(Image: Official White House Photo)

Before leaving for a district workweek, congressional lawmakers handed President Obama a victory by passing legislation to extend the payroll tax cut and federal unemployment program without the typical knock-down-drag-out fight.

“Congress did the right thing and extended the payroll tax cut for working Americans through the rest of the year. That’s about $1,000 for the typical American family,” said Obama.  “And that’s part of what lifted the economy when it was on the verge of a Great Depression.”

But many did so with a great deal of reluctance. Some individuals may have their unemployment benefits cut by 30 weeks. In addition, newly hired federal workers will be required to pay a higher percentage of their salaries in contributions, which will help pay for the unemployment measure in the bill, and the “doc fix” to ensure doctors are fully compensated for serving Medicare patients.

“Our federal employees are not a piggy bank. We should not reach into their pockets every time we need to pay for something. In return for their hard work and dedication, the majority has rewarded federal workers with an unprecedented assault on their compensation and benefits,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland), who along with 131 other House members voted against the bill. “Federal workers have already contributed $60 billion toward the reduction of our federal deficit. They are now being asked to pay for even more, while we refuse to ask millionaires and billionaires to contribute one additional penny.”

Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Emanuel Cleaver (D-Missouri) also voted nay, saying that he could not “in good conscience fully support” the bill, although he’s pleased that 160 million Americans will benefit from the payroll tax cut and millions more will continue to receive unemployment insurance while looking for work.

“Time and time again, the Republican Leadership has asked a single group of Americans to bear the burden of reducing the deficit. Federal employees have already sacrificed $60 billion through pay freezes, toward reducing our deficit,” Cleaver said.  “This is a clear assault on our public servants, the majority of whom work throughout our nation as police officers, mechanics, lawyers, environmentalists, nurses, mine inspectors and more.”

The bill adds $101 billion to the deficit, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate, which means that Obama and lawmakers could find themselves in a battle over raising the nation’s debt ceiling just before the November elections.

(Image: File)

President Obama has openly objected to the undue influence of super PAC donations on the nation’s campaign process. After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the fundraising groups could accept unlimited, anonymous donations from corporations, the president declared that they were a “threat to our democracy.” However, the commander in chief has had a change of heart.

Obama 2012 has done the math, and more importantly, seen the impact that super PACs have had on the Republican presidential primary process. Before contests in Iowa and South Carolina, Restore Our Future—the group backing White House hopeful Mitt Romney—pummeled Newt Gingrich with a barrage of negative advertising. And as a result, the Obama administration is now endorsing contributions to Priorities USA Action, a super PAC run by two former administration aides.

“It’s been an evolving conversation,” said a senior campaign official on a conference call with reporters Tuesday, explaining the president’s decision. “We’ve been watching throughout the course of the Republican primary process, the most recent filing deadline and the Koch brothers conference and what’s been coming out of that:  a half billion dollars to defeat the president.”

And campaign manager Jim Messina, in an email to supporters Monday night, said that the campaign “can’t allow for two sets of rules” in which the Republican presidential nominee gains an advantage from “unlimited spending and Democrats unilaterally disarm.”

Furthermore, Priorities USA raised only $1.2 million during the latter half of 2012, while Restore Our Future collected $17.9 million.

Obama himself acknowledged in a recent  interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer concern about the influence that super PACs have on the political process—and what’s coming his way in the general election.

“One of the worries we have obviously in the next campaign is that there are so many of these so-called super PACs, these independent expenditures that are gonna be out there,” he said. “There is gonna be just a lot of money floating around, and I guarantee a bunch of it’s gonna be negative.”

(Image: Official White House Photo)

The January jobs report has Democrats celebrating. The national unemployment rate dropped for the fifth consecutive month to 8.3 %, the lowest in almost three years. The black unemployment rate was even more encouraging, dipping from 15.8% in December to 13.6%, its lowest since 2009.

At a Joint Economic Committee hearing held Friday, Rep. Elijah Cummings applauded the decline in African-American unemployment, but said that 13.6% “is still completely unacceptably high.” He issued a challenge to House and Senate lawmakers to “put aside their partisan rhetoric and strive toward one single unifying goal: the continued growth of the American economy.

Although the public sector trimmed 14,000 jobs, the private sector added 243,000 new jobs, which was much more than economists had predicted. In the last 23 months, the economy has added 3.7 million jobs, according to White House statistics.

“These numbers will go up and down in the coming months. And there are still far too many Americans who need a job or need a job that pays better than the one they have now. But the economy is growing stronger,” President Obama said Friday.

The president said in a speech delivered in Arlington, Va. that if the economy is to continue its recovery, the most important thing that Congress can do is extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance programs through the end of the year. In December, lawmakers passed only a two-month extension that exposed rifts between House and Senate Republicans and between Speaker John Boehner and his Tea Party freshmen.

