Wired White House

President Obama's Weekly Address Focuses on GDP Numbers, Recovery Act, New Foundation, and Innovation

In his weekly address, President Obama discusses the impact of the Recovery Act on recent GDP numbers and the New Foundation. He sees innovation as a key piece of that New Foundation. Here's what the President had to say about employment, a lagging economic indicator:

But history shows that you need to have economic growth before you have job growth.  And the report yesterday on our economy is an important sign that we’re headed in the right direction.  Business investment, which had been plummeting in the past few months, is showing signs of stabilizing.  This means that eventually, businesses will start growing and hiring again.  And that’s when it will really feel like a recovery to the American people.

And innovation:

Innovation has been essential to our prosperity in the past, and it will be essential to our prosperity in the future. But it is only by building a new foundation that we will once again harness that incredible generative capacity of the American people. All it takes are the policies to tap that potential – to ignite that spark of creativity and ingenuity – which has always been at the heart of who we are and how we succeed. At a time when folks are experiencing real hardship, after years in which we have seen so many fail to take responsibility for our collective future, it’s important to keep our eyes fixed on that horizon.

Watch the whole thing for yourself:

In Weekly Address, President Explains New Consumer Protections

In his weekly YouTube address, President Obama talks about all the new consumer protections and financial regulations he introduced this week, and highlights especially the Consumer Financial Protection Agency.  As Obama described it, the new agency is "charged with just one job: looking out for the interests of ordinary Americans in the financial system."

Joe Nocera commented on the new regulations in a column this week, and took a relatively dim view of the President's plans, saying the President doesn't come close to what F.D.R. accomplished as he fought the Great Depression:

Wall Street hated the reforms, of course, but Roosevelt didn’t care. Wall Street and the financial industry had engaged in practices they shouldn’t have, and had helped lead the country into the Great Depression. Those practices had to be stopped. To the president, that’s all that mattered...

Rather, the Obama plan is little more than an attempt to stick some new regulatory fingers into a very leaky financial dam rather than rebuild the dam itself. Without question, the latter would be more difficult, more contentious and probably more expensive. But it would also have more lasting value.

Paul Krugman painted a slightly more generous picture, who says Obama's new regulations close many important loopholes, but don't go far enough.

But don't take my word for it, watch Obama give his address here:

Obama's Weekly Address Focuses on Health Care Reform

In his address this week, President Barack Obama focused on one of the two major reform measures currently being debated in Congress: Health Care. Facing dual challenges of cutting costs and expanding coverage, Obama had this to say about the necessity of health care reform:



I'm talking about the families I've met whose spiraling premiums and out-of-pocket expenses are pushing them into bankruptcy or forcing them to go without the check-ups or prescriptions they need.  Business owners who fear they’ll be forced to choose between keeping their doors open or covering their workers.  Americans who rightly worry that the ballooning costs of Medicare and Medicaid could lead to fiscal catastrophe down the road.

Simply put, the status quo is broken.  We cannot continue this way.  If we do nothing, everyone’s health care will be put in jeopardy.  Within a decade, we’ll spend one dollar out of every five we earn on health care – and we’ll keep getting less for our money.

That’s why fixing what’s wrong with our health care system is no longer a luxury we hope to achieve – it’s a necessity we cannot postpone any longer.


Watch the whole thing for yourself:


Thursday New Tools Feature: SWM Seeking Service

As our fellows Morley Winograd and Mike Hais wrote about earlier this week, President Obama signed into law on Tuesday the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act. Here's an excerpt from their take on the act; they wrote that it

...represents a major redemption of candidate Obama’s promise to offer his most loyal and largest constituency, Millennials, born between 1982 and 2003, a chance to serve their country at the community level and in return earn assistance with the cost of their college education.

Not everyone is ready to join hands and sing the praises of the concept, however. While [the bill] enjoyed bipartisan sponsorship in both the Senate and the House, that didn’t prevent a majority of Republicans from voting against the bill on final passage. They complained that the bill was “too expensive” and would crowd out pure volunteer work with program participants receiving a modicum of financial support for their efforts from the federal government. In the House, 149 of 175 Republicans voted “no,” joined by 19 of their colleagues in the Senate, including the party's two top leaders. With all Democrats voting in favor of [the bill], the core of the Republican’s “Just say no” caucus demonstrated how out of touch with the Millennial Generation they are.

