Posts Tagged ‘ White House ’

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No Compromise from Obama on Bush Tax Cuts, Except Dividends

Tuesday, September 21st, 2010
Scott Thomasson


Scott Thomasson is the economic and domestic policy director for the Progressive Policy Institute. Follow @st_ppi

by Scott Thomasson

President Obama stood his ground on his tax plan during Monday’s CNBC town hall forum, arguing that he can’t make the math work for both keeping the deficit in check and giving away tax breaks to the richest two percent of Americans.  When asked about possibilities for compromise, including cutting rates for households with incomes between $250,000 and $1 million, Obama didn’t flinch and stuck to his talking points.

So it sounds like the President’s position on the Bush tax cuts is one he’s taking to the people on Election Day, rather than taking to the Hill for negotiation and deal-making.  He also brushed off a question about a payroll tax holiday, so it doesn’t sound like that idea will be on the table between now and November either.

Obama did make a strong statement about keeping a portion of the Bush tax cuts that would apply to the wealthiest Americans: reduced rates on income from corporate dividends.  He emphasized that he has proposed a 20 percent cap on both dividends and capital gains taxes

If the Bush tax cuts expire without this change, the highest income brackets would pay 20 percent on capital gains, but dividends would be taxed at marginal rates of 39 percent for the top bracket.  So when Obama mentions this 20 percent cap on dividends, he’s actually proposing a sliver of compromise in the tax cut debate. This appears to be the only part of the Bush tax cuts that he’s willing to extend for the top 3 percent of taxpayers.

I have to think that emphasizing the dividend cuts was one of the key messaging items the White House planned for this forum today.  First, it’s CNBC, so the business and investment audience is going to like the idea.

Second, it’s a cut that Republicans can’t possibly oppose, except as part of their pouting-in-the-corner strategy of demanding all the Bush tax cuts or nothing.

Third and most significant is that this isn’t a new position for the administration, but it’s new that Obama himself is talking about it.

It’s the first time I know of that Obama has really spoken out loud about this issue, even though it was included in his budget plan for 2011.  The only time other the administration has said anything about that proposal was when Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner mentioned it on CNBC in July.

On the merits, the idea is a good one.  There are some decent arguments for taxing dividends at the same rate as capital gains to prevent the kind of investment bias that might result from taxing one at nearly twice the rate as the other, as I have briefly argued before. And because the bulk of total dividend payments go to those in the top brackets, their tax rates have a disproportionate impact on investment incentives.

Congress has for the most part ignored dividends in the debate about extending the Bush tax cuts, and the administration has done nothing to inject it into the discussion.  Until today, that is.

It will be interesting to see whether the White House actually pursues a legislative push for this cut, or if this is merely defensive posturing without follow-up to appear more business-friendly before a business audience.  Since it doesn’t have any real champions in Congress, my guess is that we may not hear much more about it, unless a prominent member or two decide to latch on to the idea as a moderate position and call the President’s bluff.

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Posted in A New Framework for Growth and Equity, Daily Fix, Issues | 3 Comments »

Six Things to Watch with Petraeus in Afghanistan

Thursday, June 24th, 2010
Jim Arkedis


Jim Arkedis is the director of PPI's National Security Project.

by Jim Arkedis

Now that Gen. McChrystal is about to add “(ret.)” after his name, let’s examine the implications of the transition to Gen. Petraeus.

The Washington Post story quotes an unnamed White House official saying of the transition: “It’s as seamless as it could be, not only in terms of operations but also because you put someone in who’s widely respected. No one is going to doubt that he’s the right guy for the job.”
A relatively smooth transition, to be sure, but with an emphasis on the relatively. Here’s a look at five areas where the change in command might create a bit of unease.

Political expectations: Petraeus is God, at least if you ask most elected officials on the Hill. Yes, he was the architect of the “surge” in Iraq, and the “surge” was part of the reason that violence decreased in that country. The massive increase in troops helped, but the strategy change, the Sons of Iraq’s change of allegiance and a six-month cease-fire called by Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr were all critical.

If you’re really interested in learning the entire story of how Iraq’s civil war was tamed, read The Gamble by Tom Ricks. In it, Ricks quotes a Petraeus colleague (and I’m paraphrasing from memory) as saying, “David is the best general in the United States military. But he’s not as good as he thinks he is.” It’s like Favre to the Vikings. He’s still really, really good. But he’ll never be as good as in Green Bay.

