot less than he promised. Michael Phillips of The Wall Street Journal reports that the White House has quietly informed the managers of the Millennium Challenge Account to expect about $3 billion in the next budget. This follows a sad pattern. Mr. Bush said he would ask Congress for $1.7 billion in 2004; he asked for $1.3 billion and got $1 billion. He said he would ask for $3.3 billion in 2005; he asked for $2.5 billion and got $1.5 billion.
So if past is prologue, the Republican Congress will cut the diluted 2006 pledge even further.
None of that appears to bother the Bush administration, which continues to send high-ranking officials into the world to promote the anemic Millennium Challenge Account to poor nations. The program - not the money, since the account has yet to pay out a single dollar - is high on the list of talking points for cabinet officials like the United States trade representative, Robert Zoellick, who visited Africa in December and cited the program every chance he got. Speaking to Latin American ambassadors in Washington this month, a Treasury under secretary, John Taylor, hailed it as a "major way in which we are working with countries to meet the challenge of increasing productivity growth."
Officials at the Millennium Challenge Account are quick to list the countries that, through good governance, have qualified for the aid program. They are not as quick to list the countries that have received a dime: there aren't any. Still, Paul Applegarth, chief executive of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, assured us last week that President Bush's program is "really moving at an extraordinarily quick pace."
Maybe the administration should tell that to the 300 million Africans who lack safe drinking water, or the 3,000 African children under the age of 5 who die every day from malaria, or the 1 in 16 African women who die in childbirth, or the 6,000 Africans who die each day of AIDS. But wait. Maybe the president is planning to deal with the African AIDS catastrophe through his 2003 proposal to increase AIDS funds by $10 billion over the following five years?
Not unless he is planning to finish with a bang, because the White House is expected to ask Congress for only $1.6 billion more next year. When added to the amount that AIDS funds increased in 2004 and 2005, that would leave a whopping more than $6 billion to get out of Congress in the next two years to meet Mr. Bush's pledge. Congress and Mr. Bush will point to the ballooning deficit and say they don't have the money. But that was a matter of choice. They chose to spend billions on tax cuts for the wealthy and the war in Iraq. They can choose to spend it instead to keep America's promises.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/28/opinion/28fri1.html?oref=login
Tribunale per gli alunni che non fanno i compiti (ANSA) WASHINGTON,28 GEN - Non fare i compiti chiesti dagli insegnanti potrebbe portare in tribunale gli studenti di scuola media di un distretto dell'Ohio. Nuove norme prevedono che gli studenti che non portano regolarmente i compiti assegnati possano finire infatti, nei casi piu' gravi,davanti al tribunale per minorenni.La prima punizione e' una sospensione da scuola per tre giorni. Ma i recidivi potrebbero finire adesso davanti ad un giudice.
Bush:forze via se iracheni vogliono
Il presidente Usa lo ha detto al New York Times (ANSA) - WASHINGTON, 28 GEN - Le forze americane lasceranno l'Iraq se la nuova dirigenza che uscira' dalle elezioni di domenica chiedera' il loro ritiro. Cosi' Bush.Parlando con il New York Times il presidente ha tuttavia detto di aspettarsi che venga richiesto alle truppe di 'restare per dare assistenza e non piu' come occupanti'. 'Mi sembra - ha proseguito - che la maggioranza dei dirigenti laggiu' comprenda che le truppe della coalizione sono necessarie fino a quando gli iracheni non saranno in grado di combattere'
Bush Faces New Skepticism From Republicans on Hill
By Mike AllenWashington Post Staff WriterFriday, January 28, 2005; Page A01
WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va., Jan. 27 -- When President Bush flies to this Allegheny mountain resort Friday to meet congressional Republicans, he will encounter a party far less malleable and willing to follow his lead than it has been for the past four years.
Bush is accustomed to getting his way with Congress and finished his first term without suffering a major defeat. But mid-level and rank-and-file Republicans have begun to assert themselves on issues including intelligence reform, immigration and a major restructuring of Social Security, the centerpiece of his second-term agenda.
Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.), who has offered a variety of Social Security ideas that differ from the president's, assured Bush at a meeting Wednesday in the White House residence that he is still fighting on his side.
"I've just opened up a new front," Thomas added, according to a participant.
Such independence was much rarer when the party's prospects for keeping control of Congress were tied to Bush's political health, and his reelection was everyone's priority. But now that Bush has run his last campaign, he is being bolder in calling for legislative action than many lawmakers who must run every two years are willing to be.
That leaves the success of his second-term agenda very much in doubt.
In hallway conversations, over glasses of wine and even in front of television cameras, Republican lawmakers are expressing trepidation about some of Bush's plans, putting him in the undesirable position of having to sell himself to his own party when he could be focusing on Democrats and independents.
Many House Republicans are hesitant to do anything that might jeopardize their chances in the midterm elections in 2006, while in the Senate at least half a dozen members have begun jockeying for the White House.
It's the 'no interest like self-interest' rule, and it's every man for himself," said an aide to a Senate Republican committee chairman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to maintain good relations with the White House. "He's discovering the fine line between having a mandate and being a lame duck."
White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. went to the Capitol on Wednesday as the guest speaker at a regular leadership meeting and to talk about the need for Republicans to be reformers and work together. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) said he thinks it is important for Bush to confront the issue of immigration and provide leadership on broad legislation.
Participants said that the tone was respectful and that Card reiterated the administration's commitment to Bush's temporary-worker program and immigration enforcement issues.
After lawmakers took a six-hour train ride from Washington to the Greenbrier resort here, White House senior adviser Karl Rove worked the crowd and gave the first of several presentations, devoting most of his introductory remarks to Social Security. Rove, discussing the issue at the request of congressional leaders, said that taking it on is important and will be popular.
