Obama talks government reform
Posted: Monday, September 22, 2008 5:11 PM by Domenico Montanaro
From NBC/NJ’s Athena Jones
GREEN BAY, Wisc. -- In a speech his campaign dubbed “major,” Obama talked about how he would make government more transparent and more accountable, expanding on previously announced proposals to increase efficiency and reduce wasteful spending at a time when the nation’s attention is on the plan to use $700 billion in taxpayer money to rescue the financial system.
Obama spoke about long-term proposals, including opening up the practice of writing legislation, making information about tax breaks provided to corporations publicly available, cutting federal spending on contractors by at least 10 percent, or $40 billion a year, banning gifts from lobbyists and instituting what he calls a SWAT team to make federal agencies more efficient.
Over the weekend, the senator laid out the elements he wants included in the bailout legislation lawmakers aim to pass in the coming days and he touched on them again today, while responding to news reports about Wall Street firms that are hoping to reap profits from fees related to managing the bad assets the government plans to buy in the bailout.
“Today, even as Congress debates an emergency plan to save our economy from- on the verge of collapse, there are reports that lobbyists and CEOs are already lining up to figure out what’s in it for them; to find out how they can get theirs,” he said. “Green Bay, enough is enough. It is time for us to stand up and say no more. We are gonna start doing some things differently here in America under a new president with a new vision for our economy and a new vision for our future.”
This is the Democratic nominee’s fifteenth trip to Wisconsin during the election -- he visited 11 times during the primaries and this is fourth trip during the general election, according to his campaign. He is hoping to win over voters here and across the battleground states by portraying himself as a champion for working families and his opponent whose record does not match his new talk of “change.”
Before a crowd of about 6,000 people in an arena, the Democrat continued to link his Republican rival to the current crisis on Wall Street, criticizing McCain for saying in a television interview last night that deregulation had helped grow the economy.
“That might be true for growing the profits of some of big corporations and the bank accounts of some CEOs, but it’s certainly not true for American prosperity. American families since George Bush has been in office have seen average family incomes go down $2,000,” he said, going on to talk about the economic prosperity of the Clinton years.
In an attempt to use a perceived McCain strength against him, Obama hit the Arizona senator on earmarks, something has long railed against, helping him earn his reputation as a maverick.
“When it comes to reforming government waste and spending, Sen. McCain talks a lot about earmarks and here’s an area that he deserves credit,” Obama said. “He hasn’t requested many of those earmarks during his time in Congress, what he doesn’t mention is that he voted for $144 billion worth in just six years; or that he’s voted for four out of the five Bush budgets that have been filled with special interests giveaways and left us with the largest deficit in history.”
He went on to say he had pledged to slash earmarks by more than half as president and he introduced a new line of attack based on McCain’s ties to lobbyists. He took aim at McCain Campaign Manager Rick Davis, saying beleaguered mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had paid Davis nearly $2 million to defend them against stricter regulations.
Obama argued that the more than $300 billion tax breaks McCain was proposing for big companies and the wealthy that McCain were irresponsible at a time when taxpayers were being asked to fund two wars and a historic financial bailout, even though the Democrat has faced questions of his own about whether his plans for universal health care and middle class tax cuts can remain unchanged with so much taxpayer money being devoted to the bailout. Obama has said the federal budget deficit would not rise under his administration, a potentially difficult promise to given the current circumstances.
The senator was introduced by Sen. Herb Kohl and Gov. Jim Doyle and later Sen. Russ Feingold, who stressed working with Obama on ethics reform and talked about McCain as a deregulator. Obama called Feingold “One of the strongest champions of ethics reform and finance reform and good government that we have in government today.”