Keep this in mind because, as Ricks says on his blog this morning, “Afghanistan 2010 may be an even tougher nut than Iraq 2007. … Our biggest problem in Afghanistan is the government we are supporting there, and it isn’t clear to me what Petraeus can do about that.”

Mission: Counterinsurgency theory and practice is Petraeus’ bag, so don’t expect that to change. Bear in mind that COIN is a strategy, not an outcome. It ends with some sort of negotiated peace, and it’s unclear if Petraeus has the same threshold for potential discussions with the Taliban as McChrystal. There has been American resistance to the idea (as there should be) of reconciling with any of the Taliban’s upper eschelon, but would Petraeus draw the line slightly differently than McChrystal?

Relations with Eikenberry: It became clear that the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, was playing second fiddle to McChrystal, who had established a clear working relationship with Karzai. During Petraeus’ time in Iraq, he may have held more sway than then-Ambassador Ryan Crocker, but they were an inseparable team that appeared together constantly. Petraeus, who is as much of a diplomat as a solider, will work to forge a better relationship with Eikenberry and turn this operation into a true civilian-military effort.

Relations with Karzai: Karzai very publicly lobbied for McChrystal to stay, and by many accounts, the two were on the same page (at least professionally). Is it possible that they were too close? Will Petraeus do a better job using America’s isolated points of leverage to extract more from the Afghan government?

Relations with Pakistan: This quote says it all:

McChrystal also played a key role in improving Kabul’s rocky relationship with Islamabad.

Yet Petraeus probably has as much, if not more, clout in Islamabad. He was an early proponent of a regional strategy that prioritized improving relations with Pakistan in hopes of persuading it to target the Afghan Taliban fighters who use Pakistani hideouts to plot attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan.

Petraeus has visited Pakistan numerous times, delivering assurances that the U.S. troop buildup in Afghanistan would not spill over into Pakistan, visiting Pakistani paramilitary forces in the northwestern city of Peshawar and regularly praising Pakistan’s fight against its domestic Taliban.

“There’s a complete understanding of each other’s situation,” a senior Pakistani military official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “He’s not a stranger.”

Troops on the ground: There’s been no shortage of troops in Afghanistan who voiced their displeasure with McChrystal’s restrictions on the use of force. Think of it this way: you’re an 18-year-old Marine, –and you’ve become a trained killer and sent to a war zone. But your commanding general seems like he’s telling you not to do the job you’ve been trained for. Many of the troops’ quotes imply a certain amount of lost respect for McChrystal. Petraeus will have to work to explain the mission and win them over to a “mission first” mentality. Training stateside should also be adjusted accordingly.

Petraeus is the consummate pro, and he’ll no doubt do his best in an incredibly challenging environment with far-from-certain results. My take is that this transition will be as smooth as one could hope.

Photo credit: Jon-Phillip Sheridan’s Photostream

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Posted in A Progressive Security Strategy, Daily Fix | 2 Comments »

What No One Is Paying Attention to in the Rolling Stone Article

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010
Jim Arkedis


Jim Arkedis is the director of PPI's National Security Project.

by Jim Arkedis

The now-infamous Rolling Stone article that earned Gen. Stanley McChrystal a one-way trip out of Afghanistan has attracted attention for what it says about the White House.

And in a way, that’s a good thing.

Because once you get past the name-calling scandal, the article is really a takedown of counterinsurgency strategy and, by extension, a subtle get-out-of-Afghanistan-now message. In an attempt to categorize the debate about whether to adopt a counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, here’s Hasting’s characterization:

COIN, as the theory is known, is the new gospel of the Pentagon brass, a doctrine that attempts to square the military’s preference for high-tech violence with the demands of fighting protracted wars in failed states. COIN calls for sending huge numbers of ground troops to not only destroy the enemy, but to live among the civilian population and slowly rebuild, or build from scratch, another nation’s government – a process that even its staunchest advocates admit requires years, if not decades, to achieve. The theory essentially rebrands the military, expanding its authority (and its funding) to encompass the diplomatic and political sides of warfare: Think the Green Berets as an armed Peace Corps.

[...]

The entire COIN strategy is a fraud perpetuated on the American people,” says Douglas Macgregor, a retired colonel and leading critic of counterinsurgency who attended West Point with McChrystal. “The idea that we are going to spend a trillion dollars to reshape the culture of the Islamic world is utter nonsense.