Bush will make his pitch personally to congressional Republicans at a luncheon Friday.
Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman has begun conferring with lawmakers daily in a bid to sell the president's agenda. He said a main mission is to be a good listener for those who have qualms about Bush's plan to partially privatize Social Security, and to back up worried lawmakers with the party's research, regional media, booking and grass-roots operations.
"Off-year elections are won through the party's ability to motivate the base and persuade swing voters, and this is good politically from both perspectives," Mehlman said.
The skeptics remain vocal, however. During a visit to the White House this week by Finance Committee Republicans, Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (Maine) told Bush she would be concerned about doing anything that would undermine the guaranteed benefit of Social Security.
"We'll keep you in the open-minded camp," replied the ever-optimistic Bush, according to two people who attended the meeting. Later, she told reporters she will oppose the diversion of payroll taxes to individual accounts, the crux of the president's plan as his aides have discussed it so far.
Fifty-five of the Senate's 100 members are Republicans. Sixty supporters would be needed to overcome a delaying tactic known as a filibuster, so Snowe's voice is critical to the GOP. She said in an interview that it was "clear that he [Bush] was soliciting input, recognizing that it is a volatile and sensitive subject where there are disparate views."
"I always tell my colleagues that the Founding Fathers had a great idea, and that was checks and balances," she said.
The White House got a taste of the legislative branch's coming assertiveness late last year, when two committee chairmen temporarily held up a restructuring of the intelligence services -- which the president said he wanted -- because of concerns about a Bush-backed compromise.
Thomas, the House's chief tax writer and a fearless power broker, used an appearance at a National Journal forum earlier this month to announce that he plans to consider a much broader and deeper review of Social Security than Bush has envisioned.
"You people," he said, gesturing toward several former White House officials, "propose; the Congress disposes." He said Bush's failure to veto any bill so far "means we have some latitude in putting together a package that saves Social Security that is perhaps broader than the theme that he is primarily focusing" on.
That theme is a mechanism to allow younger workers to divert part of their payroll taxes into a personal stock-and-bond account. Thomas wants to use the occasion to consider eliminating the payroll tax and to add a savings program for long-term care. At least some House leaders have hailed Thomas's broadside because they believe that Bush's idea alone would fail but that Thomas's expanded ideas might make the plan more attractive to businesses and older Americans.
Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), a Bush backer and chairman of a Social Security subcommittee, contends that the differences between Bush's needs and those of the GOP in Congress are not enough to create a real fissure. "It isn't about the president personally anymore," Santorum said. "But at the same time, we all know that if the president's not popular and we're not being successful as a party, it hurts us all."
Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said the divergence of interests between a White House and a legislative majority of the same party "is natural and happens almost inevitably in a second term."
While the White House thinks Social Security legislation will be dead if it is not signed this year, Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) said such an undertaking will take some time, "and it should -- it really should."
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42895-2005Jan27.html?referrer=email
January 28, 2005EDITORIAL
America's Promises
hree years ago, President Bush created the Millennium Challenge Account to give more money to poor countries that are committed to policies promoting development. Mr. Bush said his government would donate billions in incremental stages until the program got to a high of $5 billion a year starting in 2006. While $5 billion is just 0.04 percent of America's national income, President Bush touted the proposal as proof that he cares about poverty in Africa and elsewhere. "I carry this commitment in my soul," the president said.
For the third straight year, Mr. Bush has committed a lot less than he promised. Michael Phillips of The Wall Street Journal reports that the White House has quietly informed the managers of the Millennium Challenge Account to expect about $3 billion in the next budget. This follows a sad pattern. Mr. Bush said he would ask Congress for $1.7 billion in 2004; he asked for $1.3 billion and got $1 billion. He said he would ask for $3.3 billion in 2005; he asked for $2.5 billion and got $1.5 billion.
So if past is prologue, the Republican Congress will cut the diluted 2006 pledge even further.
None of that appears to bother the Bush administration, which continues to send high-ranking officials into the world to promote the anemic Millennium Challenge Account to poor nations. The program - not the money, since the account has yet to pay out a single dollar - is high on the list of talking points for cabinet officials like the United States trade representative, Robert Zoellick, who visited Africa in December and cited the program every chance he got. Speaking to Latin American ambassadors in Washington this month, a Treasury under secretary, John Taylor, hailed it as a "major way in which we are working with countries to meet the challenge of increasing productivity growth."
Officials at the Millennium Challenge Account are quick to list the countries that, through good governance, have qualified for the aid program. They are not as quick to list the countries that have received a dime: there aren't any. Still, Paul Applegarth, chief executive of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, assured us last week that President Bush's program is "really moving at an extraordinarily quick pace."
Maybe the administration should tell that to the 300 million Africans who lack safe drinking water, or the 3,000 African children under the age of 5 who die every day from malaria, or the 1 in 16 African women who die in childbirth, or the 6,000 Africans who die each day of AIDS. But wait. Maybe the president is planning to deal with the African AIDS catastrophe through his 2003 proposal to increase AIDS funds by $10 billion over the following five years?
Not unless he is planning to finish with a bang, because the White House is expected to ask Congress for only $1.6 billion more next year. When added to the amount that AIDS funds increased in 2004 and 2005, that would leave a whopping more than $6 billion to get out of Congress in the next two years to meet Mr. Bush's pledge. Congress and Mr. Bush will point to the ballooning deficit and say they don't have the money. But that was a matter of choice. They chose to spend billions on tax cuts for the wealthy and the war in Iraq. They can choose to spend it instead to keep America's promises.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/28/opinion/28fri1.html?oref=login
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