“I want to send a clear message to Congress,” Obama said. “Do not slow down the recovery that we’re on. Don’t muck it up. Keep it moving in the right direction.”

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President Obama on Wednesday called on Congress to make it easier for millions of homeowners to refinance their mortgage at the current record-low interest rate, even if they owe more than their homes are worth. The average homeowner with a privately held mortgage could save nearly $3,000 per year.

“There are more than 10 million homeowners across the country right now who, because of an unprecedented decline in home prices that is no fault of their own, owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth,” Obama said in remarks delivered in Falls Church, Va. “Here in Falls Church, home values have fallen by about a quarter from their peak. In places like Las Vegas, more than half of all homeowners are underwater.”

The president also detailed a “Homeowner Bill of Rights,” which would ensure borrowers and lenders play by the same rules. It would require borrowers have access to a simple mortgage disclosure form to better understand the loans they are taking, as well as full disclosure of all fees, penalties and guidelines to prevent harmful conflicts of interest for homeowners. In addition, support provided to keep responsible families in their homes and out of foreclosure, and protection against inappropriate foreclosure, including right of appeal.

Homeowners could keep the savings or turn their 30-year mortgage into a 20-year plan at an even lower interest rate. It would enable them to build equity or get back above water quicker. The proposal’s fee requirement for large banks is a potential roadblock; a stipulation Congress has rejected in the past.

The plan, which the president referenced in his recent State of the Union address, would require congressional action.

“We need them to act,” Obama said, adding that he would not wait for Congress.

He also acknowledged that previous efforts initiated in 2009 didn’t work out the way the administration had hoped.

“The housing plan we launched a couple of years ago has helped nearly one million responsible homeowners refinance their mortgages and save an average of $300 on their payments every month,” Obama said. “I’ll be honest—it didn’t work at the scale we’d hoped. Mortgage rates are as low as they’ve been in half a century, and when that happens, homeowners usually flock to refinance their mortgages. But this time, too many families haven’t been able to take advantage of the low rates. Falling prices locked them out of the market.”

Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling left no doubt about how GOP lawmakers will respond.

“Even President Obama himself has acknowledged that his multiple housing programs have been failures,” said Hensarling. “Forget doubling down – he’s now quintupling down on his failed housing initiatives with yet another pricey program that could cost up to $10 billion.”

The news wasn’t so great, however, for African-Americans, who saw their unemployment rate increase slightly from 15.5 in November to 15.8. In addition, the rate for Black teenagers and young adults exceeds 40 percent.

“We will never fully rebound or recover when a major segment of our nation’s population continues to struggle. More importantly, we cannot wait for opportunities to trickle down,” said Congressional Black Caucus chairman, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Missouri). “The recent announcement of President Obama‘s summer jobs initiative could not have come at a more critical time. The initiative will provide $1.5 billion for high-impact summer jobs and year-round employment for low-income youth ages 16-24, as part of the American Jobs Act’s Pathways Back to Work Fund.”

But according to Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus, initiatives like the Jobs+ program the Obama administration announced last week, as well as the stimulus program and new industry regulations, are the sort of gimmicks that prevent the economy from experiencing a full recovery.

“As a result of those policies, families across America are hurting. And instead of working with Republicans to get the economy moving, President Obama is engaged in a full-time re-election campaign, prioritizing his job over jobs for the unemployed,” Priebus said. “He has no long-term vision to fix the economy and no comprehensive plan to get Americans working again. All he offers are occasional gimmicks that create nothing more than campaign photo-ops.”

(Image: Official White House Photo)

In a bold move destined to further strain his relationship with congressional Republicans, President Obama on Wednesday announced he would install Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau through a recess appointment while lawmakers are home for the holidays. Senate Republicans blocked Cordray’s confirmation in December, asserting the new agency has too much power and too little accountability. But according to Obama, their opposition was just another sign that the GOP is more concerned about the interests of Wall Street than financial protection for average citizens.

“The only reason Republicans in the Senate have blocked Richard is because they don’t agree with the [financial reform] law that set up a consumer watchdog in the first place,” Obama said when he announced the appointment before a cheering crowd in Cordray’s home state of Ohio. “That makes no sense. We shouldn’t be weakening oversight; we shouldn’t be weakening accountability. We should be strengthening them.”

The agency was created under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to oversee mortgage companies, payday lenders, debt collectors and other financial services providers. It is also designed to protect borrowers from potential abuses like sub-prime loans that have led to a disproportionately high level of home foreclosures in Black communities nationwide.

Obama in his remarks said he refused to take “no” for an answer and would not “stand by while a minority in the Senate puts party ideology ahead of the people we were elected to serve.”