Or this:

After several hours of haggling, McChrystal finally enlisted the aid of Afghanistan’s defense minister, who persuaded Karzai’s people to wake the president from his nap. This is one of the central flaws with McChrystal’s counterinsurgency strategy: The need to build a credible government puts us at the mercy of whatever tin-pot leader we’ve backed – a danger that Eikenberry explicitly warned about in his cable.

To sum up, you have a questionable description of COIN, followed by a single opinion from someone whose stated qualifications are that he went to college with McChrystal (who knows if Macgregor has any COIN expertise) deriding the entire concept.

It’s one thing to report on who McChrystal is, what he’s said, where he comes from, and the difficulty of mission he’s trying to accomplish. But it’s quite another to falsely characterize his mission as a Sisyphean task from the get-go. Clearly, the president, having consulted and deliberated for three months, believes that there’s significant reason to hope counterinsurgency can bring about hard-fought American security.

For a better discussion of COIN, I’d encourage you to read papers like this, by David Kilcullen, author of the Accidental Guerilla and an actual COIN expert. In the paper linked above, Kilcullen properly characterizes COIN as difficult and far from a guaranteed success, but forwards a thoughtful framework for how COIN practitioners might organize their efforts to bring about the best chances of sustainable security.

…you may now return to your regularly scheduled name-calling.

Photo credit: The US Army’s Photostream

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Posted in A Progressive Security Strategy, Daily Fix | 1 Comment »

Among Industry, Surprising Support for a Carbon Price

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010
Mike Signer


Mike Signer is a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute.

by Mike Signer

In meetings I’ve had recently with folks representing industries from automobiles to energy to private equity, I’ve heard it over and over again. They want a price on carbon.

They want it because they want to make money through alternative energy. For that, they need predictability in supporting the companies that take risks and need capital to design and develop alternative fuel technologies.

They want it because they, their children, their grandchildren, their employees and their shareholders, like everyone on the planet, will suffer the externalities of a carbon-dependent economy.

And they want it because they’re good corporate citizens, and they want to do their part in easing the nation toward a lower-carbon future.

The question is whether carbon pricing will get any traction in the coming weeks from a White House that seems more intent on political calibration than on shaping the landscape itself.

Given the dynamism of the carbon-pricing movement, the twin mysteries today are, first, why the president didn’t press harder for what seems to be the consensus, industry-friendly position on carbon — a simple pricing mechanism — in his Oval Office speech last week, and second, whether he will do so in the coming weeks.

The politics of carbon have changed dramatically in recent weeks, as the nation continues to watch the spill billow in the Gulf. (If you haven’t yet done it yourself on your computer, click here for BP’s own mesmerizing and terrifying live feed). A recent, post-BP poll found that 63 percent of Americans support a bill with a carbon price, while only 29 percent oppose it. The environment has also improved for proposals like the “cap-and-dividend” bill recently offered by Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA) (and explained here on P-Fix by Danny Morris), which would price carbon with a net-neutral return to the taxpayers in the form of checks.

Meanwhile, the nation’s leading corporations continue to support a price on carbon. In April, before the spill, three of the nation’s largest oil companies — Shell, ConocoPhillips, and BP (this is even pre-oil spill) — as well as the Edison Electric Institute, a consortium of utilities whose members provide the bulk of the nation’s electricity, all announced their support for the Kerry-Lieberman legislation with a “hard price collar” for the price of carbon (including both a floor and a ceiling).

The fact is that many private corporations want a price on carbon. They want it because they believe the future is headed in a direction where carbon-producing technologies will simply have to be reduced, and they’d rather build their businesses around that future quickly rather than slowly.

However, there was no such leadership last week from the Oval Office. Of the transition from carbon, the president said:

There are costs associated with this transition. And some believe we can’t afford those costs right now. I say we can’t afford not to change how we produce and use energy — because the long-term costs to our economy, our national security and our environment are far greater. So I am happy to look at other ideas and approaches from either party — as long they seriously tackle our addiction to fossil fuels.

This clinical framing scarcely captures the urgency of the task. There is a golden opportunity now finally to get business and clean energy on the same page. The question is whether it will billow by and disperse, like the oil we’re all watching in the Gulf.