Of those Republicans expressing their opposition in the Senate, only one, John Ensign of Nevada, was from a state that Obama carried. Even though both Republican Senators from such bright red states as Utah, Georgia and Mississippi could see the potential value of increasing the number of volunteers and college students in the country’s civic life, both GOP Senators from South Carolina, Kansas, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Idaho made it clear that there were no circumstances under which their hostility to government could be softened by the merits of a patriotic cause.

As Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina put it on his Web site, "We need to recognize that this bill does represent a lot of what's wrong with our federal government today.... civil society works, because it is everything that government is not. It's small, it's personal, it's responsible, it's accountable.” And Louisiana Senator David Vitter spuriously argued, “This new federal bureaucracy would, in effect, politicize charitable activity around the country." Echoing Governor Sarah Palin’s horribly off key comment at her party’s convention last August that “the world isn’t a community and it doesn’t need an organizer,” these Republicans demonstrated just how out of touch they are with Millennial thinking.

I wholeheartedly agree with Morley and Mike that members of my generation are lookings for ways to do good for our country (and others) - in fact, many are frustrated with how difficult it is to find something worthwhile to do after graduating, particularly since monetary compensation is often a secondary or tertiary concern. Lucikly, President Obama understands the way that we millennials operate - if we want to go get a drink after work, for example, we might be more inclined to check out dchappyhours.com for specials first. So the Obama administration has launched a new Web site, Serve.gov, to help unite people with service opportunities that match their interests and passions.

Serve.gov is wonderful in its simplicity. It asks you what you're interested in, and where you want to be working, and that's it - the engine searches all posted entries that match your critera. It searches entries posted on Serve.gov itself, as well as on all of these partner sites:

1-800-Volunteer.org America's Promise Alliance AmeriCorps Citizen Corps
Corporation for National and Community Service U.S. Department of Homeland Security HandsOn Network Idealist.org
Learn and Serve America Mentor Martin Luther King Jr., Day of Service Network for Good
Peace Corps President's Council on Service and Civic Participation Senior Corps Youth Service America
United Way - Volunteer Solutions Volunteer.gov/gov VolunteerMatch Register Your Event or Project

Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist (and a supporter of NDN) was on hand at the signing. Here's what he had to say about the act, and the new site (courtesy of TechPresident):

Many people want to fully dedicate themselves to service, they're troops, teachers, social workers, cops, and all manner of public servants. We should remember the nobility of the public service they perform.

Me, I spend a lot of every day performing customer service and see real human behavior. I see, every day, that Americans are eager to help out, particularly the millennial youth, maybe the new "civic generation."

Serve America provides means for those who want to fully engage, like by seriously increasing support for Americorps, increasing the number of participants from 75,000 positions annually to 250,000...

...Serve America also provides for Serve.gov, a new Web 2.0-style government site that brings together service opportunities from a number of sources. It's genuinely innovative, especially in allowing any organization to create its listing on the site, building on top of the Network for Good platform.

Coming from Mr. Newmark, that is high praise - and it seems like this will have a much higher chance of success than "missed connections."

Obama's Weekly Address Focuses on Global Cooperation

President Barack Obama, aboard Air Force One, speaks this week on the need for global cooperation and explains his overseas trip to the American people. He begins with the now-familiar, but still excellent refrain on global interconnectivity.

In this new century, we live in a world that has grown smaller and more interconnected than at any time in history. Threats to our nation’s security and economy can no longer be kept at bay by oceans or by borders drawn on maps. The terrorists who struck our country on 9/11 plotted in Hamburg, trained in Kandahar and Karachi, and threaten countries across the globe. Cars in Boston and Beijing are melting ice caps in the Arctic that disrupt weather patterns everywhere. The theft of nuclear material from the former Soviet Union could lead to the extermination of any city on earth. And reckless speculation by bankers in New York and London has fueled a global recession that is inflicting pain on workers and families around the world and across America.