Unsurprisingly, Republican leaders were outraged, suggesting they may legally challenge the president’s action.

“This is an extraordinary and entirely unprecedented power grab by President Obama that defies centuries of practice and the legal advice of his own Justice Department,” said House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) in a statement. “The precedent that would be set by this cavalier action would have a devastating effect on the checks and balances that are enshrined in our Constitution.”

President Obama delivers remarks on his veterans jobs plan in the White House Rose Garden on Monday (Image: White House Photo/Pete Souza)

With the unemployment rate for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans in the double digits, President Obama urged Congress on Monday to pass a component of his jobs package aimed at helping veterans find work.

The measure would provide a $5,600 tax break for companies that hire veterans who’ve been out of work for more than six months; a $2400 credit for hiring veterans who’ve been unemployed for less than six months, and a $9,600 credit for hiring unemployed veterans with service-oriented disabilities.

“There’s no good reason to oppose this bill, not one. Our veterans did their jobs. It’s time for Congress to do theirs,” said Obama, flanked by soldiers, in the White House Rose Garden Monday. “It’s time for them to put country before party, put our veterans back to work, and pass this element of the jobs package that benefits our veterans and gives businesses an incentive to hire veterans.”

The White House also announced a series of other initiatives that would create an online jobs bank for veterans and provide six months of personalized case management and employment counseling for unemployed veterans.

“We can’t simply wait for Congress to do its job,” Obama said. “If Congress won’t act, I will.”

The U.S. Senate may consider the veterans proposal this week. But will it fare any better than the others?

Just last week Senate Republicans blocked a $60 billion measure to fund transportation projects and a new infrastructure bank, which would have been fully funded by a tax on millionaires. They’ve also defeated a $35 billion bill to save or create jobs for teachers and first responders, as well as the entire package the president initially introduced.

The millionaires’ tax is a nonstarter for Republicans and the primary reason they’ve been unable to support any of the bills that have stalled in the upper chamber. In addition, they say, Democrats’ proposals are tantamount to a second stimulus program.

“The American people deserve to know why their Republican representatives in Washington refuse to put some of the workers hardest hit by the economic downturn back on the job rebuilding America. They deserve an explanation as to why Republicans refuse to step up to the plate and do what’s necessary to create jobs and grow the economy right now,” Obama said. “It’s time for them to do their job and focus on Americans’ jobs. And until they do, I will continue to do everything in my power to move this country forward.”

House Speaker John Boehner said during his weekly briefing with reporters that the lower chamber will take up a six-year surface transportation bill that would be linked to expanded domestic drilling.

“This is, I think, the opposite of stimulus by linking infrastructure to energy reform and permanently removing barriers to job growth instead of just spending money on short-term fixes,” Boehner said. “The president says he wants more money for infrastructure, and he’s said he supports more American-made energy, so I hope he’ll work with us on this.”

The Senate tried on the same day that they killed the Democrats’ bill to introduce a two-year highway measure that would roll back Environmental Protection Agency clean-air rules by eliminating its authority to cut toxic emissions from cement plants and industrial boilers and preventing it from issuing new pollution regulations, which they’ve derided as “job killing.”

Herman Cain, a Republican, has been more than vocal about wanting to see President Obama out of office. (Image: File)

They are the very interesting opponents of the Obama administration that we can never seem to forget— Chris Christie and Sarah Palin—yet for this upcoming election, they’re not so prominent on the political scene anymore. However, one very outspoken and unforgetable presidential hopeful remains: former Godfather’s Pizza CEO and radio talk show host Herman Cain.

He’s vying for President Obama’s seat and is known to have some eye-raising, controversial — and to some, even offensive —things to say about race and why Obama should step down.

The Atlanta Post compiled a list of Cain’s most outrageous statements, from the man who proclaimed “I left the Democratic plantation!”

Read more at The Atlanta Post …

President Barack Obama chats with a patron during a lunch stop at Reid's House Restaurant in Reidsville, N.C. (Image: Pete Souza/Official White House Photo)

After Senate Republicans successfully blocked debate on the American Jobs Act, President Obama implemented a new strategy of forcing congressional Republicans to vote on the bill in “bite-size pieces.” The commander in chief has been testing the tactic during a three-day trip through two key swing states, North Carolina and Virginia.

During campaign stops in Asheville and Jamestown, NC, Obama chastised the GOP and ridiculed a package offered by Senate Republicans, which portrayed him as being regressive.

“The ideas we put forward are ideas that in the past have been supported by Democrats and Republicans. So the question is what makes it different this time—other than that I proposed it?” said the president.

Pointing to the GOP plan—which he said is “not a jobs plan”—Obama asserted that it would drill more, roll back Wall Street development and repeal health-care reform.