Photo credit: Michael Caven’s Photostream

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Posted in Clean Energy and Modern Infrastructure, Daily Fix | No Comments »

Orszag a Tough Act to Follow

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010
Elbert Ventura


Elbert Ventura is the managing editor of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas. He formerly served as the managing editor of the Progressive Policy Institute.

by Elbert Ventura

Today’s big personnel news is Peter Orszag’s decision to leave the White House budget office sometime in the next few weeks. The departure, which has already sparked speculation on possible replacements, will be the Obama administration’s first major exit. Whoever the White House picks to replace him will have big shoes to fill.

As the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Orszag played a key role in two of the biggest pieces of progressive legislation we’ll see in our lifetime: the economic stimulus package and the health care reform bill. On the latter, in particular, Orszag’s acumen and advocacy were key assets, his forceful case for the bill’s cost-cutting properties no doubt crucial in bolstering support for a gigantic piece of social legislation. It’s worth noting that his contributions to passing health reform began well before his stint at OMB. As the director of the Congressional Budget Office in 2007-2008, Orszag repeatedly sounded the alarm on rising health costs as the biggest threat to our fiscal future, warnings that undoubtedly helped set the stage for reform’s passage.

For an administration numbers-cruncher, he was unusually visible, which was a good thing. With a reputation for impartiality and brilliance, Orszag gave the administration’s agenda analytical ballast. There will no doubt be efforts on the right to brush Orszag with the red ink that the administration finds itself swimming in, but that’s politics as usual. Inheriting the worst economy since the 1930s, Orszag presided over the Herculean task of preventing a complete meltdown and setting the foundation for a recovery. In many ways, he’s a reflection of the administration at its best: a rigorous, pragmatic empiricist.

Photo credit: Center for American Progress’ Photostream

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Posted in A New Framework for Growth and Equity, Daily Fix | No Comments »

A Talking Head Dishes on Fox’s “Fair and Balanced” Farce

Thursday, June 17th, 2010
Jim Arkedis


Jim Arkedis is the director of PPI's National Security Project.

by Jim Arkedis

Jim Arkedis on Fox NewsEvery so often, I’ll get a call from someone over at Fox News to appear as a talking head.

Now, before you scream out a collective “EEEEWWW! GROSS!” let me explain. I work at a smallish think tank, and as the old saying goes, any publicity is good publicity. My connection to Fox was established through a good friend (and conscientious journalist) who works on Fox News Sunday. He introduced me to a handful of other bookers, all of whom have been very courteous, friendly and genuinely appreciative of my contributions.

This started just over a year ago, and I’d estimate that Fox offers me a slot as a talking head on national security issues (oh, and on pirates. Fox LOVES pirate stories) perhaps once every two weeks. Due to scheduling conflicts and the last-minute nature of many of the requests (it’s not unusual to get a 9:00 a.m. call for a 10:30 a.m. appearance), I can do only perhaps half of them. (Click here to see a clip of me talking with none other than Geraldo Rivera [best line from Geraldo, "I agree with Jim"], or here to see me drop some knowledge on an “expert” from the Heritage Foundation [whom several of my friends suggested I ask out. I demurred].)

In the beginning, I was just really happy to get on TV. Call it narcissistic, call it what you will, but I was generally under the impression that I was providing Fox’s viewers with an alternate viewpoint. I understood that “Fair and Balanced” was a joke, but I always believed that I might be able to connect with a small percentage of the ardently conservative audience and give them some honest food for thought. When the White House froze out Fox a few months ago, I thought it was a bad move to all but give up on reaching a large percentage of the news-viewing public. (The White House has since backed down from that stance.) It’s from that perspective that I’ve been engaging Fox. But over the last few times I’ve gone on, I’ve come to realize that in some circumstances, it’s a futile effort.

Just yesterday, I received a request to discuss this op-ed from Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT). In the article, Lieberman dings the Obama administration’s recently released National Security Strategy because it uses the term “violent extremism” to define one of America’s enemies, rather than “violent Islamic extremism.” Lieberman took the omission of one word and turned it into an entire opinion piece.

Here’s where we run into problems. I am happy to go on Fox and discuss the big issues of the day when we’re starting from a neutral position. If the topic is “Let’s discuss Obama’s national security strategy,” that’s fine. But this time, the point of departure was, “Joe Lieberman, who’s a credible voice on national security to Fox’s viewership, says Obama’s national security strategy sucks. Jim, it’s your job to explain why it doesn’t suck.”

That’s a fairly clear illustration of Fox’s m.o. Instead of having an honest debate, Fox chooses an angle on a story (i.e., Lieberman’s critique of the National Security Strategy) that establishes a frame for the discussion. Those frames, more often than not, will have the progressive on the defensive from the start. But by having a progressive on TV, Fox can claim to be “fair and balanced.”