The challenges of our time threaten the peace and prosperity of every single nation, and no one nation can meet them alone. That is why it is sometimes necessary for a President to travel abroad in order to protect and strengthen our nation here at home. That is what I have done this week.

Take a look at the whole address:

Also, Obama's town hall in Strasbourg yesterday, following a surprisingly successful G-20 summit, was pretty amazing, both in itself and its symbolism of a new era of American leadership. His tone and policy prescriptions are right on the mark. Read Simon's blog about it and the politics of bottom-up going global.

President Obama's Weekly Address

President Obama used his video this week to address the flooding in Minnesota and the Dakotas, and to highlight the themes of effective government combined with individual service and responsibility. First, Obama detailed what his Administration is doing to respond to the crisis:

Even as we face an economic crisis which demands our constant focus, forces of nature can also intervene in ways that create other crises to which we must respond – and respond urgently. For the people of North and South Dakota and Minnesota who live along rivers spilling over their banks, this is one such moment.

Rivers and streams throughout the region have flooded or are at risk of flooding. The cities of Fargo and neighboring Moorhead are vulnerable as the waters of the Red River have risen. Thousands of homes and businesses are threatened.

That is why, on Tuesday, I granted a major disaster declaration request for the State of North Dakota and ordered federal support into the region to help state and local officials respond to the flooding. This was followed by an emergency declaration for the State of Minnesota. And we are also keeping close watch on the situation in South Dakota as it develops.

The Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency continue to coordinate the federal response. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is helping to oversee federal efforts and she remains in close contact with state officials. Acting FEMA administrator Nancy Ward has been in the region since yesterday to meet with folks on the ground and survey the area herself.

In addition, The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is assisting in the emergency construction of levees. The Coast Guard is aiding in search and rescue efforts while the Department of Defense is helping to move people and supplies. Members of the National Guard have been activated and are on the scene as well.

This response is in sharp relief with President Bush's inept or indifferent handling of Katrina. It definitively shows that our current President can, in fact, walk and chew gum at the same time, despite the suggestion of many Republicans that he shouldn't be talking or thinking about anything except the economy.

His response should also put to rest the fear of some white Americans, particularly in Appalachia and the deep south, who didn't vote for Obama because they feared he would "favor Blacks over Whites" (see chart for African-American concentration in Minnesota and the Dakotas). This, again, provides sharp contrast with President Bush, who Kanye West famously said "didn't care about black people" after Katrina. At the time, many in the media mocked this statement, but under President Bush, who has now moved from the ranch that Karl Rove had him buy so he could seem more folksy to an all-white gated community in Texas, the wealth gap between whites and African Americans widened to the point where African-American families, on average, now own just one TENTH of the wealth of a typical white family. So much for the "post-racial society" we keep hearing about.

The President also used his address this week to speak about the power of inidividual service, calling the relief effort

...a reminder of what we can achieve when Americans come together to serve their communities. All across the nation, there are men, women and young people who have answered that call, and millions of other who would like to. Whether it’s helping to reduce the energy we use, cleaning up a neighborhood park, tutoring in a local school, or volunteering in countless other ways, individual citizens can make a big difference. 

That is why I’m so happy that legislation passed the Senate this week and the House last week to provide more opportunities for Americans to serve their communities and the country.

The bipartisan Senate bill was sponsored by Senator Orrin Hatch and Senator Ted Kennedy, a leader who embodies the spirit of public service, and I am looking forward to signing this important measure into law.

This echoes many of the themes that NDN fellows Morley Winograd and Mike Hais have discussed recently on this blog, showing yet again that we are entering a new, civic era of American politics.

Watch the video of President Obama's address below:

Thursday New Tools Feature: "Open for Questions" Comes to WhiteHouse.gov

The big news this week on the New Tools front was, of course, President Obama's virtual town hall earlier today, in which he answered some of the most popular questions submitted and voted on at WhiteHouse.gov. The event, which took place in front of a live audience but was centered around questions submitted online, was streamed live to about 65,000 viewers. Here's what Simon and NDN fellow Morley Winograd had to say about the event in an internationally syndicated Associated Press article today by Philip Elliot, a smart and tech-savvy reporter on the White House beat:

"In the new world of online media, formal press conferences are just one element or program to get the message out — to those, usually older, who watch such things on TV. The online version he is doing is an alternative way to get out the same message, in this case on the budget, targeted toward a different audience, usually younger," said Morley Winograd, a former adviser to Vice President Al Gore who now runs the Institute for Communication Technology Management at the University of Southern California.