“Their plan says we’ll be better off if we deny 30 million Americans affordable health-care choices and kick young people off their parents’ health insurance plans. Our plan says we’re better off if we give virtually every small business and worker in America a tax cut so that they’ve got more money in their pockets to hire more workers and to spend more,” Obama said. “Their plan says we need to go back to the good old days before the financial crisis when Wall Street wrote its own rules. Our plans say we need to make it easier for small businesses on Main Street to grow and to hire and to push the economy forward.”

The president is calling on Congress this week to begin considering the bill in pieces, starting with the provision to save or create jobs for teachers and first responders, like police officers and firefighters. Then he’ll ask them to vote on a measure to put construction workers back on the job to restore crumbling bridges, roads and airports and update approximately 35,000 public schools.

“Here’s the bottom line: Congress has a choice to make in the coming weeks. If they vote against the proposals I’m talking about, they vote against taking steps that we know will put Americans back to work right now, They don’t have to answer to me; they’re going to have to answer to you,” Obama said to applause.

It’s no surprise that Republican lawmakers are offended by the president’s new tactic. In addition to accusing him of campaigning instead of leading or even meeting with them to find common ground, they claim he is waging divisive class warfare.

“He wants people to think that the problem isn’t his policies,” Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday. “It’s those mean Republicans in Congress who oppose them. But the president leaves a few things out of the re-election script that he brought along on his bus tour.”

He also added that Obama is trying to “deflect attention” from his own “failed” record on the economy and that there are 1.5 million fewer jobs since the administration’s stimulus plan was implemented. “On the number one issue we face, jobs and the economy, the president’s policies haven’t worked as advertised,” McConnell said, “we’re now living under economic policies that president Obama himself put in place. This isn’t something you’ll hear on the bus tour.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid plans to put up for a vote this week on the provision for teachers and first responders. He’s also still calling for the nation’s top earners to pay their “fair share” in the form of higher taxes.

“This bill that we’re advancing would … save or create 400,000 jobs for some people who are important to us in our communities—teachers, firefighters, police officers,” Reid said during Tuesday’s press conference. “Funny thing about this is that the American people agree with this overwhelmingly, including Republicans. A CNN poll recently released—within the last 24 hours, to be exact—showed that 76 percent of the American people and 56 percent of the Republicans supported our effort to ask millionaires to pay their fair share.”

(Image: File)

For weeks Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill have expressed frustration about what they view as President Obama’s tendency to easily compromise with congressional Republicans during critical negotiations. But in the days before and after the president’s release of the American Jobs Act, and his proposal unveiled on Monday to reduce the federal deficit and pay for his jobs plan, Obama has taken a decidedly tougher stance.

In Rose Garden remarks delivered Monday morning, the president unveiled a plan that calls for an expiration of tax cuts for the wealthy—vowing to veto any bill that does not raise revenues and would place a greater burden on middle class and low income Americans than it would on the nation’s top earners. His plan would raise $800 billion in revenues by allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire for the nation’s top earners, $700 billion from closing “wasteful” tax loopholes and $1.1 trillion from ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The plan also calls for $248 billion in savings from Medicare, 90% of which would come from reducing overpayments to providers, and $72 billion in Medicaid savings.

In his remarks, the president mocked House Speaker John Boehner’s speech before the Economic Club in Washington last week, where Boehner stated that tax increases are not an option. Obama lauded Boehner for saying Washington lawmakers cannot take a “my way or the highway” approach to reducing the deficit and growing the economy, adding that’s exactly the approach Boehner was advocating and it was neither smart nor right.

“All I’m saying is that those who have done well, including me, should pay our fair share in taxes to contribute to the nation that made our success possible. We shouldn’t get a better deal than ordinary families get,” Obama said. “And I think most wealthy Americans would agree if they knew this would help us grow the economy and deal with the debt that threatens our future.”

Not all Democrats fully support the president’s plan, however. Reps. Keith Ellison and Raul Grijalva, who co-chair the Congressional Progressive Caucus, expressed concern that Obama’s proposal would increase costs for Americans who depend on entitlement programs.

“While we support cutting waste, fraud and abuse, we reject any proposal that cuts benefits in Medicare or Medicaid,” said Ellison and Grijalva, in a statement. “We reject false Republican assertions that the solution to our deficit is deep cuts to programs that millions of Americans rely on, and we would hope that President Obama would, too.”

Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Emanuel Cleaver praised the plan.

“The president’s plan will save more than $3 trillion over the next decade, which will restore our nation’s financial security by 2017—where current spending is no longer adding to our debt,” he said. “The plan provides solutions for tax fairness and collective sacrifice, puts Americans back to work, and provides pathways to full time work while extending insurance to those who have been pushed to long term unemployment by the recession. It also strengthens Medicare and Medicaid for future generations while protecting current beneficiaries.”