When I objected on these grounds, my Fox booker, whom I like a lot, reiterated that going on TV still provided me the opportunity to get my viewpoint out there. I replied that the interview was framed in such a way that did not allow their audience to be persuaded – and yet my appearance would validate their claim to be fair and balanced. I closed by saying,  “[I]f there are big issues framed from a neutral point of view, I love to talk about them. I just don’t want to be the punching bag on pre-determined outcome.”

So how did the slot I refused to go on turn out? Click here and see for yourself — they only had one guest, from the center-right Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

Consider that my little contribution to unfair and unbalanced.

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Posted in Daily Fix, Fixing Our Broken Politics | No Comments »

Dennis Blair, Director of National Intelligence, Resigns

Friday, May 21st, 2010
Jim Arkedis


Jim Arkedis is the director of PPI's National Security Project.

by Jim Arkedis

It would be easy to draw a straight line between the alleged “intelligence failures” of the last six months and Dennis Blair’s resignation. Let in the Underwear Bomber and the Times Square bomber, and heads should roll, right?

Well, not so fast my friend.

Any alleged failing on Blair’s part is a minor reason for his departure. If Faisal Shahzad was the reason, we’d have expected Mark Leiter — head of the National Counter Terrorism Center, NCTC, which falls under the DNI’s purview — to go first.

Blair left because of power, authority and personality conflicts with the White House. More specifically, the DNI position has little power or authority, and Blair got outmaneuvered personally by savvy bureaucratic operators like CIA Director Leon Panetta and White House counter terrorism advisor John Brennan.

Politico reported on Blair’s struggles back in January:

“One reality is Blair is really not political; he is really not good on the Hill,” said one former counterterrorism official. “He doesn’t know how to build coalitions on the Hill. He is really just out there swimming on his own, and he is not doing a very good job for the people who might have pushed expanding the DNI’s power to get behind him on this.”

On the one issue where Blair really chose to take a stand — appointing Chiefs of Station at CIA offices abroad — the White House sided with Panetta. And then there’s the big elephant in the room — budget authority.

Despite being the nominal Director of all 16 US intelligence agencies, the DNI doesn’t control their individual budgets or personnel, except for those under NCTC. That’s a big problem, causing the “boss” to be subject to the machinations of his de facto subordinates. Sure, the DNI has the authority to facilitate collaboration between those individual agencies, but if those agencies’ heads retain enough authority to run their own little fiefdoms, that creates uncomfortable tensions. And Blair didn’t seem politically savvy enough to navigate that mine field.

So, on the personality front, Blair, though a highly respected professional, seems to have been a bit of a fish out of water in this job. Then again, is the DNI job too small a fish in a big ocean?

Defining the DNI’s role from a budgetary point of view should be the next intelligence community reform.

Photo credit: Robert Huffstutter / CC BY-NC 2.0

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Posted in A Progressive Security Strategy, Daily Fix | No Comments »

False Friends

Friday, March 12th, 2010
Ed Kilgore


Ed Kilgore is a PPI senior fellow, as well as managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, an online forum.

by Ed Kilgore

Today’s big whoop in the manic conservative drive to kill health care reform is a Washington Post op-ed by Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen urging Democrats to abandon reform and work with Republicans on “bipartisan” proposals like “purchasing insurance across state lines, malpractice reform, incrementally increasing coverage,” and so on and so forth.

Now normally I don’t like to get into the motives or personality of people making political arguments, but in this case it’s unavoidable. The only reason anyone on earth is paying any attention to the views of Caddell and Schoen on this subject is that, as they note prominently in the WaPo piece, they used to work as pollsters for Democratic presidents (Schoen for Clinton, though it was really his business partner, Mark Penn, who had the White House account, and Cadell way back in the Carter administration). But the impression they give of being good Democrats who have finally spoken out in exasperation at the folly of health care reform is completely false. Schoen has never been much of a loyal Democrat; his latest enthusiasm has been encouraging a third party. And Caddell has a history of cranky eccentricity dating back at least a few decades. As Jon Chait points out, both of them have become fixtures on Fox News recently.

They are entitled to their opinion like anyone else, but Schoen and Caddell should check their worn-out Party Cards at the door before they write a piece repeating Republican talking points on health care reform.