"In both cases the questioners are just props — or, in some cases, foils — for the star, Obama, to deliver his message. But in the latter case, they get to self-nominate instead of be selected by elites," Winograd said.

In a way, it's part campaign-style politics and part "American Idol," said political strategist Simon Rosenberg.

"Barack Obama is going to reinvent the presidency the way he reinvented electoral politics," said Rosenberg, president of the New Democrat Network and a veteran of presidential campaigns. "He is allowing everyday people to participate in a way that would've been impossible in the old media world."

Obama's campaign allowed supporters to organize themselves to go door-to-door and raise money. Because of that, many felt an ownership of the campaign and devoted countless hours to giving Obama the Democratic Party's nomination and then the presidency.

Obama's aides are taking that step forward, incorporating tools that let visitors to the White House Web site pick the questions Obama will answer, turning the president's Thursday event into a democratic press conference.

"Average people get to shape the outcome, like 'American Idol,'" Rosenberg said. "This is not a couch-potato age. Average people are expecting to be part of the process."

This virtual town hall was a great gesture on the President's part. Obama owed much of his campaign success to his ability to make ordinary Americans feel tangibly involved in the campaign, and he's making strides to make them feel the same way about government. I agree with Simon that participation is absolutely critical in this new political era, and it's great to see that the President understands that.

That being said, there are certain dangers to this approach. Back in January, in reference to Obama's "Citizen's Briefing Book" experiment, I wrote that it would be interesting to see how the

Obama administration handles [unexpected or uncomfortable questions or suggestions that arise through this process] - are they merely attempting to create the appearance and feel of accessibility and openness, or do they really believe deeply in the intrinsic value of this enterprise? How far will they be willing to push this experiment? How far should they? These are questions that undoubtedly will come increasingly to the fore as we enter headlong into a new era of American politics.

We saw similar issues arise today. The New York Times wrote that "at the outset, at least, the forum had a canned feel." In the town hall today, President Obama laughed off one of the most popular submitted questions, which asked if he would consider taxing and regulating marijuana to create a multi-billion dollar industry in the United States. Here are just a few of the comments on the Politico post about the President's response:

"Because a 50 billion dollar/year untaxed industry is something to be laughed about..."

"Same old goverment ...they ask what we are concerned about and then ignore it. Im sure the Mexican Cartels are happy!!! We dont need the billion in tax money from mj, we have own printing press to make money!!"

"It is a shame that he did what he did. There were quite a few respectful, well articulated questions regarding marijuana and legalization. Obama tried to play them off as silly questions from a bunch of stoners. Meanwhile, people are dying in Mexico thanks to the 'War on Drugs.'"

"The way it was handled makes me believe that he is completely ignorant about this issue or else he could have provided a much more thoughtful response then just to laugh at it. I would have accepted some old talking points but to laugh it off as a joke should be insulting to those of us that take this issue seriously."

"The pot question was #1 under jobs, green economy & energy, budget, and financial stability. this is a big issue and i'm disappointed that it was dismissed so casually given the fact the white house is the one who initiated this forum in the first place. what a let down."

Of course, in the midst of a battle to pass his budget, it was unlikely that President Obama would spend political capital on this issue. But the most fundamental issue here is this: When the President asks people for their input, they will naturally want and expect that input to be taken seriously. The American people know the difference between genuine participation and the mere appearance of it; Obama's campaign made it easy for people to actually become directly involved, and people appreciated the authenticity of the experience. If, as Morley says in the article, it becomes too clear that "the questioners are just props — or, in some cases, foils — for the star, Obama, to deliver his message," the President's gesture of openness could potentially backfire on him.