This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.

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Posted in Daily Fix, Fixing Our Broken Politics | No Comments »

Hindsight: Missile Defense Decision Actually is 20/20

Thursday, March 11th, 2010
Jim Arkedis


Jim Arkedis is the director of PPI's National Security Project.

by Jim Arkedis

If you supported the Obama administration on this one, it couldn’t have turned out any better.

Back in September, the White House decided to swap missile defense programs. Out was a ground-based system in Eastern Europe that depended on a stationary missile battery and radar station in Poland and the Czech Republic, respectively. It was geared towards a long-range ballistic missile threat, and was over cost, over schedule, and under-performing to boot.

Conservatives howled that the White House was “abandoning its Eastern European allies” to a salivating Russia. Or was it a salivating Iran? Either way, conservatives were all worked up in a tizzy that, despite our mutual-defense pact with Poland and the Czech Republic, surely we were doing irreparable  damage to the NATO alliance.

In the Eastern European system’s place, the Obama administration (with unanimous support from the Joint Chiefs) decided to deploy a sea-based system that was designed to counter a short-to-medium Iranian ballistic missile threat because it had higher technical capabilities and could be deployed more rapidly. Part of the White House’s justification was a new intelligence estimate that said Iran was focused on its short-to-medium range missiles.

So, six months on, how’s that workin’ out for you?

It appears the White House may have—gasp—known what it was doing. I’m a day or so behind on this, but the Wall Street Journal reported this week that … wait for it … Iran has in fact started production of the Nasr1, a highly accurate short range cruise missile:

Iran said it has started a new production line of highly accurate, short-range cruise missiles, which would add a new element to the country’s arsenal.

Gen. Ahmad Vahidi told Iranian state TV Sunday that the cruise missile, called Nasr 1, would be capable of destroying targets up to 3,000 tons in size.

The minister said the missile can be fired from ground-based launchers as well as ships, but would eventually be modified to be fired from helicopters and submarines.

I’m curious as to how a cruise missile is fired from a helicopter, but I digress. The point is that the Obama has matched the current threat with appropriate, functioning, defensive capability. Game over!

And how about that abandonment? Here’s Eugeniusz Smolar, the director of the Center for International Relations in Warsaw, who said to the Guardian adopting the Obama administration’s approach was an easy call for Poland:

“This [new] proposal is much more Europe oriented because the new system is to deal more with the medium- and short-range threats, and this is exactly what Poland has been seeking,” Smolar said.

He added that the new plan is also “more NATO oriented, which is good, because it means there will be much less tension among the allies who have been complaining that Poland has been doing its own agreement with the U.S. outside of NATO.”

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Posted in A Progressive Security Strategy, Daily Fix | 2 Comments »

Progressive Groups Offer Analysis of White House Plan for Afghanistan: Foreign Policy Experts Weigh In

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
Steven Chlapecka


Steven K. Chlapecka is the director of public affairs for the Progressive Policy Institute.

by Steven Chlapecka

MEDIA ADVISORY
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 1, 2009

CONTACT:
Steven Chlapecka – schlapecka@ppionline.org, T: 202.525.3931
or Frankie Strum – frankie@trumanproject.org, T: 309-222-5788

WASHINGTON, DC—Representatives of six major progressive organizations – the Truman National Security Project, the Progressive Policy Institute, the National Security Network, the Center for American Progress, Third Way, and the New Strategic Security Initiative – will be available for comment and analysis on Wednesday morning after the President speaks to the nation on the administration’s plans to boost troop levels and revitalize our strategic commitment to Afghanistan.

“The narrative so far is that the left is against sending more troops and the right is for it,” said Jim Arkedis, Director of the National Security Project at the Progressive Policy Institute. “But that’s not the reality of the situation. There are reasons for progressives to take heart from much of the President’s new strategy, as well as reasons to tread carefully. We want to make sure all those voices are heard.”

WHO:
Gen. Paul Eaton (Ret.), Senior Adviser, National Security Network
Rachel Kleinfeld, CEO, Truman National Security Project
Brian Katulis, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress
Jim Arkedis, Director of the National Security Project, Progressive Policy Institute
Andy Johnson, Director, Third Way National Security Program
Lorelei Kelly, Director, New Strategic Security Initiative
Frankie Sturm, Communications Director, Truman National Security Project (Moderator)

WHAT: 
Conference call to discuss President Obama’s Afghanistan speech and the future of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.