Monday Buzz: Rolling Stones, Rocks and Hard Places, Immigration, and More

It was an especially diverse week for NDN in the media. First off, Simon had a great quote in Rolling Stone's "100 People Who Are Changing America." Guess who was number 1 on the list? Here's what Rolling Stone had to say about America's Change Agent-in-Chief:

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: The every-man-for-himself ethos of the Reagan Revolution, in favor of a greater idea of America: We're all in this together. The change is reflected in the successes of his first six weeks — the largest-ever middle-class tax cut, passed with the stimulus; his extension of health care to 4 million children; and the act he signed to bring fair pay to working women. "He has already brought about an amazing amount of constructive change," Al Gore tells Rolling Stone. "And he has succeeded in greatly expanding the limits of what is now considered possible." The crises Obama faces in domestic and foreign policy are immense, but his opportunity to implement sweeping change is similarly historic. "He has a capacity to do so much in the next eight years that he'll leave behind a very different understanding of what government can be — and of America itself," says Simon Rosenberg, president of the Democratic think tank NDN.

Simon was also quoted in several stories about immigration reform - in the San Francisco Chronicle, the Associated Press (Spanish-language), El Extra (Texas, Spanish-language) Excelsior (Mexico), and World Journal (Chinese-language). From the Chronicle piece:

Pro-immigrant Democratic strategists were also calling the confab a success. "It's an exciting day," said Simon Rosenberg of NDN. And given the magnitude of Obama's other legislative challenges, he predicted: "The White House is going to realize that passing comprehensive immigration reform is one of the easier things he can do this year."

And from the Mexican paper Excelsior:

Salas destacó que aunque Obama no especificó el mes en el que podría promoverse la reforma, los legisladores confían en que sea en el otoño venidero, por su parte, Simon Rosenberg, presidente del Instituto de Nueva Política, aseguró que le conviene tanto a demócratas como a republicanos promover una reforma migratoria este año.

“Para los demócratas, porque ellos se comprometieron con los votantes latinos a lograrlo y, para los republicanos, porque si no hacen las paces con la enorme y creciente comunidad latina, estarán arriesgándose a quedar fuera del escenario político en una generación y la única forma de reconciliarse con la comunidad latina será salir y apoyar esta reforma migratoria, y reconciliarse con esta enorme fuerza de votantes” explicó.

Our recent event with Joe Rospars and Simon was also picked up in the Polish paper Gazeta (the online version also embeds our video of the event).

Rob got major play in an excellent story by Thomas Edsall in the Huffington Post today:

Democrat Robert Shapiro, former Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs during the Clinton administration, and chairman of the economic advisory firm Sonecon argues that, by generally deferring to Wall Street leaders, the administration has become the target of populist resentment, drawing attention to the fact that many in the administration came from the financial industry, or the New York Fed -- which is closely linked to the industry, including Larry Summers and Tim Geithner. Now, Shapiro added, Summers and Geithner are in position of virtually defending Wall Street - only backing off on the AIG bonus issue, for example, when the public rose up in fury.

Shapiro argues strongly in favor of temporary nationalization of those banks which are on the verge of collapse. A full scale, short-term takeover of insolvent institutions "is the only reasonable course at this point," he said, if that means "pulling out the bad assets and the leveraged borrowed to hold them (without having to put a particular value on them), and selling what's left to a new group, under a new name or the old one. It could actually be done very quickly - so the institution is closed for a short time while the depositors' accounts are quickly transferred to the new entity."

Shapiro contends that "these institutions are so stricken that there's no other practical solution."

Finally, NDN Fellows Morley Winograd and Mike Hais were featured in the San Jose Mercury News in an article about Obama's online mobilization of support for his policy initiatives. From the piece:

Some analysts and political experts believe Obama will be able to springboard from his campaign success, using online tools to keep backers connected and motivated, and that will put new pressure on Congress to enact the president's agenda on health care and energy. Votes on the budget are expected in the next two months.

"The legislative branch is about to experience crowd-sourcing," said Morley Winograd, the co-author with Michael Hais of "Millennial Makeover." He was using a term for leveraging Web technologies to enable mass collaboration.

"The ability to communicate and organize is a powerful weapon, and this will be part of a transformational change in politics," he predicted Thursday. Winograd and Hais believe "millennials" (voters under 30) are using online tools to remake politics.

President Clinton faced a similar challenge, how to keep his backers involved after the 1992 election, "and basically did nothing — that was a costly mistake," Winograd said.

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