WHEN:
 Wednesday, December 2 at 10 a.m.

CALL INFO: 
Dial In: 712-775-7000 
Access Code: 254870#

# # #

For more information on conference call or to speak with one of the panelist, please call (202) 525-3931 or email schlapecka@ppionline.org.

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At the White House, Clean Tech Gets a Push

Thursday, October 29th, 2009
Mike Signer


Mike Signer is a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute.

by Mike Signer

A room full of clean tech entrepreneurs likely would not have been found in the Bush White House. But on Wednesday, October 28, that’s just what you would have seen in a brand-new auditorium (so new that there was no sign for the entrance, and it felt sort of like walking into a warehouse) on the ground floor of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. On the heels of its announcement of a $3.4 billion investment in building a smart grid — leveraged to achieve $4.7 billion in private investments, totaling over $8 billion — the Obama administration hosted an “Energy and Climate Stakeholders Meeting.” The presenters included White House Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, and White House Climate Change Policy Director Carol Browner.

The meeting included an extraordinary, hour-long give-and-take with Chu, who admitted that he would rather be riding herd on DOE bureaucrats to try and get more money for programs to spur clean tech when “they have me doing meetings like this.” But it was said with a smile. He also told stories about crawling around in his attics — first in California, when he was a professor, and now in Chevy Chase — to find the weak spots in his insulation. The lesson? We need far stricter standards in retrofitting homes.

The level of enthusiasm among these administration A-listers was palpable. “We’re off and running!” Jarrett announced. Describing the attitude in Congress and the potential passage of carbon reduction legislation in the Senate, Browner said, “I’ve been in and out of D.C. for twenty years, and there’s sort of that tipping point that happens, where everyone who talks starts saying not ‘if’ but ‘when.’”

In describing $151 million in new grants at DOE’s elite ARPA-E unit for transformative energy research, Chu said, “We’re going to try and hit home runs, not just base hits,” citing, with geeky but endearing enthusiasm, a new program for all liquid metal batteries that can provide large-scale energy storage at 1/20th of the prior cost.

The room was rapt — which is perhaps what you’d expect from a hundred clean tech folks crowded into a spanking-new auditorium with a spanking-new administration. Change, indeed!

This item is cross-posted at The Huffington Post.

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New Afghanistan Strategy in the Offing

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
Jim Arkedis


Jim Arkedis is the director of PPI's National Security Project.

by Jim Arkedis

It looks like the White House is circling in on a new strategy in Afghanistan that focuses on protecting major population centers like Kabul, Kandahar, Mazar-i-Sharif, Kunduz, Herat, Jalalabad, and a few other large villages.

If endorsed, it would adopt the major elements of General McChrystal’s proposed counterinsurgency strategy, albeit on a more limited scale that perhaps acknowledges that 40,000 additional troops aren’t enough to effectively pacify the entire country. Or, as the New York Times put it:

At the heart of this strategy is the conclusion that the United States cannot completely eradicate the insurgency in a nation where the Taliban is an indigenous force — nor does it need to in order to protect American national security. Instead, the focus would be on preventing Al Qaeda from returning in force while containing and weakening the Taliban long enough to build Afghan security forces that would eventually take over the mission.

This strategy would certainly prevent the Taliban from regaining control of the country, thereby denying al Qaeda the petri dish it needs to reconstitute an ability to attack the U.S.

Furthermore, this is a realistic approach about what we can achieve, even with increased — but finite — resources. It may simply not be a sensible use of resources to deploy tens of thousands of American forces to Helmand, a massive southern province that has 20 percent of the land, but only three percent of the population.

However, the fundamental question is whether this strategy effectively cedes control over large swaths of the country to the Taliban where al Qaeda elements could re-enter and rebuild its abilities. One senior administration addressed that point, saying, “We are not talking about surrendering the rest of the country to the Taliban.”

But under this scenario in Helmand, field commanders would compensate for the lack of a full-time troop presence by keeping pressure on insurgents with drone strikes, aided by intelligence from local populations about pockets of Taliban. But by ceding control to the Taliban, we could be alienating the local population — the eyes and ears necessary to target the drones.

And finally, a potential side effect of protecting select urban areas is that as the only stable regions, they might be flooded by rural villagers that don’t want to live under the Taliban. Would this increase the burden on troops to the point that their presence has diminishing returns as the cities swell with refugees?

Consider me cautiously optimistic, but nervous.

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